Newspapers / The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, … / July 24, 1986, edition 1 / Page 2
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Survival Is Still Black Priority “Wealth is power and power equals freedom in all its forms." These were the words of journalist Tony Brown as he addressed the N.C. Black Leadership Caucus conference in Charlotte last week end. Speaking at Johnson C. Smith Univer sity. Brown added that blacks spend less than seven percent of their money with black-owned businesses. _ The seven percent Mr. Brown mentioned is. of some $200 billion other speakers at the conference stated that American blacks spend each year. A theme echoed through out the three-day session, was that to achieve economic and political indepen dence flacks must spend more of their money with black-owned businesses. Brown’s remarks were a part off his “Buy Freedom’’ self-help program begun in October of 1985, The program calls upon black Americans to spend half of their money with black-owned businesses and the other half with businesses that have equal ■ opportunity hiring and promotional policies, y . The U.S. Investment Company, another economic self-help plan, was also presented at the meeting by its leaders, . Parren Mitchell, a Democrat and U.S. Congress man for Maryland, and U.S. House Dele ft® Walter Faun troy, (D-DC). The com ; pany sells shares for the minimum sum of *$12 per share. The money reportedly will be used as a venture capital fund to help start new Mack-owned businesses, the expansion of existing black businesses, and some foreign Investments in businesses to aid blacks primarily in Southern Africa. The investment company was referred to as part of the Black LeadersMp Family Plan as adopted last March by the Black Leadership' Roundtable and the Black Leadership Forum. Both groups are report edly composed of leaders of the nation’s largest civil rights organizations. There was a concensus at the Caucus conference, its 10th anniversary conven tion, that these kinds of economic self help ideas are needed if Macks are to achieve some measure of economic and , apolitical power in America. vs *vmie we can agree in principle with the Intent of these self-help programs, there are some valid questions in terms of self-help ifor whom? As it is with .some government and private programs designed to help different groups of peopled the people at the > ' bottom end of the economic and political ladder too often are left oat, If not by 'design, then simply by the failure of the trickle-down theory; that Is, the benefits don’t reach the very poor at the bottom. Less Assets For example, a recently released first ever assessment of wealth in America by the Census Bureau, reports that the typical black family has less than one-tenth the : assets of a white family. The study found that black households had a median net worth of only $3,397 in.late 1964, compared to $39,135 for the typical white family. In fact, thd study concluded that nearly THE CHARLOTTE POST North Carolina's Fastest Growing Weekly . / . 704 376-0496 "The People’s Newspaper" 107 Years Of Continuous Service Bill Johnson Pub. EmerituT Gerald O. Johnson Publisher Bernard Reeves , Gen. Mar. Loretta Manago ; Mag. Editor Fran Farrer-Bradley Adv. Mgr. Paaaette Gaither Office Mgr. ^ Published Every Thursday by ,. 'J The Charlotte Post Publishing Company. Inc. Main Of nee: 1531S. Camden Rond f Charlotte, N.C. 28303 --- - ■ Second Class Postage { Paid at Charlotte , • Member. National Newspaper Publishert' Association North Carolina Black Publishers Association M.....i National Advertising Representative: Amalgamated Publishers, Inc. ----— ■■ — —t One Years'* . Subscription Rate One Year -»l7.7t Payable In Advance USWNo.MMO* POSTMASTER IK 4 ChM|i of iffrm tot Charlotte Foot 1*31 8. Camden Rd. . ■ arlotte. N.C. am \ one-third of all black families, 30.5 per cent, reported owning no assets or having a negative net worth. Futhermore, over half of all black famines, 54 percent, had assets of less than $5,000. By comparison, 11 percent of all white families bad no assets or a negative net worth, and 2$ percent owned less than $5,000 in assets. 1 .• The Census study states, too, that equity in a home accounted for approximately 40 percent of the net worth of American families, 17 percent was in savings account deposits and seven percent in mutual funds and corporate stock. Thus, It appears that the prosperity that President Reagan has talked about in America has not trickled down to most black families, the nation’s farmers, inner-city dwellers black, white, and Hispanic-the latter of which has median net worth assets about 59 percent above that of blacks. With this depressing state of black America-household median net worth of only $3,397, 30.5 percent with no assets or a negative net worth, and 54 percent of black households having assets of less than $5,900 - we are talking in practical terms, about only 15.5 percent of Mack households that can presumably afford to make even a minimum long term investment in the U.S. Investment Company’s economic self-help program. Fundamental Facte - .V '.'r- hhj’&f'y-fi.'. *%*.-.>% ■•-., ■ On Tony Brown’s “Buy Freedom’’ buy black theme, we have to recognize that fundamental facts account largely for blacks spending only seven percent of this reported $200 billion yearly. First, black-owned businesses are a long way from having in their stock the vast majority of the consumer products that black house holds need or want. For example, the City of Charlotte has two or three black-owned automobile dealerships, more than most cities even twice the size of Charlotte have, yet it i« impractical to assume or expect blacks to purchase a model or auto brand not of their choice simply to support a ' black-owned business. Likewise, the majority of white auto buyers would buy from or not buy from a black-owned auto dealer based on his auto preference and* could care less about who owns the' deale# ■ ship. On the other hand, again using Charlotte as an example, small Mack-owned con venient grocery stores in predominantly black neighborhoods get about M percent of their business from Mack consumers. Ypt in the overall grocery sales, the larger super markets which attract more black con sumers to its larger inventory stores get a bigger share of the black buyers’ dollars. ^.-Therefore, those who release data indicat ing where and how Mack consumers spend their dollars need to go beyond the broad Statistical data sheet to see what Is really occurring and thus will realize that Macks as a group, still have to use most of their resources for survival, not investment. Miller Says: Excellent 1 ow’s JobSecurity By Sherman N. Miller ‘ Special To The Post ^ * World market forces have reshaped America's steel, textile, shoe, and automobile industries and they are cur rently altering our energy and computer Industries. Since America’s, business leaders are being forced to direct the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Jobs, Busy must find ways to encourage non-performers to leave and to motivate the remaining workforce to the pursuit of excellence in a low promo tion potential environment. At first glance, manage ment Is trapped in a quandary. Yet segmenting employees on the basis of , their performance level and understanding these groups’ value system can offer some routes to achieving these counterpoised objectives. Charles M. Futrell and A. Parasuraman offer some Insight on the values of high and low performers In Uielr article. "The Relationship of Satisfaction and Perfor mance to Salesforce Turn over.” which was published In the fall of 1M4 issue of the Journal of Marketing. "Most companies invest funds to Sherman reduce turnover through Improving working environ- h ments, work satisfaction, etc. According to our results, such measures would have significantly less Influence on high performance than on the low performers.” These chaps also argue that “our results also Indi cate that It may be possible to differentially Impact the turnover of high and low performers by emphasising certain facts of salespeople’s satisfaction.” Futrell and Parasuraman see reducing overall per sonnel turnover as an insig nificant objective. They JHwl Jay w. Lorsch and Harao Takagl in their article, “Keeping Managers Off the Shelf,” in the July-August. Ik* issue of the Harvard Business Review see main stream assignments early In one’s career as the undergird of later life commitment to the company. They offer two factors that must be addressed if American com panies hope to keep their promotionally peaked managers produetive-“First is candor about a person’s " career prospects,” they write. “Hie second impor tant factor is challenging job assignments.” Lorsch and Takagt believe that “candor help* people SrtfSTJWSt advance further.’* These chaps also offer ways that peaked employees’ talents may be used In a very productive manner. A few of these Ideas are: -Continue to provide plateaued managers mean ingful assignments that allow them to use their unique skills; ' - Jy -Have senior executives recognise and reward the professional contributions of plateaued managers; -Clive managers as much autonomy as possible to do their Jobs, beyond their Jobs. . I believe that many Ameri cans will have to recognise that their careers have plateaued but their con tinued contributions will become a necessity for their company to survive In our new world market. In the long run, I also thln|; minority group people will benefit from the current corporate streamlining be cause companies are being forced to give all their employees meaningful jobs. In retrospect I see an excellent job performance as tomorrow’s job security no matter where one happens to be on the upward mobility ladder. contend that, “A sales man ager should implement a strategy designed to reduce turnover among high performers and dismiss the poor performers.” Since many companies are elim inating operations, these chaps’ comments highlight the fact that companies most find ways to keep high performers, who have keen passed over for higher pro motions, from despairing and falling into the non performers’ ranks. BLACKS RETICENCE. TO SEIZE THE INITIATIVE TO ORGANIZE THEIR COMMUNITIES0 SAID DOUGLAS G. GLASGOW, DEAN OF HOWARD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK ISA MAJOR FACTOR AN IMPORTANT FACTOR contributing * UNDEVELOPED STAT POLITIC** BUSINESS DOCTORS LAWYERS ^ i ARTISTS TEACHERS MINISTERS * COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION SOCIAL HORNERS FRATERNAL CROUPS FINANCE COMPUTER SCIENCE INSTITUTION ADMINISTRATION ENGINEERING PLANNING j ARCHITECTURE A BLACK PRESS > mmr n r#; Llack Politic] By Sabrina Johnson Special To The Post The black media and black politicians; a long standing relationship where there is little respect for the media by the politicians. Black politicians are an unusual animal. They bask in the glory of political success and reap its immense benefits. However, there is a grave tendency to cover up or over* look the true source of their glory. a question most politicians and leaders find difficult to answer is “Where did you get your first political sup port?” Most will mumble and finable their wily tji^ough^ then answer try ing to conceal the beginning, middle and ending source of support. A few brave, proud souls will answer “the Mack media and my church.” in the black community the church has long beeb'. viewed as the power seat of the Infrastructure within the society. Since the Recon struction, the church had educated, cultivated, and: supported its members and surrounding communities. Early black leaders realized that to grow in strength, the. -strength must be gotten , .SabrinifT within the realms of the church. this infrastructure. Early , newspapers and chronicles found themselves reporting on and covering church news. Foremost because church news was community news in a large sense. Leaders and politicians took advantage of this - captive audience to voice their opinions and gain support. Thoughts were* since the newspaper or chronicle reached a target market, why not-cash in on saturat ing that market? Thus there is power in numbers. yt -Sr \ v. ' •• As time passed, widi the expansion of the media to radio and television, more and more looked to the black media as their launching pad. Just about every Mack leader or politician can attribute a major part of his or her success to the black media. Bringing this history lesson to relevance, look at the local black and white leaders and politicians. Nearly each (me sought the support and coverage of the black media to give their "campaigns” the strong push needed to "win.” Demo crats and Republicans alike understand the power of the J>ress particularly the blacks-' press. Why? Because the black vote is the key in an election or support. The black vote or support is the shoulder upon which everyone stands, its move ment affects everyone, in the words of Rev. Jesse Jackson, “When the black vote moves, ail move.” How does one reach the Mack vote? Through the • Mack media. Why? Because Macks listen to and read more Mack media sources than other sources. How? Blacks are more likely to read and listen to what is produced by blacks and believe it than other media sources. The black vote is extemely important and the Mack media is the best vehicle for reaching such a market. Can this be proven? Certainly. Local, state, re gional, and national leaders and politicians (Mack and white) have actively in the past and are in the present working through this avenue to secure that segment of the society support. Hie Rev. Jesse Jackson made the nation and world take note of the tremendous power the Mack vote holds. Hie national Rainbow Coali tion, Inc. started its cam paign within the framework of the Mack media. Without the Influence of the black media, where would black leaders and politicians be today? Very difficult to find. Organizations hold confer ences with seminar topics like political empowerment - unity means power, plans for progressive change and economic empowerment. It fa wonderful to talk about the topics, but If the messages do not reach the general popu latlons, what good fa done? Talking and not doing do not *<W «p! A 30-second Inter view on the 11 o'clock news on the success of the y«iffani»#ifpai i libfiily. the kind of impact needed to *•« Heaps Ob Page 3A
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July 24, 1986, edition 1
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