Edited by
Jon Lebkowsky and
Mitch Ratcliffe

Buy the Book

extremedemocracy at del.icio.us

Enter your Email


Preview | Powered by FeedBlitz

Join the Conversation

Extreme Democracy Event at Texas Forums

Texas Forums Virtual Room

Extreme Democracy Study Guide by Texas Forums

Upcoming Link

Extreme Democracy at Attendr

Price: Free

Registration: None required

Schedule: 12, 1 hour sessions, on Monday. The schedule begins June 18, 2007 at 7 pm CDT.

Outline: Topic schedule may change. Please check Texas Forums web site for updates.

August 20 - 6.4 Billion Points of Light: An interview of Roger Wood (6.4 Billion Points of Light: Lighting the Tapers of Democracy), pages 241 – 265, by Paul Schumann

August 27 - Activist Technology: A discussion of the essays of Jon Lebkowsky (Virtual Bonfire: A Brief History of Activist Technology) pages 267 - 275, Jay Rosen (The Weblog: An Extremely Democratic Form of Journalism), pages 104 – 110, Britt Blaser (The Revolution Will Be Engineered: An Assessment of the Present and Possible Future of Net-based Political Tools) pages 276 – 295

September 10 - Political Tools: A discussion of the essays of Adina Levin (Campaign Tools), pages 320 - 362 & Phillip Windley (eVoting), pages 191 – 198.

September 17 (Constitution Day) - Future of Democracy: A discussion among the participants

How to Participate: Join each session at http://67.19.90.10/masteradmin/room.asp?id=rs36a886a07b55. Allow a few extra minutes the first time you attend to download the necessary software. A PC is required. Broadband Internet access is preferable. If you wish to join in the conversations verbally, a PC microphone is required. (Text messaging is also available.) No password is required for these sessions. Login with the name you'd like to be known by in the session.

Blog : The Extreme Democracy blog will be used to facilitate discussions between the sessions and explore concepts. (http://www.extremedemocracy.org )

Archive: All of the programs and the Extreme Democracy blog will be archived. The audio, text messages and video of each session will be recorded and available on the Texas Fourm web site.

Sponsors: The Central Texas Chapter of the World Future Society (www.centexwfs.org) and Texas Forums (www.texasforums.org) , an initiative of the LBJ Library (www.lbjlib.utexas.edu) , are sponsoring this series of seminars in cooperation with Jon Lebkowsky and Mitch Ratcliffe of the Extreme Democracy (www.extremedemocracy.com) project.

Read the Book:

Open Threads

Editors' Notes

Logo by
Adam Greenfield

Templates by
Boris Anthony

« Blogging from Austin | Main | Children and society »

June 28, 2007

Business and Finance

Do black people do business with black people?

Blogging the conversation in the room...

Deciding where to shop: do we shop black businesses? Do we shop locally? Do we buy American? Would we buy from Walmart because it's cheaper, though the money doesn't stay in town? I.e. to what extent do we, or can we, make economic decisions based on factors that aren't purely economic?

Do we invest in ourselves to create the things that we spend money on? How can you buy from a black-owned business, when there's so few of them? The reality is that it's hard for you to invest in yourself, if you're black.

A black financial advisor finds it hard to get other blacks to work with him because they don't trust him, as a financial advisor, as readily as they might white advisor.

Another commenter: If a black people really wants to do business with other blacks, they need to go out and find them.

We need to set the right kind of expectations. The book doesn't talk about the abject poverty in our community, and it's a poverty of the spirit as well as a poverty of means. Children have the ability to create a positive world, but not if you tell them they're in a box and they can't get out. You have to tell them that they can be creative.

Positive reinforcement starts at home: if they don't get it at home, it's going to be hard for them to get it anywhere else.

Race is a factor in this, but individuality is a factor as well... it's a combination. You can't assess based on race alone... it's a combination of humanity, race, and drive.

Blacks are only 12% of the country, and 9% of Austin's population. White people may not work together all that well or that much, but there's a larger pool of them.

(The people in the room just formed a circle, so they could see who's speaking.)

Posted by Jon Lebkowsky at June 28, 2007 5:04 PM

Comments

Post a comment




Remember Me?


Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.extremedemocracy.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/56