From: HF.GTD@forsythe.stanford.edu (Gabrielle Daniels)
Subject: What are you talking about?
Organization: Stanford University, California, USA
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 00:20:38 GMT

Whats really interesting about this whole debate, if one can call it
that, is that some of the whites on this board are so convinced its
their money thats on the line which is being wasted on so-called
useless programs.  I certainly didnt see any tax savings in my
paycheck while the GOP comedy team has been on board.  Even regular
black folks who are homeowners, etc.  and are conservative, have
questioned these guys particular motives while also insisting that
we begin to get our own black American economy rolling.

These white guys are like lemmings, really.  Rather than admit that
Reagan-Bush were wrong, and by extension themselves for voting
for the schmucks, theyre still willing to go down, even in flames,
with the ship.

Touching.  Pathetic.  Selfish.  Their money, their country, their
schools, their communities.  Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine.

Like I said before in a post, I like the idea of black folks doing
something with their hands.  My own grandfather was a small
businessman...he ran what we call a pressing shop...in a virtual
shed.  These days, folks are working at home...like the Cake
Man...to make buckos.  The Cake Man, if he keeps up, may be able to
run his own shop somewhere.  The idea of entrepreneurship has
never died within the black community.  Even during the Seventies,
black folks were not sitting on their hands with Federal help.

I still say that I am waiting for the black entrepreneur(s) to pick
up those guys who had been used and abused by Bethlehem Steel
and put them to work and give them a living wage for their state or
community that does not eat into opportunity for profit and
expansion.  When I hear idiots like Bush yelling that being green
will lose jobs I wonder why didnt they use the equipment and
procedures to keep an industrial site from becoming a toxic waste
dump in the first place?  Thats not wasting money.  Cleaning up
the mess is more expensive.  Im looking for the black entrepreneur
who can be both green and non-exploitative.

Furthermore, Im looking for the black person with bucks...like Cosby
and Oprah...to do black artists and writers like me a favor and
begin some creative workplace, like Yaddo and the Fine Arts Center
in Provincetown.  Ive gone to Hedgebrook Farm in Washington state, a
writers retreat for women for two months--in the fall of 1991.  They
are dead on looking for women of color.  While I applaud this
concept, I left the place feeling profoundly pissed off at reading
about Oprah Winfrey blowing a few hundred thousand on Shaker
furniture, and no damn money on creating something long-lasting for
black creative people.  They can create scholarships at Spellman,
they can certainly put some foundation money down on some place out
in Montana or Georgia or something, get a board of directors going,
get non-profit status, buy some property, build or extend the
building(s) and start inviting creative folk to spend 3,6 months to
a year, writing, painting, and what not.  Most black creative folks
are POOR and if Bush gets re-elected, therell even be more
repression on folks from the NEA and NIH.

Hey yall.  I havent been to a demonstration since last years
anti-Gulf War marches, where I saw more black folks and people of
color out in the streets than Id seen in years.  The Columbus
Quinsesqe---oh, hell, I dunno--is coming up in the next couple of
weeks.  If the Native American community is putting together any
anti-Columbus ceremonies or marches, join them.  Say youre sick and
tired of being sick and tired.

Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american,soc.culture.african