"OR ELSE" -- BLUEPRINT FOR ENDING POVERTY

SHARED VIA FACEBOOK By H. Ben Williams, Ed.D.

AMWS, Oct. 14, 2015, Atlanta --  Youth Achievers USA Institute, a national 501c3 public charity, will invest in low income youth beneficiaries to support their economic inclusion.   During the October 10, 2015 A BLUEPRINT FOR ENDING POVERTY AND WANT has been published and made available to supporters of a MILLION MAN MOVEMENT.

The "JUSTICE OR ELSE" theme for the October 10, 2015 20th Anniversary of The Million Man has drawn initial support from local groups such as the Atlanta Local Organizing Committee.  The Reverend Samuel F. Mosteller published recommendations to identify specific "or else's" or issues proposed for collective action.

The recommendations and the “or else’s” listed below were developed out of the Issues Committee of the Atlanta Local Organizing Committee (LOC) for developing the support to the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March held on 10-10-15 on the national mall in Washington, D.C. The Issues Committee was chaired by Reverend Samuel Mosteller and 25 other community leaders.

“……OR ELSE”

Education

• Or else, we will pull our children out of public schools one day per week to give our children a tutorial of true history; who they are according to their ancestry and DNA (Dr. Henry Louis Gates); and help them chart their future.
• Location will be the local churches, synagogues, and mosques
• The tutorial will be a standardized packet of instruction released from a central authority.
• Or else, by legislation demand the veracity and truth of all textbooks used in education with particular focus on slavery, immigration and segregation policy.

Criminal Justice

• Or else, we will start a movement across the country exempting felons who cannot vote from paying any taxes (sales, income, property) Taxation without Representation
• Or else, we are going to exercise our right to a trial by jury for all people of color on every charge across the nation.
• Or else, we will assign people of color to monitor every courtroom every day that court is in session.
• Or else, we will recommend each defendant seek pro-bono representation.
• Or else, we will work to codify the separation of the public defender from the prosecutor’s office and the district attorney’s office.

Economics

• Or else, we will boycott every major holiday beginning with Black Friday, continuing thru Xmas, New Years, and MLK Day. We will buy no clothing, no cars, no jewelry, no large appliances.
• Or else, we will pull our money out of every bank and deposit in Black banks or keep it at home like the Mexicans.
• Every Black family will grow a home garden with a goal of reducing the food bill by 25%.
• Or else, we will stop giving out Black residential information at Point of Sale (POS) because they close the stores more convenient to our residence because they determine how far we will travel to shop.

Politics

• Or else, we are going to ask each Black person to be responsible for getting 5 non-registered voters registered, educated on issues, and mobilized to the polls.
• Or else, we are going to target every politician who does not support our community infrastructure development and/or redevelopment by policy.
• Or else, we will target and recall every politician (Black or White) who is not supportive of Black community issues. We will ensure that they are not re-elected
• Or else, craft court cases to eventually come before the Supreme Court to remove part of personhood of corporations under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
• Or else, craft legislation requiring all native-born Americans to be automatically registered to vote on their 18th birthday
Health
• Or else, we will teach the true history and current methodology of health research using Black people as guinea pigs or subjects.
• Or else, we will demand that all those used as guinea pigs in research specifically Tuskegee experiments and Black women reproductive research that they or their families be financially compensated immediately.
• Or else, we will develop a national oversight structure to record and litigate untoward doctor patient irregularities.
• Or else, design a health mandate to make Medicaid Expansion nationwide and mandatory for all states by including this mandate in the Affordable Healthcare Act.

Family

• Or else, we will set-up a structure to have at least one entrepreneurial element financed nationally for each Black family.
• Or else, we will have continual forums and seminars on financial literacy, estate planning to financially stabilize all families of color.
• Or else, we will change the language regarding single parent families.
• Or else, we will develop a comprehensive support system for single parent families to include daycare, afterschool, and mentoring.

Economic Security for a Million Man Movement

The National Need For Economic Security (...in order to form a more perfect union)

October 10, 2015 -- This week, historically disadvantaged Americans mark the 20^th anniversary of the Million Man March.  Inspired by Minister Louis Farrakhan, a leading group of civil rights activists and the Nation of Islam, working in conjunction with scores of civil rights organizations, including many local chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People formed the Million Man March Organizing Committee. 

On October 16, 1995, the Million Man March event welcomed participants from across the United States to the National Mall in Washington, D.C.   March organizers believed that politicians were failing the black community by “papering over the most vital dimensions of the crisis in international capitalism” and blaming urban blacks for “domestic economic woes that threatened to produce record deficits, massive unemployment, and uncontrolled inflation.”

At the time of the march, African Americans faced unemployment rates nearly twice that of white Americans, a poverty rate of more than 40%, and a median family income that was about 58% of the median for white households. More than 11% of all black males were unemployed and for those aged 16 to 19, the number of unemployed had climbed to over 50%.  

Further, according to Reverend Jesse Jackson’s speech at the March, the United States House of Representatives had reduced funding to some of the programs that played an integral role in urban Americans’ lives. “The House of Representatives cut $1.1 billion from the nation’s poorest public schools,” and “cut $137 million from Head Start” effectively subtracting $5,000 from each classroom’s budget and cutting 45,000 preschoolers from a crucial early education program.

In the 20 years since the historic demonstration, America has consistently fallen short of its own constitutional vision for “a more perfect union.”   A brutal wake-up call on Sept. 11, 2001, quickly matured into a vast Federal bureaucracy for the protection of the Nation.  Public law 107-56 defines critical infrastructure as systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the United States that “their incapacity or destruction would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters.”

From a Million Man March perspective, such a threat exists.  It is evidenced by the reality of a Cradle to Prison Pipeline, a Digital Divide, and Economic Exclusion.  From a legal context, such realities reflect crimes punishable under Title IX of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970.   The “Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act” or RICO Act offers existing provisions for the recovery of stolen assets.

America’s critical infrastructures are the foundation for the nation’s economic and social vitality, national security, and way of life. They frame citizens’ daily lives and support one of the world’s highest living standards.  The nation’s basic, critical infrastructures must be as robust as possible. Regardless of circumstances, these systems must continue to support the health and well-being of the general population while also enabling basic functionality.

The rollout of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security responded in part to international terrorist threats while perpetuating a culture of fear and intimidation on some historically disadvantaged Americans.   One in a million Black men has assessed this threat as a “gulf of mistrust” between some citizens empowered to enforce homeland security and citizens valued as “minorities” or less than equal. 

As President of the United States of America, the Honorable Barack H. Obama can immediately respond to economic security concerns of a million Black men by commissioning an alternative vision of America’s future.   Among the numerous resources available to the President is the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center.   NISAC was created under a program of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate.  NISAC is a modeling, simulation, and analysis program within DHS comprising program management and outreach personnel in Washington, D.C., and technical staff from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL).

NISAC personnel have examined many sub-systems of the national infrastructure, including energy, water, telecommunications, transportation, and public health. NISAC looks at the interdependencies between these systems to understand how failures in one could disrupt others.  But no NISAC discipline addresses constitutionally sanctioned human rights violations to free Africans in the United States.  Up to now, NISAC has produced no evidence of an inclusive economic security simulation.  

A NISAC simulation based on historical attitudes and behavior concerning “minorities” might establish datasets to address historic disparities.

The Critical Infrastructures Protection Act of 2001 declares it is U.S. policy:

(1) that any physical or virtual disruption of the operation of the critical infrastructures of the United States be rare, brief, geographically limited in effect, manageable, and minimally detrimental to the economy, human and government services, and U.S. national security;

(2) that actions necessary to achieve this policy be carried out in a public-private partnership involving corporate and non-governmental organizations; and

(3) to have in place a comprehensive and effective program to ensure the continuity of essential Federal Government functions under all circumstances.