Blacks and the new world economy

There are about 35 million Black Americans accounting for 12% of the total American population and 665 000 Black Canadians making up just 2.2% of the total Canadian population. That means the total black population in North America is only about 36 million, which is only about 4.5% of the worlds total black population.

Black America has annual spending power of US$723 billion. Young South Africans are spending over US$5 billion and growing annually.

With most of black wealth in Black Americas hands, you would expect them to be making an effort to gain a foot hold in black economies around the world. However, this is not the case. Most of the money that comes into Black Americans possession is not invest or save but spent. The problem is that Black Americans are overwhelmingly consumers, workers, and renters; not producers, stockholders or owners. The vast majority of them have neither pensions, investments, savings, land, nor businesses; all of which are the key ingredients for creating individual and collective wealth. A point made by Rick Adams in his article “Five Rules For Black Wealth.”

As the worlds economic power swifts from the west to the east we as black people will have a difficult time economically if we do not make drastic changes in the things we consider important. There was once a time when most black family’s primary interest was in making sure their kids had a good education. Now we seem more interested in material possessions and keeping up with the Jones.

We've blamed the white race for our problems over and over again without doing anything for ourselves. Yes, we have not been cheated fairly over the years, but so have the Chinese and the Indians. China and India are two of the poorest countries in the world but they are the biggest economic treat to America and Europe. Where is our place going to be in this coming economic climate?

Again, we must look to our past to save our future. African Americans were once self sufficient with our own infrastructure, school system and financial system. Yes, some of us do have more wealth than we’ve had in the past. However, the level of wealth and power we now have when you look at it on a bigger scale is still nothing. We are now in a new century and we still own no major corporations, there are only 2 blacks on the Forbes rich list and a huge portion of our wealth is held by a few athletes and entertainers. While the majority of our people are barely keeping there head above water. Black people must truly do a soul searching before we loose whatever little gains we have made thus far.