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    From Freedom to Ferguson: The Private Sector Opportunity to Empower Black America
    From Freedom to Ferguson: The Private Sector Opportunity to Empower Black America
    From Freedom to Ferguson: The Private Sector Opportunity to Empower Black America
    Ebook99 pages1 hour

    From Freedom to Ferguson: The Private Sector Opportunity to Empower Black America

    By Mike Green

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    About this ebook

    Every protest and demonstration in the American struggle to overcome inequities embedded in our system of governance hearkens back to the Bill of Rights. The recent fallout from the Ferguson, Missouri demonstrations against injustice have engulfed the nation in similar protests, debates and clashes between individuals and institutions. Back Americans are expressing outrage over the killing of an unarmed black man in Ferguson by a white police officer. They are being joined by a multicultural crowd of supporters who believe the United States was founded upon the premise that all men are created equal with equal protection under the law. This was a principle injected into the DNA of the nation at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Yet, Dr. Martin Luther King described the process engaged by the founding fathers as "schizophrenic," because their behavior and practice bore no resemblance to the constitutional laws they established. And the notion that all men in America have ever been regarded as equal in the eyes of the law isn't based in fact. This book is a revelation of untold history in America.

    Yet, this book recognizes that knowledge of the past is to empower us today and set the the stage for opportunity in the future. There is a movement afoot across America, pressured along by new generations with grand ideas of a multicultural nation of peoples with a desire to coexist in peace, in harmony, and with communities collaborating, and leaders listening and serving the will of the people. That movement of 21st century economic inclusion and competitiveness is clashing with the crumbling 20th century power structure that both created and waged war upon Black America.

    Today's private sector is the key component that will decide how long this war continues. The private sector holds an enormous amount of responsibility for the war and holds an equal amount of responsibility for ending it. The good news is there's evidence that today's private sector is seeking to settle the transgressions of the past and turn away from the exclusionary economic practices of previous policies and step toward a future frontier of inclusion and empowerment of all underrepresented and under-served populations in America.

    That's good news for Black America, which has suffered generations of extreme violence at the hands of a white male-dominated society and daily abuses that have taken a terrible toll on the core black family. Will the private sector move quickly enough to uplift and empower Black America in the 21st century? That's the quintessential question posed in this book.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMike Green
    Release dateDec 4, 2014
    ISBN9781310568688
    From Freedom to Ferguson: The Private Sector Opportunity to Empower Black America
    Author

    Mike Green

    National Visionary Voice of Economic Inclusion / Integration Award-winning journalist: 18 years experience. New York Times Leadership Academy Fellow. Social Media at CNN. Digital Media Innovations Strategist at Dow Jones Local Media Group. Columnist: Oregon Business magazine, Governing Institute, Huffington Post. National Commitment: As a member of the Clinton Global Initiative High-Growth Entrepreneurship Working Group successfully established ScaleUp America campaign. National speaker / moderator / producer: SXSWedu Conference, SSTI Conference, SBIR/STTR Conference, ScaleUp Rally for Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, National Urban League’s Urban Ideas Forum, Bill & Melinda Gates Symposium, Morehouse College Hopps Defense Research Scholars Symposium, HBCU Innovation Summit at Stanford University, Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference, Puget Sound Regional Economic Solutions Summit, DC STEM Summit (many more). Catalytic Leader Co-founder, ScaleUp Partners LLC: National consultancy focused on economic inclusion through vision, policy, strategy, implementation and measurable results. Architects of the nation’s only Inclusive Competitiveness economic policy and strategy. Unanimously adopted as statewide policy by the Ohio Board of Regents in Oct. 2014. Co-founder, Executive Director, ScaleUp America: a commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative High Growth Entrepreneurship Working Group. Dedicated to developing a framework and process for collaborating national leaders and channeling resources to the local level to scale up what’s working in regional innovation, inclusion and impact. Co-founder, The America21 Project: National nonprofit focused on changing the economic narrative in underrepresented populations and across underserved regions of urban and rural America, promoting “Inclusive Competitiveness” strategies and connecting economically disconnected communities to local innovation ecosystems. Founder, Saving America’s Black Boys Solutions Summits: Launched at SXSWedu Conference 2013 and invited back for a 2014 presentation, SABB is an unprecedented outreach to the leaders and influencers of the nation’s black boys and young men to provide education on teaching youth how to compete in a new economic paradigm. Writer / Producer Media: Columnist -- Huffington Post, Oregon Business Magazine. Contributor -- Washington Post, NPR, PBS, Black Enterprise Magazine and many other national, regional and local media. Producer: Produced ScaleUp Rally event for Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber: More than 200 regional and national business leaders and policymakers gathered in Portland, Oregon at the headquarters of famed global marketers Wieden+Kennedy to discuss breaking down the walls of competitive silos to collaborate national resources and channel them to the local level to scale up what works for job creation and economic competitiveness. Consultant to production team for inaugural HBCU Innovation Summit for the UNCF (United Negro College Fund) at Stanford University: Unprecedented event attracted support from the White House, Google, Facebook, Andreesen Horowitz, Kapor Center for Social Impact, Texas Instruments, APLU and others. Established as a new signature annual event for UNCF. Produced multiple unprecedented events bringing together diverse groups of minority entrepreneurs, investors, educators, business leaders and policymakers: Gathering of Angels Summit, Minority Biomedical Entrepreneurship Conference, Saving America’s Black Boys Solutions Summit, Puget Sound Region Economic Solutions Summit, Minority Media Entrepreneurship Boot Camp, University of Portland Black Leadership Summit. Tech Entrepreneur Founder and CEO of Vizitnow3D: For-profit technology company founded in 2009, specializing in navigable 3D virtual environments resembling real world business districts. Users vizit and tour the business districts of any target city and connect to merchants and other vizitors in real time in digital environments. Founder of Epiphany3D: For-profit edutech company. Educational games in a navigable 3D environment targeting STEM students. Journalist & Digital Media Innovation Strategist: Print/Digital Innovator at Dow Jones Local Media Group: Appointed by CEO to newly created position of Digital Media Innovations Strategist. Led experiments in transforming print newsroom to digital platform. Successfully transitioned 100-year-old print newspaper into award-winning digital-first media organization in two years. Recruited, trained and developed award-winning digital news team. Attained and maintained record-setting metrics. National Association of Black Journalists: Leading national voice at NABJ on issues of the innovation economy and economic inclusion. Mentor and trainer of journalists. Military Veteran Award-winning U.S. Navy Propulsion Engineer: Numerous leadership awards, including Sailor of the Year aboard USS Anchorage carrying 350 sailors, 600 Marines and a SEAL team; Numerous awards, including meritorious advancement in rank, as Navy Recruiter during first Gulf War. Four complete Western Pacific deployments of 6 months each. Successfully served aboard two Navy combat ships (Amphibious Assault and Guided Missile Cruiser). Received honorable discharge (1994).

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      Book preview

      From Freedom to Ferguson - Mike Green

      From Freedom to Ferguson

      The Private Sector Opportunity to Empower Black America

      By Mike Green

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2014 Mike Green

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      CONTENTS

      Overview

      The Opportunity

      The Reality

      The Choice

      The Challenge

      Ferguson’s Message: Learn From History

      Brief Timeline of America’s Civil(ian) War

      Altering the American Paradigm

      False Framing of Ferguson

      The Ferguson Bubble

      Historical Context: What You Do & Don’t Know

      The ‘Schizophrenic’ American Dream

      These Truths Are Self-Evident

      White America’s Dilemma: What to do with black people

      America’s Schizophrenic Black Question

      Blame Game: Institutional or Individual Responsibility?

      Timeline: White Males battle Over Blacks

      The Private Sector’s War on Black Americans

      America’s Icons Assassinated

      Black People: White America’s Liability or Opportunity

      Addressing Critics of Ferguson Protests

      Data Don’t Lie, But Require Context

      Focus on (blaming) the Black Family

      White America is ‘Done!’ (with Black America)

      21st Century Moynihan Rehash

      Historical Context

      After Ferguson: The White Male Dilemma

      Ferguson Forward

      Seeking Solutions? Start with Data

      From Freedom to Ferguson

      Call to Action

      From Freedom to Ferguson

      The Private Sector Opportunity to Empower Black America

      Overview

      I’ve never been to Ferguson, but I’ve lived there all my life. And so have you.

      Ferguson, Missouri is a microcosm of America. The divisions that played out in protests and demonstrations in this small town near St. Louis are representative of polarized perspectives that cover the nation.

      The outcry in the wake of a white police officer shooting dead an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson resonated across America, igniting similar outcries from coast to coast. Those demonstrations served to re-ignite the flame of national debate over deep-rooted issues impacting black people in America that have remained unresolved since the Bill of Rights was written.

      Dr. Martin Luther King characterized America’s personality at the time of its founding as schizophrenic. On one hand, the group of white males credited as founders of the country proclaimed it a land where all men are created equal and should be empowered to pursue life, liberty and happiness. At the same time, the architects of such profound policy practiced exactly the opposite.

      Since the Bill of Rights, a war of generational hostility waged by institutions of American power against black people has ebbed and flowed, as all wars do. And the battlefronts have changed over generations. But the dis-ease afflicting America on the issues of equality and equity for black people has persisted, with an unbroken string of protests and riots dating back as far as 1693 right up to the present day in Ferguson and beyond.

      The Opportunity

      But this is a new dawn. America has fundamentally changed, and there is no returning to the caustic chaos created by past political policies and public sector shenanigans. Today, in a multi-cultural landscape that’s racing at breakneck speed toward the mid-century mark when nonwhite peoples will comprise the majority of the population, the private sector no longer has the luxury of ignoring black and Hispanic Americans who, combined, will represent 42% of America by 2050.

      The growing pursuit of economic opportunity, jobs and wealth creation among underrepresented populations represents a tremendous landscape of investment opportunity. America’s leading power brokers and influencers must connect to the explosion of entrepreneurship among black and Hispanic demographic groups that have a growth rate of 60% and 44% respectively according to the latest Census data, which is more than triple and double the national average growth rate in entrepreneurs.

      The Reality

      But the vast majority of Black America’s entrepreneurs aren’t prepared to compete in a high-growth, tech-driven, globally competitive, innovation ecosystem. They desperately seek opportunity despite their environment of substandard schools, generational poverty and devastated communities. The two economically distinct Americas (one Black, the other White) didn’t happen organically or by natural selection.

      From the outset, black people were excluded from the promise of freedom and the pursuit of happiness. Following the Civil War and the changes in the law to transition black people from the Land of Oppression to the Land of Free, black people were targeted by terrorism in a land where the private sector waged war upon them. This history isn’t fully told in public schools because it isn’t pretty and doesn’t fit the American meritocratic myth.

      To fully understand Ferguson and associated protests decrying the inequities of American society, we must be cognizant of the realities of the past that have brought us to this point in history through a continuous timeline of struggles. And to be certain, today is a turning point in history at which America has the opportunity to pivot away from the exclusionary economic practices of the past and step toward the future frontier of economic inclusion and competitiveness.

      The Choice

      America can no longer continue to ignore the phenomenon of

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