bigboi
I have stated over and over that I fully agree with you that Cosby could have said it differently, at a different place, to a different group , he could have worded it differently etc but that in noway changes the bottom line issue and that is there are issues in the black community that black folks have to address themselves-
Yes it maybe a problem that other groups too may need to address as well, but we keep coming to the same bottom line, black folks have to be responsible for certain things within their own community
It is all about choices and too many black folks are making choices that in the long and short run don?t benefit them and they CAN?T BLAME Anyone except themselves
I thought this article highlights my point very will that black folks have the wrong priorities, esp in terms of what will benefit them in some long term fashion and not just for the moment
I got this article out of the USA Today paper and there is just no way to excuse this behavoior discussed in this article by blaming Whitey or Society- there comes a time when one must make a choice and as black too many of us make bad choices and laugh about it-
USA TODAY ARTICLE ON BLACK SPENDING....
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>Tough choices for tough times (USA Today) >
>By Yolanda Young
>These are tough economic times, especially for African-Americans, for whom
>the unemployment rate is more than 10%. Alarmingly, rather than
>belt-tightening, the response has been to spend more. In many poor
>neighborhoods, one is likely to notice satelli te dishes and expensive new
>cars.
According to Target Market, a company that tracks black consumer
>spending, blacks spend a significant amount of their income on depreciable
>products. In 2002, the year the economy nose-dived, we spent $22.9 billion
>on c lothes, $3.2 billion on electronics and $11.6 billion on furniture to
>put into homes that, in many cases, were rented.
Among our favorite
>purchases are cars and liquor. Blacks makeup only 12% of the U.S.
>population, yet account for 30% of the country's Scotch consumption.
>Detroit, which is 80% black, is the world's No. 1 market for Cognac. So
>impressed was Lincoln with the $46.7 billion that blacks spent on cars that
>the automaker commissioned Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, the entertainment and
>fashion mogul , to design a limited-edition Navigator replete with six
>plasma screens, three DVD players and a Sony PlayStation 2.
>The only area where blacks seem to be cutting back on spending is books;
>total purchases have gone from a high of $356 million in 2000 to $303
>million in 2002. This shortsighted behavior, motivated by a desire for
>instant gratification and social accep tance, comes at the expense of our
>future.
The National Urban League's "State of Black America 2004" report
>found that fewer than 50% of black families owned their homes compared with
>more than 70% of whites.
>According to published reports, the Ariel
>Mutual Funds/Charles Schwab 2003 Black Investor Survey found that when
>comparing households where blacks and whites had roughly the same household
>incomes, whites saved nearly 20% more each month for retirement, and 30% of
>African-Americans earning $100, 000 a year had less than $5,000 in
>retirement savings
. While 79% of whites invest in the stock market, only
>61% of African-Americans do. Certainly, higher rates of unemployment,
>income disparity and credit discrimination are financial impediments to th e
>economic vitality of blacks, but so are our consumer tastes.
By finding the
>courage to change our spending habits, we might be surprised at how far the
>$631 billion we now earn might take us. Yolanda Young's next book is SPADE:
>A Critical Look at Black America.
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>We all send thousands of jokes through e-mail without a second thought, but
>when it comes to sending messages regarding life choices, people think twice
>about sharing.
The crude, vulgar, and sometimes the obscene pass freely
>through cyberspace, but publ ic discussion of decency is too often
>suppressed in school and the workplace.
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>The race is not given to the swift but to the one who endures it
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