Sample of my 2021 letters to many pledging attention$ to Black Plight:
Good morning, Ben
Thank you for this short but informative piece on GS, JP Morgan, Bank of America and Citigroup’s paper-pledges to begin righting some systemic injustices they perpetuated against the Black communities in the United States.
Not only have I written letters to Governors Cuomo and Murphy concerning Black Representation within their soon-to-be bursting at the seams Recreational Marijuana Industries, I’m calling on senators and others to lobby for greater equity concerning the burgeoning Infrastructure Boom on the horizon with this country’s New Green Deal revealed during President Biden’s Build Back Better speech in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania a few weeks after your article – https://youtu.be/FugQNYtbyz0 – late March 2021.
The first batch of letters needed to be sent as I see the common Sleight of Hand trend of “sure we’re letting these poor slobs out after illegally incarcerating them with little to no New World Skills, with expunged records, no past employment for potential employers to rate their possibilities nor productivity, but all the best positions for national and global entrance into these TRILLION-DOLLAR THC industries will naturally go to the Harvard Business graduates and/or Wharton candidates.”
To me, it’s a bitter victory unless and until families can be reunited without fear and impunity; healed financially, free education, and access to CEO, CFO, stock/options holdings as well as support with starting Black Decentralized Banks (all DeFi platforms) which will be part of the Green New Deal before the next decade if not the next 18 months.
Ben, I’m pushing for more than simple sound bites or click bait that must be given to these above companies who, according to Mehrsa Baradaran’s “The Color of Money”, Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow” and NJ’s own Ta-Nehisi Coates’ piece in the Atlantic’s June 2014 piece on, ohhhh no, that BIG BAD Word, “reparations”.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
Mehrsa Baradaran’s well-researched analysis of the “New Jim Crowism” towards Black Banking since Lincoln’s monumental Emancipation Proclamation’s Freedmen’s Bank of the late 1860s is not surprising but appallingly reprehensible. Just as many have learned from historical ills and improved upon them, so to have the subsequent governmental and financial institutions improved upon worsening Black people’s conditions. Additionally, at the expense of raising the nation higher through these “Sleights of Hand” to subvert and reduce entire segments of this great American society similarly to the 13th and 14th Amendments (Plessy vs. Ferguson), which basically reversed all the positive that these two laws should’ve done with clever Sleights of Hand.
If other marginalized Irish, Chinese, and Italian groups came to be successful (The Bank of America was originally formed as the Bank of Italy when that group was discriminated against and therefore formed their own banks out of necessity), so why haven’t Black Banks thrived so?
I propose NOT calling it reparations or gifts from Big Business White Saviors, but attempting to right centuries-old ills. In repairing our society, strengthening our GDP, as you’ve mentioned in this piece ($16 Trillion LOST in GDP from just 2000 till now) and the https://youtu.be/KFdceil0GaY
“1.7 million new U.S. jobs and increase annual GDP by as much as $450 billion” this added to NY’s estimated potential of $3.5 Billion/year and 60,000 new jobs and $300,000,000 tax revenues just from its recent legalization of recreational marijuana.
Following up on:
A call to financial arms in flooding Redlined Black and poor communities with equitable mortgage loans, investment incentives and community (and governmental) engagement; more Baby Bonds, and other forms of returning power in wealth creation and transferred generational wealth can be restored to more poor Black communities.
Along these lines, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Prudential Financial, Citigroup, American Express, Wells Fargo and GE Capital must return control of stolen banks (Mechanics & Farmers, ShoreBank, Carver and others) that failed due to their complicity in the 2008 Subprime Mortgage Debacle and subsequent Global Markets Crash, and TRILLION$$$$ Bailout BACK to Black Ownership with top ratings intact and move forward towards rebuilding not only these impoverished communities, but the entire country.
If some have worries simply look to the successes of Black Wall Street https://youtu.be/IK1f94J6JdI
(Greenwood, Tulsa, OK) whose 100-year anniversary is in late May 2021 – early June 1. and these above banks Merchants anf Farmers in NC, and Jackie Robinson’s Bank – BEFORE gutted by white supremacy, more explicit pummelings.
Marginalized wealth for the few historically translates into greater Wealth Gaps. Once more of the American people have access to creating, building and TRANSFERRING that wealth, then and only then will the country truly thrive.
Additionally, and especially in these extremely volatility times, these transferences of land and financial institutions and other successes must be realized in Cryptocurrencies as fiat currencies are dying so no more Sleights of Hand giving piles of useless cash when the world is rapidly moving into the NextGen of this 21st century.
Reparations in the form of The Green New Deal programs such as President Biden’s Build Back Better (March 31, 2021 speech in Pennsylvania), are ways of retraining millions of displaced and ignored populations and rebuilding the country to be cleaner, greener and more global conscious than ever before.
These repairing of broken and unjust systems can also be made in retraining and rewarding formerly unjustly and disproportionately incarcerated Black and Brown people into the burgeoning THC, marijuana and CBD empires on the horizons. Forget the white collar Hedge Funders and companies mentioned above, bring those millions wrongly convicted into the board rooms, banks, R&D and Governmental agencies regulating and monitoring these globally viable industries into the folds.
Sure Goldman Sachs recently vowed million$$$ to 10 million Black women over the next 10 years, as have JP Morgan, Bank of America and Citigroup. Yet, aside from lip service, how are they being held accountable?
We must all constantly evaluate our own actions as well as acts, laws, proclamations and promises to be sure we/they are LIVING the words and not simply talking the talk.
So, Ben, again, thank you for this, and I look forward to greater transparency within their pledges and updates with verifiable data as I’m 100% positive, when done with utmost integrity and hope, these acts of love will only translate into a healthier, happier and wealthier nation.
Shawn L. Carson
Do Epic Shit 