american black

A 12 Year Old Nike Investor...

Via John Hope Bryant

...Doing a Banking on Our Future financial literacy event in Chicago and a volunteer HOPE Corps member from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago told me the most interesting story; a local African-American 12-year old boy that had completed a financial literacy course was talking amongst his friends about the best use of $75 they each had. His friends immediately said they would go out and buy a pair of Nike shoes, while this young man said he would prefer to purchase one share of Nike stock! And with that the young man then said something truly transformational...

He said, "..next week you two are going to buy a pair of Nike shows, and the funny thing is, when you do that you will be making me money (as an owner of one share of Nike stock!)."  Now is that money smart, or what?

And speaking of Nike. keep voting for Ian's sneaker.

Robert Johnson's Legacy (or My Dad Started BET But All I Got Is This CBS T-Shirt)

Robert Johnson deserves credit for a lot of things. You have to respect the man for creating a commercially viable cable channel for Black folks.

In a world where very few Blacks have "fuck you money", it's nice to see Mr. Johnson's estate.

But I'll be honest. I am not a big BET fan. And the fact that the founder and CEO of Black Entertainment Television, is finally stepping down is not a bad thing in my book. (Of Course, what no one is saying, is that he has to step down. When he sold the company he was told he could stay for at least 5 years. Those 5 years are up.)

What is his legacy?

Slate said the following in 2000, after BET was sold to Viacom::

Black leaders and artists have repeatedly whacked Johnson for BETs dismal programming, but he is not interested in uplifting the race. If something wonderful appears on BET, fine, but no tears if it doesn't. Johnson shuttered the critically praised magazines Emerge and YSB because they were losing money. He started the "BET on Jazz" channel not because he wants to support the art form, but because he wants to profit from it. He launched a pay-per-view channel specializing in action movies and soft-core porn. BET was the only channel to accept hard-liquor ads and one of the few media companies that refused to adopt the voluntary TV ratings system. He has fought savagely against efforts to unionize his employees and has been raked for paying performers sub-union wages.

But Yemi Toure explains it best to me:

He should have taken a lesson from John H. Johnson, owner of Johnson Publishing   Co. (JPC), another Black-owned, privately held media company, which publishes Ebony and Jet magazines.   White firms have been salivating over JPC for decades, but John H. Johnson   has not sold out. Is it that JPC is too small to be bothered with? No. JPC   is larger than BET--it is the largest Black-owned private company in the   United States.

John H. Johnson has resisted offers to sell his company to Whites because   he has a greater vision and a stronger sense of the importance of Black ownership.   He also has more of a sense of legacy--he has trained his daughter, Linda   Johnson Rice, to run the business. She is president and chief operating officer   of the empire, set to take over when the old man dies. When Bob Johnson's   daughter, now in the 9th grade, gets older, can he tell her to prepare to   run his empire? No. But he can help her fill out a job application.

The End Of Civil Rights?

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is closing offices around the country.

The commission will shutter the Denver office and another in Kansas City, Kan., in October, laying off six people.

The move will force anyone with a federal civil rights complaint in those districts to seek help in the commission's Chicago office. The Denver office covers Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado, while the Kansas City office oversees complaints in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri.

Some say the office closings are a harbinger of the slow death of the civil rights agency, which, riven by partisan politics, long ago strayed from being the "conscience of the federal government," as President Dwight D. Eisenhower intended when he created it as part of the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

The commission has been plagued by political power struggles and by fighting among its Republican and Democratic members.

Cheap labor conservatives in Congress kept its budget at $9 million for most of the 12-year term of

liberal Chairwoman Mary Frances Berry, who left the commission in December. That is $3 million less than its budget during the Reagan administration. The new Staff director is Kenneth Marcus.

Graves Tells Black Business To Leave Mexico

Earl Graves, the 68-year-old founder of Black Enterprise magazine, says he's not a civil rights activist but a businessman.

In that role, he's urging African-Americans to take their vacation business out of Mexico in the wake of President Vicente Fox's comments that "not even" blacks want the U.S. jobs taken by Mexican immigrants.

"I don't think it was insensitive; it was racist," said Mr. Graves in an interview in Dallas, where he opened the 10th annual Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference.

WNBA gets first black female owner

Former television executive Sheila Johnson and first Black female billionaire, became the WNBA's first black female owner Tuesday when she joined a group that purchased the Washington Mystics.

Johnson will hold the titles of president and managing partner of the Mystics and will represent the team at the board of governors meetings.

Her former husband, Robert L. Johnson, who co-founded BET with Johnson, is the owner of the Charlotte Bobcats of the NBA. The two divorced in 2002.

“Obese-sized black lesbian” sues Apple

Everybody loves Apple. It has gotten to the point where one of my favorite bloggers has turned his site into another Apple worship blog. One of the advantages of being a contrarian is that when you end up being right you look like a genius. I have spent a lot of time complaining to music industry friends about Apple. What they are doing is not good for the music industry. Jobs is an egomaniac. And he doesn't like bloggers. Oh, and he hates lesbians...

Shaune Patterson worked as a human resources compensation consultant for Apple and alleges she was suspended for one month and then wrongfully fired, after she complained that her white counterparts, who were junior to her, were making higher salaries than she was.

Patterson alleges that the suspension came one day after she complained of racial discrimination.

Earlier this month, she also amended her original complaint to include claims of sexual orientation and genetic characteristic discrimination. Prior to her one-month suspension, Patterson alleges that one of Apple's managers wrote a memo describing her as a "rather obese-sized black lesbian".

Now I'm sure most Apple worshippers will laugh this off but I think they should take this lawsuit seriously. Why? Because Patterson's San Francisco-based lawyer, Waukeen McCoy was the lead plaintiffs' attorney in one of the largest US racial discrimination suits, Carroll v. Interstate Brands, which ended with a $133 million verdict.

Welcome to the New Age...Same As The Old Age

Wall Street has won. This is the age of greed and selfishness. As proof I offer you Lawrence Lessig's comments at a recent conference in South Africa on Copyrights.

I said that while I had no problem at all with people paying to listen to music, or novels, we had to be extremely sensitive to the way price might block the spread of knowledge. And that for academic and scientific work, the best model for producing and spreading knowledge might not be one that meters each use. Professors should be paid. But let that be their compensation, and let the knowledge they produce spread widely.

Yet there was a general view at the conference that this was wrong. That we hurt developing nations, for example, if we give them knowledge for free. They should have to pay for the truths we create. It weakens them, the argument went, if they can just take what we have discovered. Better to encourage their industry of science than to destroy it by simply spreading the truths that science here has created.

The rational of the majority at this conference baffles me. They have no problem passing out cell phones to African nations so foreign companies can profit but see no need for them to understand the technology they leaped-frogged over. It really pisses me off, but read some more of Lessig...

Black Man enters Search Engine Wars

BigClique.com is the newest major search engine to hit the World Wide Web, and it's hoping to make some waves.  www.BigClique.com offers something refreshingly different, it is the first major search engine developed and owned by a Black American. The search engine is available in 17 foreign languages.

I tried it out. The results came quickly, so I can't complain.  I'll still use Google but I'll definitely bookmark the site. You should, too. Plus,  Femi Olu, Founder and CEO of BigClique.com, looks like the kind of guy who would kick my ass if I didn't.

Contact:
BigClique.com
gRock Media Group
Femi Olu, Founder & CEO
410 Park Avenue, 15th Floor #460pmb
New York, NY 10022
Tel: 917.210.8387
Fax: 909.752.9710
http://www.bigclique.com

AB Celebrity Noise (Beyonce's Dad, Bobby Brown and P.Diddy edition)

Two members of singer Bobby Brown's entourage were hospitalized with knife wounds after an incident at a restaurant early Monday morning.

The stabbing happened around 1:30 a.m. at Justin's Restaurant and Bar in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood, Atlanta police detective D.L. Dixon said.

Justin's Restaurant and Bar is owned by rapper and producer Sean "P. Diddy" Combs.

Sanctuary Group’s Chief Executive Officer Merck Mercuriadis, but not Mathew Knowles himself,  released a statement denying any trouble at the label.

      “Contrary to recent reports, Beyonce has not made a change in management. Her father Mathew Knowles continues to be her manager and he continues to be employed and have our support as the President of Sanctuary Urban.”

Bad Boy prez, Sean Combs just closed on a $5 million deal to purchase Simmons’ recently-vacated downtown New York penthouse at 114 Liberty. His clothing company also is facing a sexual harassment lawsuit.
 

 

 

The AB Four (Live Aid and Drug-Dealer-Turned-Good Edition)

*With just $100 to her name and the simple dream of getting out of debt and bankruptcy, Lisa Price left her 9-5 job and founded her own cosmetics company entitled Carol’s Daughter, an all-natural line of bath and beauty products that would soon see profits of $2 million and make loyal customers out of Halle Berry, Jada Pinkett-Smith and David Sanborn, among others.

Remember "Live Aid"? Um...maybe it didn't work.

Question:  How confident are you that U.S. policies in Iraq will be successful?
May 2005
Confident:  25%
Not confident:  54%
Not sure:  20%

Mar. 2005
Confident:  30%
Not confident:  49%
Not sure:  21%

The rise of Hip Hop literature and the story of drug dealer turned publisher Vickie Stringer.