Why Blacks Support BIG GOVERNMENT

PRESIDENT'S CORNER

By Norris McDonald

African Americans support BIG GOVERNMENT because the private sector is not open to them.  Blacks, for the most part, are not owners of American resources and infrastructure.  In an age when TOO BIG TO FAIL is the order of the day and huge capital costs restrict entry, Blacks do not own or control Exxon Mobils or Wall Street firms.  Of course there are always the one or two examples of ownership: Michael Jordan and the Charlotte Bobcats; Oprah and HARPO. But the point is that corporate America, for the most part, remains segregated at the ownership level.  My particular focus is on the fact that Blacks do not own any of the natural resources and energy infrastructure in the United States.

So why don't Blacks open many more small businesses, which create the most jobs? I guess I could make excuses about competing with Asian-owned establishments, but that is a cop out. Blacks should open more small businesses, particularly in Black neighborhoods. Yet, due to lack of credit access and a proclivity for a more predictable employment venue, many Blacks have chosen a 9 to 5. Having only been free to operate in the marketplace from about 1965, Blacks are still trying to catch up from hundreds of years of involuntarily servitude and Jim Crow. A lack of intragroup organizing, particularly among the economically prominent Black 1%, is probably the strongest factor for why a dynamic economy among African Americans has not developed.  This is also a major factor in Blacks not being involved in international trade.

Blacks are registered as Democrats because the GOP is viewed as being hostile to their aspirations. This is manifested by the strong alliance between the GOP and corporate America that is perceived as keeping Blacks at arms length when it comes to spreading the resources. The Democratic Party nominated and elected a Black president while the GOP dumped Michael Steele after he won back the House of Representatives. Not a good signal.

Yet the election of a Black president who cannot do anything overtly to help Blacks should be a wake up call to the Black community. Politics has its limits. And the Congressional Black Caucus, as the real political representative of the Black community, should be leading on issues that can help the Black community gain ownership stakes in America. If the CBC had the discipline of the Tea Party, the African American community would get its fair share. Blacks should focus like a laser beam on the marketplace. And when it comes to government subsidies, food stamps and home heating assistance cannot hold a candle to corporate welfare. Until the marketplace opens up to Blacks, it will be BIG GOVERNMENT that is the focus of this community.