LEARN THE ISSUES
"Advocating Economic & Personal Change" |
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African-Americans African-Americans came to America in the most disadvantaged position possible--that of slaves. Thus, it's not surprising that this group of Americans has found it difficult to move ahead. Progress, however, does not ultimately lie in objectives such as black nationalism or black-owned business. Regarding the latter, note that a male Af-Am business owner, or for that matter female Af-Am business owner can exploit an Af-Am worker, just as a Caucasian business owner can. In fact, given that capitalism, generally, and success in business, specifically, is based and built on exploitation, it's a virtual certainty that such exploitation must and will occur regardless of the ethnicity of the exploiter and exploited. The answer to the oppression of all workers is the elimination of exploitation, which is to say the elimination of the system of exploitation, which is capitalism. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. realized as much near the end of his life, which is why he began focusing on economic issues, and calling for what he referred to as a "...modified form of socialism."As you may know, near the end of his life Dr. King started focusing on economic issues. He began to realize that the fight for civil rights, as important as it was, would never bring true and full equality because economic injustice was so much larger a social force and social imbalance. This is why, on the fateful day that he was murdered, he was in Memphis, Tennessee, in support of a strike by sanitation workers. Indeed, the colossal power of economic slavery under capitalism at once dwarfs and subsumes every other kind of injustice, racial, gender, and otherwise. The reality is that capitalism allows, and encourages, a black man to exploit a black man, just as a white man might exploit a black man. It allows a woman to exploit another woman, just as a man might exploit a woman, and so on. The obvious answer, which Dr. King was beginning to see, is to completely eradicate the entire system of exploitation. Indeed, in 1965 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said: "If we are going to achieve a real equality, the U.S. will have to adopt a modified form of Socialism." Serious consideration, exploration, and advocacy of this adoption is what BOMA is all about. Please see my page of quotations for other remarks by Dr. King that you may find quite surprising, and that deviate from our stereotype of this great historical leader. Nutrition I frequently note with chagrin the targeted marketing that McDonald's Restaurant does toward African-Americans, given just how unhealthy that food is. For example, a Big Mac and Quarter-Pounder-with-Cheese each contain 1.5 grams of trans fat, which is a particularly nasty artificial industrial "fat" that not only increases "bad" cholesterol, but actually also decreases "good" cholesterol. Trans fat is an especially nasty food "ingredient" used explicitly to enhance the profit margin of the company owners (i.e. ruling class), this way:
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