Here is what I don’t understand. President Obama is being trashed in the media and around the country for the high unemployment rate, but the black community doesn’t seem to be concerned or outraged at our numbers. According to the Pew Research Institute, African American unemployment has consistently been twice that of whites for the past SIX DECADES.

Let me repeat that in case you missed it. Since the dawning of the Civil Rights Era, which was suppose to bring prosperity and equal opportunity to the black community, the black unemployment rate has CONSISTENTLY been TWICE that of whites for the past SIX DECADES. Hopefully, that made you sit up straight in your chairs because the country is outraged over a 7% unemployment rate and if that is dangerous, then what the hell is 14% doing to us?

And if you have any part of sense, then you realize the actual unemployment rate of the black community MUCH HIGHER than that. Some estimates have put the actual unemployment between 20% and 30%, with that number even increasing more for black men.

THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!

From Pew Research Institute: The black-white unemployment gap appears to have emerged in the 1940s, according to a 1999 analysis of Census data. Although labor economists, sociologists and other researchers have offered many explanations for the persistent 2-to-1 gap — from the differing industrial distribution of black and white workers to a “skills gap” between them — there’s no consensus on causes. One 2011 working paper, after reviewing existing research on wage and unemployment differentials among blacks and whites, concluded that “none of the existing models of race discrimination in the labor market explains the major empirical regularities.

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One common explanation, as William A. Darity Jr. of Duke University told Salon in 2011, is that blacks are “the last to be hired in a good economy, and when there’s a downturn, they’re the first to be released.” A 2010 article testing that “last hired, first fired” hypothesis against panel data from the Current Population Survey (from which the unemployment rate is derived) found considerable support for the “first fired” part but not for the “last hired”

Source: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/08/21/through-good-times-and-bad-black-unemployment-is-consistently-double-that-of-whites/

1954 was the first year the Department of Labor and Statistics began keeping the unemployment rate. Consistently, as we have found out here today, we have been in bad shape, but what are we doing about it?

What are we going to do about it?

Sure, the white world might be split on why the black unemployment rate is so high, but we are not. We don’t own the businesses in our community and, therefore, are not working in the businesses in our community. We allow and financially support every other person who wonders into our communities that build a business, but black folks. Carter G. Woodson has said this since 1929 that it was and is a problem, but we don’t listen and learn apparently.

The second issue have driven the entrepreneurial bug out of our children by conditioning them to rush to college and get a “good job”. Well, the job market has changed and “good jobs” are a relic of an era gone.

Now is the time to be innovative, risk taking and entrepreneurial moving forward, but we are not prepared for this life. We are busy looking for “good jobs” that no longer exist.

Third, what happen to our innovation and creative genes? I know they are not gone forever. We are the descendants of a people who have given the world just about everything we enjoy today, yet we are not flocking to the fields of math, science and technology where all the future growth, job opportunity and business enterprises are in the future. These will create the jobs and opportunities our communities are in desperate need.

In short, we must continue to work together and strengthen our community economics. It is imperative we support our entrepreneurs and give our young people the notion that they can open their own business and be successful, hiring the black community to work for them. Finally, technology, science and math must be at the heart of our educational future. Instilling in young people the creative and innovative spirit of the ancestor’s blood that flows through their brains.

Notice, none of my solutions involve begging the white man or the Government to help us out of this situation. This Government put us in this situation and seems to have no interest in us getting out, therefore, we must do for self. Period.

What are your thoughts on lowing the Black unemployment rate?