Black-only businesses allowed in "AfricaTown"
Ralph R. Reiland:
"The idea is to build an 'AfricaTown,' similar to Little Italy and Chinatown," explained Charles Oliver in a recent issue of Reason magazine, referring to the vote by Detroit City Council to spend $30 million a year in public money to develop a blacks-only, race-based district of entrepreneurship in downtown Detroit.
"By a 7-2 vote," reported Oliver, "the council has decreed that only black businessmen and investors can qualify for the money." The concept of this black version of Little Italy originated in a $112,000 report commissioned by the council: "A Powernomics Economic Development Plan for Detroit's Under-Served Majority Population."
Detroit's population is poor, shrinking and overwhelmingly black. By official count, 26 percent of the populace is living below the poverty line and 83 percent of the city's population is black. It's this "under-served majority population," according to the "Powernomics" report, that is being passed up economically by a mixed bag of nonblack newcomers.
More specifically, the report complains that entrepreneurial immigrants from Latin America and the Middle East are opening up too many stores and selling too much of everything to blacks. In doing so, it's alleged that these money-grubbing greenhorns are stealing jobs and business opportunities from blacks.
The plan is to create a black Little Italy, dubbed AfricaTown, funded in large part by taxpayers' dollars and made up of black-owned businesses catering to a black clientele.
And will the public money only come from black taxpayers or will taxpayers of all races be expected to fund this nonsense?
posted by Adam Lawson @ 12:44 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
As the population of Detroit is 97.06% African-American, they are the taxpayers. Small business operators pay a larger share of their income in taxes than chain stores because they don't have stockholders to tide them over when they lose money.
"Africa Town" is a good idea, encouraging economic activity in areas of the city where other cultural groups are not engaged. Miguel Mena
How do you know that the population of Detroit is 97.06% African-American? Doesn't that sound a little high for a minority group that makes up only about 13% of the total U.S. population? Even if you are right shouldn't local governments try to encourage the best businesspeople to invest in their areas and not restrict investment to one particular racial group?
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