Whats In Your Wallet?

Often on my daily commute lively conversations occur from sports (not often about the court jester athletes on you TV set) to economics.  Since the mid-term elections are closing in on us this was the topic on Friday.  Joining our circle were a few Obamaholics and the recent voter types that never thought about politics until Barack Obama became the headliner in the last national election.  

Of course, the main point many were making was the importance of getting out to vote in this election since the Democrats could lose the House and the Senate, the Tea Party seemingly had a strong influence on the previous primary elections and appear not only to be pushing towards a Republican resurgence but, far right almost fanatical right Republican surge.  I'm sure you can ascertain the majority of the voices on the commuter train were Democrat.  Not all of us claim such, but most do.  The call by president Obama is certainly being repeated by my Democrat train compadres. But, the voice of one of the recent voter types, who finally paid attention to politics, spoke up and posed a question as to why she should be interested on the upcoming vote. 

Her concern centered around healthcare. Or more precisely the affects of the Obama Healthcare reform bill that passed.  On her job they were notified that their healthcare premiums would be increasing.  She would go from paying approximately ninety dollars per paycheck to around 145 dollars every two weeks.   She expressed her concern since this would cut deeper into her pay and leave her less to work with. She is a divorced mother of three receiving virtually no support from her ex-husband.  "When the Republicans are in office I get hurt, the Democrats are in office and here again I get hurt.  So, why should I run to the polls to vote for either since they both hurt me?"  She voted for the current president for change she said, but this is not the change she envisioned.  How do we help this sister to see her way to vote in November when what she sees in her wallet will be a lot less?

Eddie Griffin Spitting Knowledge

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Little know This History Fact: Black Americans Were Silver People Too

Thanks to Ana of Afro-PanaVisions , we learned ofthe Silver People Chronicle: The Back Punch Revisited - “We can end the silence.” This vital information is a post concerning the recent apology by the Obama administration to the Guatemalan people for another dastardly deed of covertly injecting Guatemalans with syphilis and gonherea then encouraging them to have sex for their experimental purposes.  The post enlightened us to the plight of the  Silver People/Silvermen and about how U.S. officials forced retiring black workers on the Panama canal to allow them to draw spinal fluids later to be sold in Europe to remedy white male impotency. If they did not submit, somehow their retirement papers may become lost or “slow” tracking to processing.

.Ana’s comment triggered a memory concerning the building of the Panama canal in which I once heard Black Americans were part of the workforce. After Teddy Roosevelt essentially stripped Panama from Columbia in order to finish the canal project that the French began and gave up.  The U.S. dove in headlong to finish the canal, for no doubt, a military advantage in the western hemisphere. American culture of that time (and this time as well) compelled them to put white workers in charge over their Black workers that would essentially kill an equivalent of 500 per mile to complete the project.  From 1904 - 1914 the U.S. began recruiting workers from the Caribbean, mainly from Barbados but not to the exclusion of Guadalupe and Martinique. And, never taught to us, from the United States, namely the from the south.

Jamaica however, refused recruiting on their island and imposed a one pound sterling tax on anyone who took the opportunity to work on the canal.  Only highly skilled Jamaican tradesmen could afford the tax  and made the trip to Panama. Secretly hidden in the annals of his-story were the presence of Black Americans that made up part of the canal workforce. Like the Jamaicans, Black Americans part of the skilled workforce on the canal taking jobs as yard masters, hostlers, boat pilots, machinists, carpenters, wiremen, division engineers and postal clerks. The U.S. being true to themselves implemented their Central American form of Jim Crow.

Black Americans, by way of their citizenship, were treated a little better on a certain level ,than other Black people working on the canal. Yet, by 1909 the canal authorities aka U.S. authorities blocked Black workers from any nation, including the U.S., from taking the afore mentioned jobs and implemented the Gold and Silver Roll  The Gold Roll was exclusive to whites in which they were paid in gold and the Silver Roll was payroll for the Black workers, of course as it is today gold holds more value than silver.  Any Blacks holding gold contracts would soon be dismantled.  This was a veiled attempt to hide their new Jim Crow law, but forced all Blacks onto the Silver Roll by way of massive demotions. It’s comprehensible as to why the whites in charge (though it’s said some whites protested the demotions) would try to hide their usual wicked discrimination practice when living conditions for Black workers were separate and unequal. Thus we have the Silver People. Tucked neatly within the Silver People or Silvermen are Black Americans unknown to most of us.

The Population Hoax: Hispanics Are Now The Largest Minority

All too many of us cling onto statistics given to us by our enemy or at least they don't have the best interest of Black people at hand.  When the 2010 Census was complete, actually prior to the census ever being taken we were bombarded with the talk of Black people being displaced as the largest minority in the United States. Minorty, thats how they speak of us and of course in turn we call ourselves a minority.  It seems many of us cannot shake the old master loving slave mentality that responds to the master's sneeze with the quip "massa we's got a cold?" Such is the constant repetative song many Blacks sing based on the master's statistics concering our people.  Seventy percent unwed mothers, seventy five percent of Black men in jail, prison or on probation or parole, fify five percent high school drop out rate... You get the picture.  Unfortunately, we have few sources to possibly counteract any of these stats but we do have our minds and critical thinking.  But, for the purposes of this post we will use their numbers.

First let's take a quick look at the word minority and think on it a bit.  Minority-being or relating to the smaller in number of two parts.  A group of people differing racially or politically from a larger group of which it is part.  Now, with this in mind and using their numbers how does it make sense that the female population in the U.S. is 155 million and males is 151 million.  And, yet females, white females, are considered a minority.  Tricknowlegy.  As of 2009 going into 2010 reports began to surface that Hispanics (their word not mine) are now the largest minority in the country with 48.4 million now residing in the U.S., displacing Blacks as the largest minority.

Knowing that the so called Hispanic or Latino population is comprised of Black people I wanted to know how this really played out.  I fully understand that many of the Latin American countries, with Mexico being the greatest offender, sought to wipe out Black people from their histories, by way of a process of mentally training the population to think of themselves primarily as citizens of their country then Black secondarily.  And of course the whole caste/colour prejudice as well, just look at the Dominican Republic for instance. 

Now, the U.S. Census Bureau is stating that Hispanics (their word not mines) comprise 15.8 percent of the U.S. population and Blacks in America are now 12.4 percent, down from 14.8.  The lowered amount is due in part to many people that used to call themselves Black due to the one drop rule have moved over into filling out the census form as white, and the number is also affected by many Blacks accepting their indigenous roots and filling out the form as Native American or Indigenous.  This does not necessarily mean there are really less Black people in the U.S.  So, here's the trick.  15.8 percent of the U.S. population is Hispanic (their word not mine) and 12.4 percent Black.  Of the 15.8 percent Latino, 3.8 claim Black or Afro Latino, this lessens the so called Hispanics to 12.0 percent, right?  This in turn increases the Black population to 16.2 percent, right?  Tell me how the Hispanic (their word not mine) is now the largest minority (their word not mine)?  So, why would we agree to their statistic?