Monroe Dispatch - No Struggle, No Progress

Black people and some White people know a thing or two about sharecropping. That’s where the owner (or master) has people to work for him and he gives them what he thinks their “share” of the profits should be. It was and is a system that kept Black people from progressing, because for a long time, that was a way of life for them. While some may believe that the owner was a benevolent person who gave everyone a fair share. That was not always the case, if ever. Before any money was given, the owner would always look at the “numbers”, that monetary objective that he had in mind in order for him to receive the maximum profit for his efforts. He would look at the amount of money he had invested in his venture and what numbers he would invest to ensure that he would receive a handsome profit. Would he spend “x” amount of dollars on “x” amount of yield, taking into account “x” number of people that he would employ to reach his goal. In other words, everything had to do with numbers and if one understood how numbers worked, then that person was in control of the outcome. In America, numbers control everything. When the government hands out money to the states, a number determines how much each state will receive. Then, the governor will disperse how much each county (parish) will receive all the way down to what cities/ towns will receive. How much each will receive is by predetermined numbers in each locale, just as that owner who had people work under the sharecropper system. In order to break away from that sharecropper system, we need to be in control of our own system within the system for there to be a change. There are those who will tell us that we have been “pencil whipped”, simply because we didn’t have the knowledge of knowing how to create for ourselves. Once the knowledge of knowing how numbers can work in our favor is gained, the playing field becomes a little more leveled. We can’t get away from numbers, as it may make the difference between having and wanting to have. Numbers are the absolute essential in business because that also plays a very important part in profit. An example would be filling up an NFL stadium. An owner would look for 80,000 seats to be filled at $125.00 per seat, multiplied by an x number of cars in the parking lot, plus a variety of x number of concessions sold. After taking overhead into consideration, that owner has a pretty good idea of what his profit will be. All because he looked at the numbers first.

Black people, in small measures, have broken away from that sharecropper mentality and now want to be seen as the one who signs the checks instead of receiving one. Knowing how numbers work and using them to one’s advantage, can help create wealth which can be passed onto future generations. Also, that wealth can be redirected back into the community. We live in a sellers-buyers world, you can’t have one without the other. Numbers play their part. The Christmas season is upon us and already there are those who have crunched the numbers based on Christmases past, and are forecasting what kind of economic impact this month will have in this nation. Oftentimes, the numbers meet their expectations. They say that “knowledge is power” and knowing how to use those numbers can lead to economic power. Yes, even being a part of the sharecropper system, something good came from it because we now can learn the knowledge of numbers. Where's the money for low income poverty that has been sent for the last 50 plus years to be used to help Monroe's impoverished communities? We need to know elected officials!