The Emperor's New Cloths

In Hans Christian Andersen fairly tell “The Emperors new cloths”, nefarious con men posing as garment manufacturers decided to con the Emperor, who had a fancy for the finest and rarest of clothing. This was accomplished by preying on the credulous of the Emperor and his appointees and office holders (actually his entire empire), that a garment could be created that would be visible only on those who were competent in their office and invisible to those who were incompetent in their office or position.

The nefarious con men were successful by understanding the probabilities of human nature. They understood that no one wanted to see themselves as being incompetent and therefore no one would admit that they could not see the material of the garment supposedly being fashioned and created by the two crooks. The emperor sent several of his underlings to see the garment being fashioned, all of whom could not see anything when shown the material by the crooks, yet, returned to the emperor to profess that they had witnessed a beautiful garment, but more importantly, that they were not incompetent.

This fairly tale has a real life parallels. The abstract phenomenon in the story is born from the human propensity to put self interest and status above the interest of truth. No one wanted to admit the truth that the emperor was actually naked, because no one wanted to be seen in a negative light, incompetent, in the fairy tales instance. Today, in a rather inverse analogy, white people have a vested interest in not seeing racism or talking about the effects of racism. To admit that the economic and social discrepancies between blacks and whites are the product of racism is akin to the admission that the emperor was naked all along.

When whites, and their black promotion seekers, look at the problems of the black community, they have a vested interest in not seeing or admitting to seeing the reality of how such manifested. To make such an admission would create a moral dilemma and force an ideological/political epiphany, lest hypocrisy and or being seen rightfully as bigots. More importantly, it would threaten the fallacy about how they (whites) arrived at a superior economic and social condition. It, the admission of reality, would also mean responsibility and accountability (by the larger society and government), which whites see as a threat to their status, through the erosion of white privilege and economic superiority. Such a revelation of truth represents incompetents of superiority, for whites, and reflects superiority of condition by virtue of immoral superiority, which manifested in unequal treatment and hence unequal outcome and the current black condition.

In the fairly tell, the fallacy that everyone was living with was broken when an innocent child shouted, as everyone was marveling a the emperors new clothes, “But he’s Naked”. The emperor then became embarrassed and ashamed. In real life, the emperors have a propaganda machine that is designed to attack and discredit anyone who attempts to burst the bubble of the fallacy. The emperor in the fairy tale did not exercise the full incumbency of power and mind control to prevent the bubble from being burst. There is too much at stake here to have the bubble burst. There are too many vested interests in deceit and denial for the issue of race and racism to be seen or credited as a cause of the discrepancies between blacks and whites.

On this blog, we are not scared to death Negroes who fear demotion or non promotion by white America if we admit that the emperor is buck naked. We are not the credulous who fall for the psychological manipulation of nefarious con men, Pharisees and Scribes. We do not believe or care that our admission of the emperor’s lack of clothing means that we are, in the context of a nation in denial, incompetent. We do not live in fear of the lies and mischaracterizations, due to our admissions, that we are somehow incompetent by virtue of not practicing and or promoting personal responsibility, a solid work ethic, strong families, intelligence. We do not accept the propaganda that says we are dividers, hate mongers or filled with animosity and revenge, just because we, like the child, have the innocents of truth to say that the emperor is indeed naked.

Starting from the truth is the only valid starting point. The truth only divides the wicked from the righteous and those who are upset or seek to suppress truth are the wicked, assuming a correlation between truth and righteousness. The truth only angers or upsets those who earn dividend from the untruth. The truth is not a crutch or a fabricated psychosis of “victimology”. The truth is not the absence of responsibility or accountability. The truth is not an enabler of immoral behavior. The truth is not the absence of a planning and action to move forward. The truth is guilty of none of the criticism and charges held against it by dissenters, detractors, obfuscators and prevaricators. Attack on the truth is simply the work of the wicked.

Moral superiority or different circumstance?

My My My. This Cosby crusade continues to resonate in the forefront as I have just watched an episode of “Night Line” centered on the propositions lamented by famed comedian. By now, we likely all have a synopsis of what Mr. Cosby sees as the problem, which is the lack of personal responsibility and effort on the part of the black poor to make their lives better and too much emphasis placed on dependence on others to improve their condition.

Let us take a closer look at criticism. The prerequisite of criticism is a benchmark established as the metric or proof that the target is not meeting expectations. When an individual criticizes the actions and behavior of others, the benchmark established is normally the criticizers own actions and behavior, lest hypocrisy manifest. Consequently, the juxtaposition is between the actions and behavior of the one criticizing and the target of the criticism. In other words, such criticism is akin to self exaltation as in “look at me and what I have achieved. I reached my status by being morally superior to the rest of you and if you are to better yourselves, you must work on your moral and ethical strength, as I have done”.

Let’s create the hypothetical situation of Ethiopians criticizing Americans for being obese. Say that the Ethiopians claim that American obesity is the result of lack of self control or personal responsibility and this is why Americans are not slim and trim like Ethiopians. However, upon closer analysis, it is not the humanity that is different. The Ethiopians are not morally superior in this hypothetical analogy. Rather, the different behavior is born from the different external circumstances regarding the availability of food. Food is much scarcer and people are less able to afford food in Ethiopia relative to America and thus the temptations and opportunity for obesity are not equal. The Ethiopians are not morally stronger or superior in their humanity, they simply are not lead into temptation to the same degree, out of the lack of opportunity to do such. One should not look down upon the behavior of others unless exposed to similar opportunities and temptation.

Now back to the real life situation of Bill Cosby criticizing and chastising the black poor for their irresponsibility, which creates and or incubates their poverty. Was Bill Cosby, and others like Bill, rise from poverty some 40 years ago the product of being morally and ethically stronger relative to poor today, or was and is it the product of a set of different opportunities and temptations? I would argue with passion that it is the latter (especially given Cosby’s demonstration of moral weakness via several acts of infidelity). Not simply focusing on Cosby, but Cosby’s generation had a different set of opportunities and temptations than does the contemporary black poor. It is this difference in external circumstance and culture that manifest the different behaviorism between the two generations, not a degradation of humanity that manifest as weakening of descendants moral and ethical strength.

The bottom line is that there are really only two camps of thought which all arguments ultimately are rooted in. There is the school of thought that circumstance is the product of internal forces or that circumstance is the product of external forces. And of course, there is the combination or mixture. Essentially, when one argues or alludes that black under performance is rooted internal, one is arguing a genetic predisposition as cause. When one argues or alludes that black under performance is external, one is arguing that the accrued effect of past and present racism, plus environment is the cause. To be sure, Cosby and others who think like Cosby have placed the focus on the internal in his and their criticism and chastising of the black poor. This makes many black folks upset, rightfully so, because more than a few black folk understand the implications of such rhetoric, which feeds the notion that black inferiority is true.

One can make the argument that it is worse to be poor and black in 2005, than it was to be poor and black in 1950. Of course we know that racism and poverty was worse in 1950 than today, but the morality of the nation, via the power of tradition and culture, was much better back then than now. Yes, the racism back them was highly immoral, yet, the morality f the nation surrounding the institution of family was extremely better. Also, there was not all these different drugs flowing into the black communities as the majority of blacks in the 1950s were still living in small towns and semi-rural. The vast majority of blacks were still residing in the South. The mass migration to urban cores exposed blacks to white urban vices (let us not forget how even the Pope has admitted white exportation of vices to Africa and hence Africans), which they emulated. Thus, some things have gotten better in the last 50 years for blacks and some things have gotten worse. One thing for certain, however, is that times are different. Who knows how Cosby would have turned out had he been born in this era and not the one he was born in? Who is to say that if many of the poor blacks today were born in Cosby era that they would not manifest just as equally as did Cosby’s generation.

All one has to do is contrast and compare how families were portrayed in the 50’s vs. now, to see how culture has been eroded. Look at the family on the program “Leave it to Beaver” and the subliminal conditioning of what a family should be like. Contrast that with “Desperate housewives”, “Married with Children” or all the other programming that make alternative lifestyles to marriage seem acceptable. What people fail to realize is that in this modern era, culture is transmitted in large degree from the electronic medium of television. Cosby’s generation did not have the problem of conditioning via electronic medium, because the medium was in its infancy. Consequently, culture and tradition was emulated through the family and community, not TV as it is today. Cosby’s generation did not have the opportunity of the temptations and conditioning that alters behavior like what exists today. His generation was not stronger; it simply did not have these types of morally degrading forces bombarding them. It was a much less “individualistic” society back then.

I would be at fault if I did not mention the impact of drugs in the black community. Is/was it a conspiracy or coincidence that drugs started flooding the black community at the zenith of black militancy and the era that J Edgar Hoover proclaimed black militancy as the number one threat to the nation’s security? Black militancy was seen as terrorism is seen today. Who thinks that the FBI just sat on their hands to see how black militancy would pan out? Drugs proliferation has the effect of turning black militancy and unrest inwards instead of outwards. It provided an underground economy that provided income to disenfranchised blacks and it created competition and addicts that dried up militancy and produced junkies, criminals, gangs and destroyed the ability these people be a responsible part of a family. There is plenty of evidence revealing how the government played a role in pumping drugs into the black community and the history of divide and conquer has and is a tried and true methodology of suppression. Cosby’s generation did not have to deal with this in degree, if not kind.

In conclusion, I am one of those who objects to Cosby’s crusade and the crusade and rhetoric of many black conservatives. The reason is that it camps in the school of thought of black inferiority. Of course, they (conservatives) would suggest that I am liberal and that liberalism is predicated upon the asumption that blacks are inferior and need special assitance. The truth is that the expectation of blacks to rise without assitance is the expecation of black superiority. To be born with more external obsticles and disadvantages than others, yet held to the same expecatation as others, logicaly depends on a superiority over others to manifest such equality.


The failure of blacks to manifest superiority results in our continued collective inferior condition. As our parents long have told us….we have to work twice as hard as white folks just to get what white folks got. Manifesting an equal effort for blacks, given the extra resistance we face, will almost always produce inferior results. These inferior results are then interpreted as the resultant of inferior effort and not superior obsticals, as it should be. Consquently, so much of the energy expended by black poor is spent fighting the obsticles and temptations that others do not face, that many have little energy left to rise to equality. Equal effort does not produce equal results when environmental resitance and hence circumstances are unequal variables.

There is no equating our problems or grievances with an individual!

There is something to be said about Black folk whom the Black community rally around to bring attention to a problem that is bigger than the individual whom we rally around. Too often we are finding out that the person we rallied around lied or continue to have run-ins with the police, and because of that, there are those who seek to dismiss our rallying cry based on the behavior of the individual whom situation allowed us to shine a light on a wrong being perpetrated in America.

The Black community and Black activist rallied around and for Lionel Tate when he was giving a life sentence for the brutal beating of 6yr old Tiffany Eunich. I do not believe anyone actually believed that Lionel Tate should not be punished for his actions, most of those who rallied around Lionel Tate objected to a life sentence being handed down to a 12 year old and thought it was a bit extreme and basically condemned him to a life in prison without any chance for rehabilitation. Also during the same time Lionel Tate was tried and convicted, those two young white boys who beat their father to death with a baseball bat was tried for his murder and received seven and eight year sentences a big difference from the life sentence that Lionel Tate received. The objective of rallying around Lionel Tate was to bring attention to a criminal justice system and the difference in treatment received by Black folk when compared to white folk that is more than obvious to Black folk and to further the conversation surrounding juvenile justice and their chances at rehabilitation.

Then there is the infamous beating of Rodney King that was caught on tape. Police brutality was and is nothing new to the Black community, we have lived with police brutality for as long as their have been a police force in this country. We had made several complaints about the abuse dished out by law enforcement but were constantly ignored, then came proof beyond a reasonable doubt (so we believed) that police brutality was real. When the tape of Rodney King beating beamed around the country and around the world, Black folk rallied together and around King with the belief that this incident will bring attention to a problem that is very real in our community. In the end, the officers were acquitted and riots ensued, not because Rodney King got beat down, the riots were in response to the verdict that said what we saw on that tape is not what really happen, essentially furthering the lie that policy Brutality is not real.

Finally, there is Tawana Brawley who claimed to have been sexually assaulted by the police. Back in 1987, long before Rodney King was beat down, Tawana Brawley proclaimed to the world that she had been sexually assaulted by three or four white police officers. Due to the relationship that Black folk had and continue to have with the police throughout this nation, it was not hard for Black folk to believe that white police officers would engage in this kind of behavior, thus the Black community rallied around and for Tawana Brawley to bring attention to a problem that was real to us long before Tawana Brawley was allegedly raped.

All three of these cases played a pivotal role in bringing attention to a problem that was and is real, however, each one of these cases have also served or is serving as a means to discredit truths that are not dependent on any of these cases. The Tawana Brawley case ended with her being exposed as a liar and a fraud, who had not been attacked at all and because of that her case went from one that brought attention to a real problem that exist to one used to discredit any reports of police malfeasance by young black men and women.. Rodney King continued run-ins with the law even after receiving a million dollar plus settlement solidified the belief in white minds that the jury was right in acquitting the white police officers and that Rodney King and anyone like him probably deserved what they get or got. And then there is Lionel Tate, whom after having his life sentence over turned has had two brushes with the law with the latest being him robbing a pizza man and beating up a 12 yr old. For the critics who thought Lionel Tate should still be serving a life sentence his continued run-ins with the law serves as proof that justice was served when he was giving a life sentence.

I believe in the future when we (black folk) rally around an individual in an effort to bring attention to a problem that is real and need to be addressed, we should make it clear what it is we are doing to prevent anyone from equating the person or persons we rally around and for with the problem being addressed. This is what has happened and is happening with the cases mentioned above, the people whom we rallied around is being equated with the problem that we sought to address through these individuals and their experience thus when these individuals are proven to be frauds, habitual criminals and possible socio-paths the grievances that were addressed based on an experience they had looses its creditability thus making it appear that all like grievances are unfounded. Some of us are too fickle to have a battle of any kind relied on our ability to stay out of trouble or be honest, thus we must make it clear that the grievances we have as a people are not based on an individuals experience but the experiences that most of us have with law enforcement and the justice system

Of course there are men and women who we rallied around and for to address a grievance who did not or do not continue to get in trouble or have run-ins with the law, an example of that is Abner Louima who was brutalized and sodomized by the NYPD, and a more recently example is Marcus Dixon who was accused of rape and found innocent of that charge only to have a loop whole in the law used against him to sentence him to ten years in prison. The Georgia Supreme Court overturned his sentence by a close 4-3 vote and we have not heard anything else from or about the brother but if he were to get in trouble, the critics who believes his sentence should not have been overturned will surface and again use an individual to discredit a movement that seeks to undue all and any injustice in this nation and because of that we must make it clear that there is no equating our problems or grievances with an individual, these individuals are simply one from amongst the many who are victims of police malfeasances or an unjust justice system.

FYI.... The Good, The Bad and the Patheitic

The Good: If you have a Blog and you Blog roll Black Introspection, please let us know, we will definitely return the favor. I happen to be a reader of afronetizen and noticed today that they have us linked over there, thus I returned the favor. I love the Negroes of Highest Dubiosity List over there!! Haha

The Bad: Back in September of 2003 I registered on Rob Reddings forum and to my amazement before I could post anything I was banned. I re-registered thinking it was a mistake and again I was banned, I e-mailed Rob to find out why I was being banned but unfortunately the issue was never resolved. Noah is very familiar with Rob’s forum as well, which leads me to the pathetic.

The Pathetic: I received an e-mail from Q-Hodges asking me to pass some information to Noah that illustrates the cowardice of the Negro men that post on Rob Redding forum. One of the Negro’s from that forum who read this Blog decided it would be easier to copy and paste Noah words over there and speak ill of Noah and Black Introspection rather than confront Noah and us where he copied the words from. I am thinking that Negro is Renaldo who in the past have engaged us on this Blog but for some reason, I am thinking out of pure cowardice he decided to do a cut and paste job from this Blog and did not have the decency to let us know or give a link to this Blog without being asked for it first. I keep trying to tell y’all that the negro-Con is a coward but y’all don’t hear me!

Who sets the time?

We live in a society where the dominant culture refuses to look back. The nation fears the reality that the present is the past’s creation due to feeling that such an acknowledgement would force an accountability and responsibility burden upon the present masses. The masses hence resist baring witness to truth in order to prevent the moral challenge to their character. While the masses enjoy fruits from the past, which are not of their individual creation, they argue exemption from any past liabilities due to not having personally created them.

I have always been amazed by the psychological ploy of setting the time on one's alarm clock ahead of the actual time, so that when the alarm sounds, one can fool themselves into believing that they are gaining more time. The truth is that time has not really changed in such a case, rather, people simply distort their perception of time for psychological gain and the reward of extra time to sleep, which is simply a gimmick distortion of temporal reality. In the same way, people distort the reality of the past's influence upon the present as a psychological strategy for holding onto benefits from the past while denying the liabilities. It’s all a psychological game of denial and cognitive dissonance to perpetuate a pleasure via distorting ones perception of truth and reality.

The dominant white culture has been very successful at framing and defining the present in a way that is most conducive to their interest. They have set the clocks time to show 5:00 AM, when the true time is 4:30 AM. When the alarm sounds at 4:30, all those who are on real time are disturbed by those who need to fool themselves into believing they are gaining an extra 30 minutes of sleep. When those on real time complain about the distortion, they are put down by those who are in control of the clock and condemned as the ones who not keeping pace with their working definition of time that is to their psychological benefit, while ignoring that those on real time are loosing a half hours sleep.

Such is simply the benefits of the incumbency of power, which whites posses. Those with power take the advantage of defining reality for all the rest, based upon an interpretation, if not distortion, that promotes their group interest. It must be noted the self-interest is the highest value of most humans and when truth is not conducive to human self-interest, truth is suppressed. Some people are on real-time and real-truth, while other people operate on distorted-time and distorted-truth due to a psychological need of distortion to forward their self interest and or pleasures.

The vast majority of humans are guided by self-interest and everything that humans do is ultimately done from selfishness. Sometimes truth coincides with selfish interest and sometimes it does not. In either case, selfish interest is the goal and truth or deceit is simply the means to the end. In the case of America, which is dominated by whites politically and economically, truth is distorted via omission, because the atrocities of the past are on record and cannot be lied about. Thus, the dominant culture just won’t talk about it or integrate it cognitive analysis as a potential cause of the effects of the present.

That having been said, such sentiment from the dominant culture is and should be expected, given empirical facts. However, the most ominous sign is that the truncating of history, as a tool for understanding the present, has spread to large segments of recent immigrant groups. Asians and Hispanics and have also become indoctrinated in the distortion, as well as a small percent of African Americans who politically align with conservative ideology. Although this is an ominous setback for the truism that the present is the creation of the past, and the black struggle for equality, it is not surprising as human nature compels many to covet favor and hence promotion from those with power who have framed and distorted reality. Thus, in order to get ahead seek to please those in power
with the hope of promotion and reward.

I have listened to far too many Hispanics, Asians and even a growing number of blacks; disrespect the history of black people and slavery in this nation, in regards to its impact upon the present. The growth of Hispanics and Asians has invoked the popular use of the term “minority” as a generic label of people of color that creates the impression that all minorities face or have faced the same resistance to progress from the dominant white culture. The truth is that people of color are not monolithic in experience. There have been and is a different degree of resistance and impediments from the dominant culture based upon the particularities of the minority group. African Americans suffered the “Peculiar Institution” that is endemic to the African American experience and not other minorities here. This gets lost upon the analysis of present reality as the “shared” experience now defines the minority experience, truncating unique degree of the black condition.

What would happen if patients being entered into a hospital were no longer classified by their particular illness and symptoms, but by a generic label such as “Sick”, that all patients shared? Thus, when treating the problems of the “Sick” there is a treatment for the universally shared symptoms, but no treatment for symptoms not universally shared in degree or kind. Hence, those who are “Sick” in a unique way receive little benefit from the generalized treatment and there condition eventually worsens and or mutates. African Americans are patients who are ill from a disease different in degree and kind from that of other minorities and white immigrants to America. This is not to suggest that these minorities and white immigrants were not oppressed and discriminated against, it is to suggest that there was a difference in degree and or kind from that of blacks. Any group that was oppressed to the degree and kind as blacks would be in the exact same situation as blacks today, lest we assume that others are somehow superior and rose while black inferiority has kept them down.

The black struggle in America is far too often normalized as the “typical” struggle of new arrivals to this land, such as the Irish, Italians, Polish of Europe and the recent Hispanic and Asian immigrants. It is noted that all these people faced discrimination and obstacles, yet, they did not complain, worked hard and rose above it. Blacks, on the other hand, are said to have been held back by our propensity to complain, blame and having a poor work ethic. Thus, the theme here is the supposition that discrimination was universal, as an impediment to all groups, but what has kept black people down is behavior and thinking endemic to black people that leads us to complain, blame and harbor laziness. In other words, black humanity is somehow different and or inferior from these other groups and this is why blacks have not risen as the others have. Furthermore, blacks are not recent immigrants. The average black person is at least a 10th generation American and should have the wealth of ten or more generation. Most other minorities in America are on average 2nd generation Americans.

In conclusion, I think that the transference of denial from the dominant culture, in regards to the past, is being conditioned and programmed into the minds of immigrants and non black minorities. The consequence is a growing disrespect for blacks and the black condition in America, as more and more people are seeing it less in its historical context of cause and effect and actions and reaction. Instead, when the continuum of the past is dismissed, it leaves the root cause and origin of the problem to be blacks. In other words, the socioeconomic racial gaps and problem are then seen as having no link to the past, but rather, black pathologies rooted in our genetics and culture.

If there was any doubt left as to if Jessie Peterson is a Negro...

This interview he did with David Duke should clear that up. This Negro is sick and in need of help.

Link to Web Page..

Mental Chains of Race

Emancipation removed the physical chains, but socialization and acculturation under white domination has left the mental chains of bondage upon black people. Socialization and acculturation manifest via absorbing and emulating behavior, beliefs and ideologies of humans around us. This is how culture is transmitted and propagated. Most people falsely believe that they are not being conditioned or brainwashed. People believe that their thoughts and beliefs are from individual self cultivation and fruition. In truth, socialization and acculturation is simply another term for mind and behavior control. People are not forced to believe one thing or another, but rather are slowly conditioned into beliefs from repitition of suggestion.


The consequence of black folks living in a white dominated culture, one in which blacks were stripped of their original culture, is the transference of white beliefs and ideology to the conscious and subconscious of black people. Consequently, white negative views of black people transfer to blacks via socialization and acculturation through emulation. Ergo, blacks are conditioned to see and treat other blacks in the way that the dominant white culture sees and treats them. This phenomenon serves as mental chains that restrain blacks from elevating to their full potential. White racism creates a self fulfilling prophecy of black self destruction, as blacks internalize a negative self image, while white racism continues to serve as an external impediment.

The dominant and powerful culture can simply forward a suggestion or proposition and the suggestion or proposition will propagate through the society. Take for example the suggestion of a phenomenon called the “victim syndrome” which is a supposed psychosis rooted in the mind of individuals and not upon any reality. This syndrome has been suggested as the cause of black social and economic underperformance and has been franchised and sold to black folks, some of whom willfully propagate the product (submits Scared Negroes/black Republicans as exibit A to the jury). The victim syndrome presupposes that concept of "victim" is really an invalid due to the belief that every individual controls his or her own fate...and no one else does. Hence, if something negative befalls a person from an external source, the individual is still ultimately responsible for the outcome.

There is a recent scientific study that reveals that blacks see themselves just as negatively as white people do. This is what has inspired my commentary on this socialization and acculturation. Some of the studies finding are in quotes below.

African Americans and Caucasians viewing African American faces display extremely similar changes in the activity of brain structures that respond to emotional events, a new UCLA study finds.

The changes occur in the amygdala, a region of the brain that serves as an "alarm" to activate a cascade of other biological systems to protect the body in times of danger, said Matthew D. Lieberman, assistant professor of psychology at UCLA and lead author of the study.

Five out of eight African Americans ( 63 percent ) responded with significantly more amygdala activity when presented with expressionless photographs of African Americans than when they were shown expressionless photographs of Caucasians, Lieberman and his colleagues found. Seven of 11 Caucasians ( 64 percent ) in the study also responded with greater activity in the amygdala when viewing the African American photographs.

…"Many people of either race may not be happy to find out that a part of their brain involved in responding to potential threats responds more to African Americans than Caucasians," Lieberman said. "Even people who believe to their core that they do not have prejudices may still have negative associations that are not conscious."….

Why do African Americans have this amygdala response?

"One theory," Lieberman said, "is that people are likely to pick up the stereotypes prevalent in a society regardless of whether their family or community agrees with those stereotypes. Several social psychologists have found evidence for this view. From an early age, cultural views, media portrayals and even the body language of authority figures may train our brains, whether we consciously agree or not."

Previous research has shown that Caucasians show an increased amygdala response to African American photos to the extent that they hold nonconscious negative attitudes towards African Americans, Lieberman said.

Who will Defend us?

If there was any question where Bush stands on defending Black Folk in America from ill conceived notions specifically those spoken by Vicente Fox, the answer is obvious to anyone that have paid attention to this debacle that has transpired over the last week or so. An even more interesting question is where is the head Diplomat Condoleezza Rice, a Black woman none the less when a head of state speaks out of his own ignorance about Black folk in America and our willingness to work. Mexican President Vicente Fox statements should have been addressed at the very least by his equal here in the U.S. but to the surprise of absolutely no one, Black folk in America are once again left to defending ourselves against ill conceived notions being perpetuated this time by a foreign Head of state.

Anyone living in a city or town where Mexican men and women have migrated to know without question that the vast majority of the work being done by them is not work Black men and women refuse to do. The only work that I am aware of that would be difficult to get Black folk to do is the migrant work, but the construction jobs, the janitorial jobs, the painting jobs etc are all jobs Black men and women would be more than willing to do. Furthermore many of these jobs pay more than jobs currently held by Black folk. The problem lies with the unwillingness of Black men and women to work outside employment guidelines and wanting overtime pay for work that meet state requirements of overtime and have all state employment mandated followed. We should also be mindful that Mexican men and women that do accept work under the table are abused by their employers in various ways that would be unacceptable to an American national.

In the absence of any defense of us coming from Washington our Brothers Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jessie Jackson; both of whom have been portrayed as race hustlers and instigators of racial tension by the American right have stepped up to the plate to meet with Vicente Fox.

Vicente Fox has agreed to meet with both of them to explain what he meant and to possibly apologize. He met with Jessie Jackson today and is scheduled to meet with Al Sharpton on Friday. Another interesting thing that has come out of this is how the pontificators Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reily have said they would be willing to travel with Al Sharpton to Mexico to meet with Vicente Fox; this is only interesting because these are the same two media pundits who accuse Sharpton and Jackson of race hustling when they respond to acts of racism in America, however in this instance where the ignorance is coming from a man whom they have a problem with the epithets that are usually used to describe Jackson and Sharpton responding to racist activity or behavior has disappeared and they are willing to travel with Sharpton to meet with Fox. It is clear from listening to them that the only reason they are willing to tag online is to further their own agenda that have more to do with immigration and little to nothing to do with Fox statements.

When it is all said and done, Black folk in America are left defending ourselves from ignorance in America and from abroad. Even as young Black men and women die in Iraq, the very man who orchestrated the war and his chief diplomat are silent when a foreign Head of State says something that is fundamentally false and can be easily proven to be false. The next time anyone wants to make disparaging remarks about Sharpton or Jackson we should all be reminded that these men do not create the realities they respond to, and in this instance where a President of another country spoke ignorantly about Black men and women in America it was and is them who responded to his words as the wicked President of this nation refused to comment as did his Negro chief Diplomat Condoleezza Rice.

America the Beautiful!!!

15 Dead Afghanis, One Newsweek Report, Reparation for the living thrown out of court and 100 years of governmental sterilization.

This basically sums up the News for me so far this week. The Hypocrisy that runs rampant in the stories mentioned above can be seen by the most ignorant amongst us. The media, particular the Conservative analyst and pontificators are falling all over themselves about the Newsweek report that American interrogators flushed parts of or a full Qur’an down the toilet as a means of intimidating the prisoners being held in Cuba. These self righteous pundits have not passed up one opportunity to mention that fifteen people died because of this report. Apparently these fifteen Afghanis in death serve a purpose for the pontificators that the thousand of innocent men and women that have died from American bombs do not. One mention of the dead who were killed by American troops or America’s endless arsenal and the subject is quickly changed. The U.S. has dropped bombs on wedding parties, that they mistook for a congregation of terrorist I suppose, and who can forget the tribes men in Afghanistan telling American troops that they knew where the Taliban was hiding and then have the American Military bomb those sites only to find out later that there was no Taliban in those areas, it was simply a competing tribe place of abode. The number of innocent men and women killed by American troop’s number in ranges that make fifteen deaths look like an off day of killing. Why the uproar over fifteen dead Afghanis killed by other Afghanis none the less? The answer is simple, in death these individuals can be the tool of the American right propaganda machine as they continue their attempt to discredit any media outlet or network that criticize the warmonger in the white house George Dubya Bush.

White folk and scared to death negroes have a particular song they sing when the reparations debate is mentioned, their song goes something like this; If reparation is to be given it should be given to those who were enslaved in America, not their descendant who have dealt with the fallout from our complete and utter destruction as a people in this nation. Well, in the case of the bombing of Black Wall Street in Tulsa Oklahoma, we have actual living folk who suffered because of the actions of white folk and this government. Surprisingly to absolutely no one that know how white folk think and how this country operates, the courts have thrown out the case of those living who were affected by the acts of this government via the aggression harped upon Black folk in Tulsa Oklahoma. The Supreme Court that has one Negro sitting on it, refused to hear the case which let stand a lower court ruling that the statue of limitation has come and gone. Mind you, these devils do not say what happen did not happen, nor do they deny that there should be reparations paid for what happen, they simply address the this depressing issue with varying degrees of complexities with a simple “The statue of limitations have run out”.

Last and most certainly not least, the revelation that North Carolina engaged in the illegal sterilization of poor people. From the early 1900’s to the 1970’s men and women were sterilized in the state of North Carolina without consenting to this procedure because the Elite, Evil and White Supremacist folk in North Carolina believed that poor folk had bad genes that made them poor or were too feeble minded to have children. A bill is being drafted in the state to pay those who were the victims of this cruel and vicious act, financial reparations. Many of the folk illegally sterilized are still living and will be able to collect if the Bill is passed. However, and we know there is always a But or However; Folk down there are now saying “where will we get the money to pay these folk”. Where did they get the money to sterilize men and women illegally? If it is not one thing it is another, the first reaction to any form of reparations is, the affected is not alive, and in cases where the affected is alive, the reaction is the statue of limitations has run out and the final reaction to paying those who have been molested, killed, raped robbed, medically abused or outright walked on by a governmental agency is to say to the victims, we don’t have the money to pay you for what we did to you.

America the Beautiful!!!!!

Social Mobility

The NY Times is running a series on the changing social mobility of Americana, over the last several decades. Social mobility is essentially the fluidity of individuals born into a given social class to move into another later in adulthood. Social mobility is measured most profoundly by the poorest ability to move up socially. The conclusion of researchers in this study is that social mobility has stagnated and indeed may be declining, while many people falsely believe the opposite and think that the greatest opportunity to rise from poverty to wealth still exist in the USA. The study notes that Great Britain and our own United States have the lowest rates of social mobility in the developed world.

One of the obvious reasons that the USA has one of the developed worlds least socially mobile populations is due to the phenomenon of being amongst the most racist in conjunction with the disadvantage of being lower class. The United States has one of the largest minority populations of the developed world. In the research compiled in the study, data revealed that blacks were nearly 3 times less socially mobile than their white contemporaries in American society. What this means is that for blacks, if you are born into a poor family, you are nearly 3 times more likely to remain in a state of poverty into adulthood than if you were white and born into poverty. Consequently, racism in America, if one assumes that genetic inferiority is not responsible for the increased class inertia, has constrained class mobility in America to a significant degree.

What I also found interesting is how much time the author uses for juxtaposing status temporally. The author’s noted how middle class people today live with the comforts that only the elite rich enjoyed some 50 years ago. In my opinion, class and status is a point in time metric. Class and status is relative to how people are positioned, relative to each other, at a given point or window in time. Thus, it serves no purpose to compare the comforts of middle or lower class people today, to those of classes in the past. The reason being is that each generation inherits the current state of knowledge and science from the previous and hence improves upon it enough to advance the efficiency or comfort of living. Therefore, each generation, regardless of class, will have the benefits of improved technology and comfort added to one degree or another to their lives. Thus, what defines class is not what one can afford and enjoy relative to those in the past, but relative to those that exist with them in the present.

It is clear to me that social mobility is the product of economic forces of supply and demand. When opportunity is in abundance, social mobility, barring discrimination, should be at its highest levels. Therefore, the research that shows that social mobility in the USA has stagnated, if not fallen, over the aggregate of the last 30 years, is evidence in the decline in relative opportunity for many in America. Theoretically, if there was no growth in economic opportunity, then the only way for one to gain opportunity and wealth is for another to loose opportunity and wealth. Hence, there would be no net gain, but only shifts in who posses the wealth. Such a hypothetical of shifting economic mobility in times of no growth is highly unlikely because wealth is power and power has the ability to manipulate politics and policy so that they can maintain their wealth and advantage over the poor, to such a degree that they or their children will never switch places.

The series measuring of class mobility changes is simply one more piece of a puzzle that reveals a picture of America on the decline. However, the implication of a reduction in class mobility is most ominous for African Americans. The reason being is that class is one of the inherited legacies and disadvantages born from centuries of slavery and discrimination. Hence, blacks are disproportionately pooled in the lower classes as a resultant of America never reconciling or repairing the damage it inflected from centuries of oppression. The researches estimated that class leaves a five generation advantage or disadvantage, on average, upon descendants emanating from wealthy or poor families. Given that, blacks have an inherited disadvantage born from America’s suppression, oppression and repression of black people, that gives whites a contemporary advantage in contemporary competition for opportunity. This we all know.

The study notes that going forward; education will become an even more prominent filter for class distribution and allocation. The study also noted that educational attainment is highly correlated with class today. Thus, if one puts two and two together one sees a further reduction in class mobility (four) as only the well off will be able to provide the type of quality education to offspring that will allow them to compete for opportunities in occupations that will allow one to reach the upper classes. With the decline of high paying manufacturing jobs for the non-college educated in the economy, hard work, in and of it self will fade as a means of social elevation as brain power and education becomes the dominant filter to the median and upper classes.

This is not to suggest that our economy will become dominated by brain power over brawn power. The truth is that currently only about 26% of jobs demanded in the economy require a college degree and most of the new job growth projected over the next 20 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will be in occupations that do not require a college degree. In other words, the greatest numerical growth in employment will be in professions that do not require a lot of brain power and these jobs will not pay what the jobs of the past paid that required little brain power, like manufacturing. Consequently, if every adult over the age of 25 ran out and earned college degrees, you would have the phenomenon of too many educated people chasing too few jobs that require college education. Therefore, someone with a degree will still have to be a janitor, cashier, maid, food service employee ect., because there are simply not enough jobs being created that require a college background to accommodate a college educated labor pool.

In conclusion, the series reveals disconnect between perception and reality in regards to what America offers in relative and absolute terms. The nation and world is rapidly changing and the absolute and relative offering of America, compared to the rest of the world, and is also changing. I think America and Americans are living off a reputation of America created in the past that is lagging its current reality.

Finding New ways to explain Black Poverty and Black Disadvantage.....

New studies, experts in various fields and the majority of white conservative think tanks continue to search for and find new ways to explain Black poverty and disadvantage in America. Any reason beyond the most obvious reason; “America’s structural racist system” is explored and accepted as the reason to explain the condition of Black men and women in America. I do not think there is any other issue, circumstance or reality in America that have more explanations as to why it is than the condition of Black men and women in America. We have heard, the personal responsibility explanations, we have heard the lack of parenting explanation, we have heard the genetically inferior explanation, and of course the victim mentality explanation. Well, we have a new explanation to add to the list of reason why our condition continue to be what it is, this reason deals with educating our children and the complete failure of the public school system to educate our children.

A new study done by the University of Florida “suggests” that Black students with “exotic” names don’t do as well in school as Black students with more “common” (read: white) names.

“The University of Florida study found that students with names such as Da'Quan or Damarcus are more likely to score lower on reading and math tests.”

“Researchers said that black students with unusual (read: non-white) names are also less likely to meet teacher expectations and be referred to gifted programs than black students with more common (read: white) names, such as Dwayne.”

"This study suggests that the names parents give their children play an important role in explaining why African-American families on average do worse because African-American families are more inclined than whites or Hispanics to give their children names that are associated with low socio-economic status,”

This is the first I heard of names being associated with low socio-economic status. This also must mean there are names associated with being rich, I wonder if my name is a name associated with low social-economic status. Doesn’t it make sense that people will give their children a name that not only reflect the culture of their people but in many instances the condition of their people? Are we to believe that a particular name a child is giving will determine how a child will do in school, rather or not that child will be a criminal? The study answers this question by making a simple truth known; Black children with non-white names do not suffer because of their name, they suffer because of the racism that exist in the hearts and mind of white teachers. The study states;

“boys and girls with exotic names suffer in terms of the quality of attention and instruction they get in the classroom because teachers expect less from children with names that sound like they were given by parents with lower education levels”

Oh, so this is not a naming issue, this is a problem with our children being educated by folk who think less of them based on their name and the assumed relationship it has with the education and class status of their parents. One thing we should understand is that this mentality and thinking stretches beyond the classroom, it is present in the criminal justice system and as study after study have shown it is present in the job market. The number of ways in which Black upward mobility is being stifled by racism in America is innumerable. The study found that siblings with the exact same scores but with different names one being “Dwayne” and the other being “Damarcus” results in “Dwanye” being recommended for a gifted program while his brother “Damarcus” is not.

The extent to which this problem has hurt black children is immeasurable, the overall effect this has had on our community is equally immeasurable. The study also found that children with “Asian” sounding names were more likely to be recommended for gifted programs, which means that if we want our children to be treated fairly if not better than they currently are, we would be better off given them “Asian-sounding” names than white names. So maybe I should change my son “Faheem” name to “Yin” if I want him to be thought of us smart. Maybe you should do the same with your children. No more “Condoleezza’s and Oprah’s, we need more “Jennifer’s” and “Chi’s.

Europe exported vices to Africa: Pope

I have long postulated that most of the problems Africa faces today is the product of having come in contact with Europeans. Just recently, the new Pope has come out and stated the obvious, which is a belated recognition of a long historical fact. Such an admission by the Pope is sure to weaken the image of the pontiff.

Pope Benedict XVI has said Europe must take responsibility for having Exported "all of its vices" to Africa, naming corruption and violence, which he said were devastating the continent.

It is high time that white folks from colonizing European origins take responsibility and accountable for causing many of the problems in Africa and other colonized lands. There is a movement among conservatives to propagate the idea that personal responsibility and accountability is what will change the reality of the poor. This is because they link the problems of blacks and poor to irresponsible behavior that the government is then expected to be accountable for.

Europe also exported to Africa all of its vices, corruptions and violence which are devastating African and we (Europe) must recognise our responsibility, he said.

The import-export of faith must be stronger and more responsible than the export of the vices of Europe.

To me this seems one of our great responsibilities, he said

The truth is that many of the problems of black people, if not the poor, are the resultant and legacy of the government and nation not being responsible for 300 years of unequal treatment and abuse. Thus, if the nation abdicated its responsibility to fix a problem it created, then the only solution for the problem is for individuals to inherit the burden of solving these problems, which many lack the resources and environment to do. Hence, the failure of many to pull themselves out of the whole that the nation put them is looked upon as personal failure and irresponsibility.

Africa is a continent that has been ravaged by the exploitation of whites that left a template for corruption and exploitation after their colonies were abdicated. The Europeans culturally, politically, economically, linguistically altered the continent. They imported religion and created national borders that reflected the interest of competing European nations, as opposed to indigenous homelands and ethnicities. Now that the Africans have successfully emulated what the Europeans taught them, they Africans are credited for the stagnation, if not ruin, of the continent, while the centuries of European manipulation is given no correlation to current problems.

Chanting Down Babylon?

Are the Rastafarian’s succeeding in chanting down Babylon for all its wickedness? Of course, Babylon is the metaphoric name given to the land where the lost tribes of African slaves were brought into captivity and the evil motivation for it. Ras Tafari’s have always predicted the collapse of Babylon, whose modern capitals are in the USA and England.

The truth is that Babylon is indeed collapsing under the weight of its own success. The phenomenon is akin to attempting to build a skyscraper from stone. As the structure reaches new heights… the weight and downward force upon the lower foundation will lead to the foundation crumbling under the pressure. Of course, when the foundation crumbles, the structure is doomed for collapse. Architects, therefore, need to be cognizant of the laws of physics and the constraint it places on how high a stone structure can be built before it collapses from achieving height.

Capitalism is like a stone Skyscraper where architects and builders are more concerned with achieving height and growth, than the the physics that should constrain height and growth to support structural integrity and sustainability. Instead of measuring growth and success in floors and height, capitalism measures growth in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and as long as GDP is increasing, the project is thought to be going well. In Babylon today, GDP and the stock market are the primary indicators of wealth and hence health of the nation and its people. As often stated as the reason people vote one way or anther: “It’s the economy…Stupid”. How many floors have been added under the current Nebuchadnezzar? It does not matter that part and parcel to this growth is moral decline and the lessening in importance of religion, family and other.

The ignored physics of capitalism is the correlations between success and energy consumption. All movement requires an energy source. Thus, the success of the action verbs of production and consumption, endemic in degree to capitalism, requires massive amounts of energy to fuel the movements of production and consumption in producing its great GDP and wealth. The problem here is that the fossil fuel that provides the energy prerequisite is finite. Consequently, as new heights of production and consumption are reached, the corollary is proportional new lows in finite fossil fuel supplies. Eventually a point of diminishing returns will be reached, which is also the point that collapse begin. Hence, the curse of capitalism is its success and the blessing of less productive systems is its failures, relative to finite energy supplies. In short, there is a correlation between wealth and energy consumption and rates of depletion. Hence, there is a correlation between capitalism ability to produce wealth and the depletion of fossil fuel energy.

There are already signs that Babylon’s most productive economy is in trouble. The accelerator and brakes of our economic vehicle are monetary and fiscal policy, mainly monetary though. When GDP is sluggish or recessionary, the FED attempts to accelerate growth by reducing the price to borrow money, which infuses more money (fiat money) into the system, stimulating economic activity. This is usually followed by the less effective fiscal policy of cutting taxes. Together, historically, when these two actions are taken, the economy picks up steam. However, in the current practice of this policy, the economy is still sputtering and staling after several years of implementing accelerating measures.

An ominous indicator for the economy is that interest rates are rising while rates of GDP growth indicate that the economy has not fully recovered from the recession. The constraining of bank lending, the resultant of interest rate hikes, is what brought about the last great depression, by bringing about the collapse of the stock market, whose performance is greatly correlated with FED FUND activity. Usually interest rates must rise to fight off inflation or the devaluation of currency. The biggest influence on inflation, besides theoretical full employment, is energy prices. The secular (long term) trend in oil (primary fuel of capitalism production and consumption) prices is radical prices increases, due to increased demand and shrinking supplies. Note that the price of a barrel of oil has dropped ONLY because of the slow down in the US economy (the largest consumer), has reduced demand creating an inventory sold off by reduction in price.

Other tale tales signs of foreboding can be gleaned from the activity and policies of the advocates for the elites, which is the Republican Party. The changing of Bankruptcy law is designed to help protect creditors in the upcoming economic crisis. The proposal of private accounts for SS is more aimed at having a new infusion of cash into the stock market, in order to help prevent its negative reaction and selling that will result from rising interest inflation and interest rates. Preventing the collapse of the stock market is a key to preventing a collapse in the economy and depression. Finally, only a zealous political patriot of the right cannot see the link between our military actions and Oil. Whoever controls the Oil will have the fate of nations in their hand in the near future, during the era of diminishing returns. The US is positioning itself to have control, via proxy, of largest areas of know reserves, given the growth and demand of China and India and other rising economies.

Many people have their heads stuck in the sand or consumed by politics of left and right, will they ignore the consequences and tradeoffs of capitalism that has subtracted from the future in order to maximize production and consumption in the present.


I and I build a cabin
I and I plant the corn
Didn't my people before me Slave for this country
Now you look me with a scorn
Then you eat up all my corn

We gonna chase those crazy baldheads
Chase them crazy
Chase those crazy baldheads out of town

Build your penitentiary, we build your schools
Brainwash education to make us the fools
Hate is your reward for our love
Telling us of your God above

Here comes the conman
Coming with his con plan
We won't take no bribe, we got stay alive

We gonna chase those crazy
Chase those crazy baldheads
Chase those crazy baldheads out of town

-Bob Marley

To Be A Slave

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It has been a month or more since a brother handed me a little book entitled “To Be A SLAVE”. I get handed lots of reading material, so I did not think anything of this little book beyond the fact that it was an old book, (it has a copyright date of 1968). This past Sunday, I finally got around to reading it and found myself completely emerged in it. This little book is a book of narratives dictated by African men and women enslaved in America. This book chronicles our story, “the African story” as spoken by African men and women from the time we were kidnapped from our homeland, to the treatment and conditions on the slave ship on through the subsequent treatment and condition we lived with as an enslaved people here in America.

In the early 19th century abolitionist took down the stories of enslaved African men and women who escaped to the north, our stories became a literary genre and provided fuel for the anti-slavery movements in the north. The stories told by those who escaped to the north were stored “at the Archive of Folksong at the Library of Congress” and it was here where the Author of this little book Julius Lester found them in 1963 and after reading through these narratives he decided to publish a book and “To Be A SLAVE” is what came out of his readings.

“To Be a SLAVE” is one of those books that will send the reader on an emotional roller coaster. Some of the narratives will make the reader angry, some will make the reader cry, others will make the reader take pride in being the descendant of a people who endured so much and as Antwon Fisher said of himself “we still standing, we still strong”.

The Book opens up with tales of how African men and women were captured and the trickery used to capture them. There are narratives of the fights that took place between the European invader and the African fighting for his life and right to self determination. One narrative speaks of an African Village being woken up;

“by the horrible uproar caused by mingled shouts of men and blows given with heavy sticks, upon large wooden drums. The village was surrounded by enemies, who attacked us with clubs, long wooden spears and bows and arrows”.

Those that did not escape or were not killed were shackled and chained and forced to walk for three weeks to the “Slave Ships” that would ultimately be the death of some of them. Among those that survived the walk were women who carried their babies with them. The narrative says of these mothers and their children;

“The men who fastened the irons on these mothers took the children out of their hands and threw them over the side of the ship into the water. When this was done, two of the women leaped overboard after the children”

The book offers narratives that detail the breaking down of the African and the resistance the African put forth and how in many instances our ancestors believed death to be a better alternative than living as a slave. In reading these narratives and seeing the enslaved African refer to himself and his people as “Niggers” one get the notion that the African did not know that the word “Nigger” was a demeaning word, and there are narratives that chronicle the enslaved men and women taking the word “Nigger” and trying to put a positive spin on it as is done today by many of our young folk.

There are narratives that mentioned the way Religion was used to institutionalize the slave mentality and how when an African overseer was entrusted with transporting enslaved men and women over a thousand miles from their enslaver plantation to Kentucky, they came in contact with free Black men and women alone the way who said to them, they did not have to report to their new enslaver, they are free, they can get off where they were and live as free men and women. The overseer felt obligated based on what he had been taught by white preachers to deliver the men and women he traveled with to their new enslaver. The overseer said in regards to running away or freeing those with him;

“The duties of a the slave to his master as appointed over him in the Lord, I had ever heard urged by ministers and religious men, it seemed like outright stealing”

There are quite a few narratives that will make the reader laugh, especially knowing how we as a people today still manage to find something to laugh about regardless of our condition. There was an instance where one enslaved African convinced his enslaver he “was nearly blind and therefore unfit to work, After the civil war he was freed and once free he proceeded to become one of the best farmers in the area, Freedom having miraculously restored his sight.”

All in all this is a book that should be in every Black home, it offers so much and it allows us a real peak into how we became who we are today and the tools used by the enemy of our freedom to enslave us, keep us enslaved and so mentally destroyed that once freed we remained mentally shackled. The book offers insight into the thinking of those Black men and women that have switched sides and now serve the enemy of our freedom based on rewards offered to him or her for his or her service. Yesterday’s overseers are no different than today’s overseers.

One of my favorite narratives is the narrative about those enslaved men and who were not born in America and still remembered their homeland. Of them it is said;

“The native African are revengeful, and unforgiving in their tempers, easily provoked and cruel in their designs. They generally place little, or even no value upon the fine houses and superb furniture of their masters; and discover no beauty in the fair complexions and delicate form of their mistresses. (mistresses is the word used in reference to white women, specifically the enslavers wife) They feel indignant at the servitude that is imposed upon them and only want power to inflict the most cruel retribution upon their oppressors, but they desire only the means of subsistence and temporary gratification in this country during their abode here.

They are universally of the opinion and this opinion is founded in their religion, that after death they shall return to their own country and rejoin their former companions and friends in some happy region, in which they will be provided with plenty of food and beautiful women from the lovely daughters of their native land”.

Oh, how far we have fallen from what our ancestors believe to now. Many of us believe and will spend our life defending a white God with hopes that when we die we go in the sky to meet that white God. Pick up this book if you have not read it, it sells for less that seven dollars.