I wrote this as a comment to shanikka's diary. I highly recommend you read it if you haven't. It was too long so I made a diary to respond.
I really feel and understand your frustration, shanikka. However, saying that "Nobody gives a damn about what is happening to Black people in America" is a generalization and it's just not true. I am not going to feed that monster.
Racism is alive and well. Ever since the 2008 campaign and the right attacking candidate Obama, it has shined a light on it. Every day, I read and hear more and more of it from the right (and infrequently from the left) and make no mistake about it, there is a concerted effort to wage class warfare on all poor and working class people with Black America as the poster child.
I will certainly agree that Congress is out of touch with America. However, there has been a concerted effort to create jobs and almost all of those efforts have been fought by the Republicans tooth and nail. In addition, the answer really isn't Washington... anything they do today won't have a real effect on America for months or even years. In alot of ways, their social engineering and economic policies (on both sides of the aisle) play a part in our current financial and social situation as a country.
The current situation is a wake up call for all of those who are unemployed and/or disadvantaged. The biggest problem facing the working class is employment mentality. As long as we are seeking employment from the rich they hold economic and social power over us. Any time you are employed by someone else you are investing in their goals. Your goals are of no consequence to a corporation.
What we need to realize is that we have assets and economic power. Our labor can either be their asset or ours.
Real change comes from within our own communities... Economic change is no different. I realized more than a decade ago that no matter how good my resume looked or how well I did at my job that I was a slave to the bottom line in any job that I held. This realization came after being laid off from job after job due to the mass exodus cause by the outsourcing rush. I went from $50k/year career jobs to being homeless in under a year.
I don't have a college education... I am a self taught computer programmer who started as a dishwasher in 1994 after being released from prison where I served a 6 year sentence for stupidity at age 17 (armed robbery).
Literally, every day, I daydream about building a non profit that could assist in helping other people who find themselves in similar situations to what I went through. I can't make it happen overnight and I am only one man trying to provide for my family at the same time. I am currently working on a project that I hope will provide me the means to make it happen sooner than later... but I have no doubt that one day I will see it happen.
All goals can be reached through commitment. That means that I make a real effort toward my goal consistently until I have reached my goal. Even a small effort made consistently will create results over time.
This is my family
Here is where I think I can help others
The biggest issue that I see in my community and among my friends and family is a systematic disease that our nation suffers from.
Most people are told from childhood that you should go to school, get good grades, go to college and work for someone else until you retire. If you try to break out of that mold you get resistance from all corners... you get told that you are a dreamer and that you should "step back to reality" or that you can't accomplish something that you want to accomplish. It is a litany of opposition. The list of negative things people get told would take a book to write down.
Here is what I would like to do... Teach entrepreneurship through hands on experience and build business experience and assets at the same time. Opportunity is abundant... even in this economy. However, a single person by themselves has a much harder time trying to get started than if they were able to pool their skills and resources with others who have the same goal.
I have no doubt that resources will be required to get this type of thing off the ground... however, I have complete faith in the goal and my ability to achieve it. I think that there are a number of service markets that are ideal to get started with.
The basic idea is to build cooperative businesses based on an equity (share-purchase) structure. This is similar to a structure used by most for-profit businesses but has important financial advantages for cooperatives, including a clearer basis for member investment. However, rather than purchasing shares through financial investment, shares would be allocated based on production (contributions to the business through labor or other means) over time with the non-profit itself retaining majority ownership. The long term goal is to employ people to fill the needs of the business while simultaneously providing real financial assets for those who invest in it and remain involved.
Here is an example... There are many out of work sales people or people with the desire or natural talent to be salespeople. There are people who own lawnmowers or have gardening and landscaping skills. There are out-of-work construction foreman's who have the skill to manage work crews. There are people who own trucks and/or trailers AND lawnmowers who are out of work.
A 5 man landscaping crew who just mow lawns can earn a landscaping business $1000-1500/day gross by averaging 8 lawns in per man per day. Subdivisions all over the country have an abundance of people who will pay weekly to have their lawn mowed.
I know because I have seen it firsthand from my neighbor who was in middle management at Home Depot and lost his job. He is black, 56 years old and couldn't get a job after trying for MONTHS. I had been paying a service to mow my lawn ($35/week) and they were just not dependable... many times they wouldn't even show up and still send me a bill. One day, my neighbor came over and asked me how much I paid them. He told me that he would do it for $100/month if I paid him up front every month. I saved $40/month and he gained a customer... That was last year and since that time he has hired 10 employees that he pays $10/hour + $5/week commission on new customers they obtain. He doesn't mow any lawns himself except his and mine now... and last week he told me that he is averaging $12,000 per month income after expenses so far this year. He just manages the crew and does marketing. His wife quit her job managing a law office and now manages his business. We live in NC... summer is long and I need to have my lawn cut from late March until mid October, usually.
Here is how he did it. He only accepts customers from subdivisions in our area. Each one of these subdivisions have more than 500 homes in them. There are easily 20-30 subdivisions like this within a 20 mile radius of ours.
If we had people making the same effort nationwide, I think that we can overcome at least some the systematic economic disadvantages that are plaguing our society.
UPDATE: I want to thank shanikka for her gracious comment. I wasn't offended by what I saw as a generalization... and as I said in the intro... I do understand the sentiment. If the truth be told, my black friends have been a HUGE inspiration in my life and I have watched them struggle for years and years and years... even as they were presented with opportunity after opportunity, they passed it up due to any number of reasons that I can't entirely relate to. However, I think that education (life education) and community empowerment are the key to making a dent in the condition of all poor people and the black community in particular.
I have changed my mind about the recommendation because some of the comments made me realize that we should be having a conversation as a whole and not exclusively. I have changed the title.
UPDATE X 2: tardis10 pointed out a cooperative similar to the one that I have described in this diary.
http://www.evergreencoop.com/
The Evergreen Cooperatives of Cleveland, Ohio are pioneering innovative models of job creation, wealth building, and sustainability. Evergreen’s employee-owned, for-profit companies are based locally and hire locally. We create meaningful green jobs and keep precious financial resources within our community. Our workers earn a living wage and build equity in their firms as owners of the business.
The first Evergreen Cooperative businesses – Evergreen Cooperative Laundry, Ohio Cooperative Solar, and Green City Growers Cooperative – are launching in 2009–2010.
Evergreen is a partnership between the residents of six of our city’s neighborhoods and some of Cleveland’s most important “anchor institutions” – the Cleveland Foundation, the City of Cleveland, Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, and many others. Help us build community wealth to transform Cleveland and change lives.