"Tabb goes on to specify two key relationships that must exist to support the analogy of the Afrikan American community as colony: (1) economic control and exploitation, and (2) political dependence and subjugation. That this is the case and can easily be established through a rather cursory study of White American political repression and economic exploitation of Black American communities from slavery to the present.

Moreover, a description of the economic characteristics of the typical Afrikan American ghetto readily fits that of a typical less-developed, neo-colonized country. Such a description includes the following traits (Tabb, 1970; Offiong, 1982)

a. Relatively low per-capita income; high birth rate; a small, weak middle class; low rates of increase in labor productivity, capital formation, domestic savings; and a small monetized market.

b. An economy heavily dependent on external markets where demands for its human and material resources are relativitaly static or declining.

c. A relatively high desire to consume the products enjoyed by wealthier populations which works to increase the quantity and value of imported goods and services over and above the quantity and value of goods and services (human and non-human capital) exported. Its major export is unskilled labor.

d. Much of the small modern sector of the economy is owned by outsiders. Local entrepreneurship is limited as is managerial know-how.

e. Local marketers are relativity limited; businesses lack capital; savings rates are low and what is saved is usually not invested locally. The incidence of credit default is high.

f. Unemployment is prevalent. Welfare payment, i.e., governmental transfers are needed to pay for the community's requirements. Important jobs in the local public economy (e.g., teachers, firemen, policemen) are held by outsiders.

g. The economic and social infrastructure are relativity disarticulated," i.e., fragmented, disorganized and disunited.

h. The cultural and intellectual elite are "penetrated," i.e., the community's most influential leaders, opinion shapers and molders ideologically identify with the ruling elite of the dominate cultural/economic group and are dependent on a continued relation with them.

i. An education establishment structured by the political, social and economic dynamics of the dominant group so as to perpetuate the miseducation, poor or inadequate education and training of the community populace thereby perpetuating its underdevelopment, non-competitiveness, and dependency.

In light of the foregoing list, we must take care and not adopt the sure fallacious tendency so prevalent among Eurocentric economists and social scientist, i.e., to treat African American community as a self-contained unit whose political, social or economic system can be analyzed out of the context of its domination by the larger White American community.

Otherwise, the characteristics of "underdevelopment" listed above will be erroneously identified as reflections of the inherent characteristics of Afrikan Americans themselves; as the absence of certain crucial values, attitudes, beliefs, levels or aspiration and motivation or other personal and communal inadequacies.

An equally fallacious approach prevalent among Eurocentric economists is to reduce the problem of the underdevelopment of the Afrikan American community (and the world wide Afrikan community as well) to prevalence of an aggregation of factors such as those listed above, as if they are the cause rather than the effects of White imperial domination and exploitation.

The way the Afrikan economic system(?) has been and is structured is directly related to the history and current nature of the social-economic relations between the White and Black American communities and to the ways in which the Afrikan American community has been and is affected by national and international industrial and economic polices of the White-run U.S. government. The essence of the Afrikan American economy is its subjugation to White American economic imperialism."

Blueprint for Black Power: Amos N. Wilson (1998), pg 249

Below, Amos Wilson speaks about the "Blueprint for Black Power."
Amos Wilson - A Blueprint for Black Power

© March 2006 By Afromerica

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Afromerica: Where its all Black & white and some gray areas.