Our Time PressThe Local Paper with the Global View

David Mark Greaves

When a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?  A tree fell across Black America in Geneva, Switzerland in April, and African Americans in the States would not have heard it were it not for the relentless ten year effort of the Brooklyn based December 12th Movement International Secretariat.

The International Secretariat has become a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) with consultative status at the United Nations.  It was that achievement that allowed them to be present at the 54th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights  meeting in Geneva when the U.S. Delegation took their axe into the forest.

At an April press conference held at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, Secretariat member Amadi Ajamu, who was at the Geneva session,  read the following release.  AA particular resolution put forward by the African Group is being vehemently debated on the floor and is of grave concern for all African people on the Continent and in the Diaspora.
AThe African Group resolution demands an official apology and sets the framework for reparations from those nations that facilitated and prospered from the Trans-Atlantic African Slave Trade.

The resolution cites the precedents set by certain nations to rectify past atrocities and gross human rights abuses through apologies, compensation, and reparations. The United States delegation to the Commission on Human Rights led by Ambassador Bill Richardson, stated that >Chattel slavery was not a crime against humanity because it was legal in the US.'(Emphasis added)  Further, the delegation has taken an opposing position on the question of reparations, and has demanded that >reparations’ be stricken from the resolution. In so doing, the US delegation does not represent the interests of the majority of Black people in America.

AThe December 12th Movement International Secretariat is actively mobilizing the Black community nationwide in support of this historic African Group Resolution… The United States and Western Europe must be held accountable for the long centuries of slavery and colonialism forced upon African people.
We’d like to repeat the stunning statement of a diplomatic representative of the U.S. government.  AChattel slavery was not a crime against humanity because it was legal in the US.  This is an impossible position for any civilized person to take.   The text of this press conference should have been in the headline of every newspaper, news-magazine and media outlet across the country.   When an official of the U.S. Government makes that kind of statement, there should be a spasmodic reaction by Black people and their political representatives.
If chattel slavery is not a crime against humanity, then what is?

Apparently we need constant reminders of what slavery was.   For hundreds of years, African people, our forebears, our ancestors, were killed and tortured until the survivors worked as slaves.  Then they were treated as livestock and bought and sold as any other livestock would be.   Their labors made the emergence of the United States possible.  And it=s the United States position that this was not a crime against humanity because it was legal at the time?
White-owned media are worse than useless as a source for information.  They present us with Jesse Jackson talking about Trade not Aid, and warm and fuzzy photo-ops of Bill Clinton and Hillary looking at elephants, and holding African babies.   Meanwhile their delegation to the Commission on Human Rights was continuing the rape of black people in America behind closed doors in Geneva.  But this time we know about it because of the determination of the December 12 Movement International Secretariat to work in the international arena.

Omowale Clay, speaking for the Secretariat, said that what is critical now is that there be an outcry that Bill Richardson, by taking the position that slavery was not a gross violation of human rights because it was legal in the United States, cannot represent progressive and African people in this country.    Mr. Clay went on to say that, AWhat the U.S. is really attempting to do is avoid the question of establishing the historical links between the slave trade and the benefits this country received.  Benefits that continue up to this very day. On Monday, April 27, the International Secretariat of the December 12th Movement made a full report to the African Community at The House of the Lord Church, pastored by Reverend Herbert Daughtry in Brooklyn, NY.

When you first learn American history, people like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Patrick give me liberty or give me death, Henry, are called Founding Fathers, and held up as heroes. The Declaration of Independence, though written by slaveholders, is held as a statement of universal human rights.

Today, the December 12 Movement, representing the heirs of those slaveholder=s slaves, are among the heroes of today, and are carrying forward that human rights legacy in national and international arenas.

From the Declaration of Independence to Martin Luther King, Jr., the December 12 Movement rests firmly in the mainstream of the American human rights struggle.
Most people are very familiar with the opening of the second paragraph; AWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness….    Lesser known is the listing of grievances against King George.   If you substitute current American institutions, you find that many of these still resonate in the African-American community.  For example, one complaint was, Afor transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses.  This speaks directly to the actions taken against Abdul Haqq by the FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force.  Mr. Haqq is a member of the December 12th Movement and an activist who had assisted in founding the Black Men’s Movement Against Crack and helped uncover police participation in drug-trafficking.

We have personally witnessed Mr. Haqq in the street talking with children about drugs and their future. Since there is ample evidence that the CIA was spending large sums of money in the 1980’s to bring drugs into the community, it is easy to see why the activities of people like Mr. Haqq would be questioned and responded to by those with the most to lose, the criminals working in the criminal justice system.   Mr. Haqq was arrested in New York in March of 1997, transported to Ohio, and put on trial for the Apretended offense of murder.   The trial ended in an acquittal on April 22, 1998, and it represented a tremendous triumph for the Movement, and for attorneys Roger S. Wareham and Terry Gilbert.

Mr. Wareham is also one of the counsels for the December 12th Movement International Secretariat and is the International General Secretary, for the International Association Against Torture.

Roger Wareham Reports to the Community
We got into the international work from the position that Malcolm X was correct when he said that if our struggle is to progress, we could not confine it to civil rights, we have to begin talking about human rights.  That we had to take our struggle and put it in the international arena, on the international agenda.  The arena for that is the United Nations.  The year before he was assassinated he was trying to make those connections in terms of the United Nations.

AWe (the December 12th Movement), were a part of a Freedom Now’ delegation that went to the United Nations in 1989, to bring to them the issue of political prisoners inside the United States.  What we found when we got there is that there was a real misconception on the international arena around the condition of Black folks…. The view they had of Black folks was really more influenced by the Dream Team, Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan.  They thought all of us here were living like that.  That we were all living good.
It became clear we had to go to square one, because there was so much information and misinformation being spread about our situation that people thought that racism was over inside the United States.

One of the things that happened when we got there was that there were people from progressive countries who were allies of our struggle, and who took us under their wings and shared their experience so that we did not have to start from scratch.  One of the things they told us was that the United Nations is a forum.  It is a forum for public perceptions and public propaganda.  People don’t free themselves inside the United Nations, but what they do is change international perceptions about their struggle and bring legitimacy to it.   And they said that in order to do that, you have to keep coming.  You can’t come one year and don’t come for another two or three years.  You have to come to the point where when you walk in the hall, people know who you are and they know what you’re there for.  Which means that you’ve got to keep coming.  This was a commitment that we as an organization made, and which was a greater commitment than we had imagined, in terms of the sacrifice of going to Geneva Switzerland twice a year, which is an incredibly expensive place.  But we made that commitment because we were convinced that that was what Malcolm was talking about, and to uphold his legacy we had to do that.  So we started going in 1989 and continued through to today.
In order to participate inside the United Nations, as a nongovernmental organization (NGO), you have to be accredited.  You have to have a track record, etcetera, etcetera.
So originally as the December 12 Movement, we participated as part of an NGO called the International Association Against Torture.  And it was in that organization that we began to make our impact inside the United Nations.  We did it in terms of the presentations we made at the Commission on Human Rights and the Sub-Commission as well.  We participated in the Third Committee of the General Assembly at the World Conferences on Human Rights, on Development, and on Women.

We had a strategic goal of winning the international community over to the fact that we were an oppressed nation and that we have a national liberation struggle, that we have a right to self-determination, that we were not simply a minority inside the United States.
In order to push that question, tactically we had to begin by discussing the question of racism.  Because as Viola (Plummer) was saying, that’s the language they understand.   Malcolm was a master of that.  He said when you go into an arena, you have to speak the language that the people speak, and they understood racism.  In presenting the facts of racism, in presenting our situation by the statistics that the United States government itself provides, it became clear that on every level we were no different in our relationship to the United States than Jamaica was to the United States, or Trinidad is to Great Britain, or any other colony is to a colonizer.
We entered in 1989, when the whole world geopolitical situation was changing. The Soviet Union was disintegrating, there was no longer a socialist block that would take up the interests of national liberation struggles.  The United States had assumed the role of being the only superpower and assumed a real dominance inside the United Nations.  So we were pushing a rock up a hill.  Some people said that it was hopeless, that we=d never get the United Nations to investigate the United States in this period of time.   We took the position that no one could tell us what we couldn=t do.
Our whole existence in the United States is proof positive that we shouldn’t even be here if we listen to what other people say.  We went there with the position that the United States was the major human rights violator in the world, and that the United Nations needed to investigate that.   From that struggle, from those meetings, from the interventions we made, from the discussions we had with different countries and folks, from the information we presented, and the way we presented it, in 1993 the United Nations appointed a Special Rapporteur on the theme of racism and racial discrimination.   They said that wasn’t going to happen.  Then we pushed for him to go to the United States first.  They said that wasn’t going to happen.  He came to the United States first, he issued a report, and to this day the United States is still upset about the report.  They say he distorted stuff, he was shallow, but it’s on the record, his findings of continued racism in the United States.
Last year we were successful in having the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial and summary executions come to the United States.  He did a scathing report around the question of the death penalty and around the questions of police killings in the United States.  His report was presented a few weeks ago…(as a result) the United States was forced to ratify an international covenant on international and civil rights where one of the things they talk about was eliminating the death penalty and the United States wasn=t going to give that up, and another was executing juveniles, and the United States wasn=t going to give that up.  So they signed it with the reservations that the U.S. could still execute juveniles and others.  So this report exposed the hypocrisy of the United States.  That=s an example of what we can accomplish in terms of perceptions in the international arena.
Last year the December 12 Movement got its own status as an NGO, so we can now participate as a full NGO with consultative status before the United Nations.

Publisher’s Comment
It is apparent that the December 12th Movement is becoming more and more effective, and pose a threat to very dangerous people and their interests.   As they continue to work and succeed, it is easy to see that the way society allocates its resources could change, changing fortunes and the direction of the nation.  There are people who don=t want this to happen, and they are capable of doing absolutely anything.  You need only look at what they have already done.

As the civil rights struggle shifted from civil rights to human rights, these people, in and out of government, killed Martin Luther King and began the heavy importation of drugs and arms into Black communities.   The loss of lives and the human potential is meaningless to them.   This is evident as whole industries spring up around the desire to subjugate, imprison, and kill Black and Brown people.  To destroy their families, to mis-educate and under-educate, in short, to restrict and constrict the human spirit of Black and Brown people by using any means necessary.

This is why it is important that the African-American community know as much about the work of the December 12 Movement as possible.  In the same way the forces of the state came for Abdul Haqq, they are capable of coming for others.  In the warning words of an 1851 poster addressed to the AColored People of Boston, AKeep a Sharp Look Out for Kidnappers, and have TOP EYE open.

– DG

Even the casual observer of local and global events would have to admit that these are strange times.  In rapid succession, a new event or devastation draws the attention of the world, replacing a previous calamity just fading from the scene. The Cold War is over and many countries are turning to democracy and taking aggressive steps toward developing their economies.  But there are still wars within our own borders.

Many economists report that the income gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen.  Inadequate education, unemployment and high rates of incarceration and homicide are common characteristics of our urban centers.  These problems are compounded by an apparent crisis in political leadership, media inattention to the issues that matter most, and a lack of spirituality in leadership overall.  It is evident there is a need for new methods of attacking the society’s problems, a need to critique the role major media outlets play in reporting and discoursing on politics and society and a need for leaders with integrity who are willing to struggle for a cause greater than themselves.

Most people would liken the current political state of affairs to a spectator sport or, even worse, a war without bloodshed.  Election campaigns are conducted as a combination of television ads, polls and personal attacks.  They are not issues-oriented information campaigns where voters can have true participation in the democracy.  Within the local political arena, many of our leaders have been elevated to stratospheric celebrity-status.  In many instances, sustaining power in the form of fame-and-fortune seems to be the goal as opposed to using power to empower and bring about change for the common good of the people.  Cornel West is referring to a crisis in Black leadership specifically, but would have been accurate if he was referring to leadership in general, when he writes, A…most present-day black political leaders appear too hungry for status to be angry, too eager for acceptance to be bold, too self-invested in advancement to be defiant…

Look at the campaigns currently unfolding in New York State.  The Lieutenant Governor makes a Aduring the term party switch, changes Apolitical parties instead of changing her principles,@ then announces she is going to run as a Democrat against her former Republican running mate, and current boss, Governor Pataki. Although she is backed by a huge financial war chest, her backing from Democratic party leaders is tepid. Even more spectator sport is the upcoming Rumble in the Jungle Part II, with at least three Democratic heavyweights lining up to deliver the knock out punch to Republican Senator Al Dmato.  Some of the candidates have already pledged to avoid the low-blows many witnessed in the 1992 campaign, a race in which some of the present candidates were involved.

Besides observing the intrigue of the campaign, there is not much in the current political environment to motivate an individual to become engaged in public life.  Is it realistic to expect more thought provoking discourse?  Or is it more accurate to describe our culture as The Argument Culture, as the title of a new book by Deborah Tannen suggests?   People want answers to their questions and solutions to their myriad problems.  By voting, citizens entrust democratic institutions and individuals with the responsibility to solve national and international problems.  There is much doubt, however, about many of our leaders commitment and abilities to improve society’s ills.  Even those who maintain such faith have to have some degree of dissatisfaction over the current political state of affairs, and for good reason.

William Greider, in Who Will Tell the People (Simon & Schuster), says, Athe citizens attitudes and actions powerfully confirm that the political system we call democracy has lost substantive meaning.  They can testify from experiences to all the many elements of decay that have been identified as the >realities of power.=@  Now is a crucial time to have citizens who play an active role in the fate of our country. Leaving the serious affairs of the world to our elected officials will not work.

In fact, the political dilemma can be solved in part by not placing the burden of solving problems on the politician.  Citizens have to defeat their own cynicism and apathy and have to find ways to become involved at some level.  The politician also has to create dialogue with the citizen (town meetings, meeting with community groups, community leaders) in order to demystify the legislative process.  There also has to be a realization that the gains we can make in improving the society through the political system alone are limited.  For example, community business leaders often do not receive nearly the degree of attention that politicians receive, yet they share an equal, if not greater, role in the struggle.  Historically, small businesses have played a major role in the growth of the nation.  Small businesses can also play a major role in the growth of our communities today.

We also need individuals and organizations that observe and become involved with the political system to assure that legislation passed is not detrimental to our community and benefits most Americans, not just the financial elite individuals and special interests groups. A great deal of this role is fulfilled by nonpartisan advocacy groups, which engage in dialogue with politicians around a wide range of on-going, significant issues.  Politics in this democratic capitalist society, is fueled by economics.   Those with the economic means (foreign powers, big businesses, etc.) can hire lobbyists to fight on behalf of what is in the best interests of their survival.

We need individuals and nonpartisan advocacy groups that speak on behalf of byist.  An example is Marion Wright Edelman of the Children=s Defense Fund, who provides a clear, strong voice on behalf of the nations children.

In addition to politics, another substantial concern is the increasing corporate control of media.  Corporate conglomerates place a high priority on what sells newspapers and magazines, not necessarily on disseminating fair and accurate information.  Hype and sensationalism generated by the media, adds to the confusion of the political dilemma. There is a sacrifice of the relevant, in favor of the ridiculous.  For example, the possible sexual improprieties of the President are given more thorough attention, examination and coverage than the recent standoff in Iraq, the decline of the American people=s standard of living, increasing global competition and other economic concerns. The issues that matter most to the masses of people are hardly discussed in the media.

There are many social ideas and political options that never reach the public view,  because the media chooses the sensational, the tantalizing, the profitable, over the relevant.
The African-American community faces as many challenges as any other group, but the spate of the recent articles on black politics focuses more on personalities than on methods of progress. This past January, New York Magazine posed a rhetorical question to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,  AWhom Would You Choose, Dr. King?@ Dr. King=s was asked to choose (hypothetically) between The Reverend Al Sharpton and The Reverend Calvin Butts.  In addition to the arrogance of presuming to think for Dr. King, this article follows a historical tendency of creating binary conflicts between major black leadership. The mainstream media continues attempts to force us to face the same, Aeither/or proposition@ as Booker T. or W.E.B; King or X; Jesse or Farrakhan. All of these situations the media drums up are merely distractions.

It is a valid point that there are significant disagreements amongst our leadership at local, national and international levels. Such is a reality of human beings in interaction with each other. But communities of color cannot afford to have dialogue stifled by media machinations and exaggerations.
The individual who is serious about seeing communities rebuilt has to be critical about the information received from our most common media sources. We have to give greater support to our local periodicals, such as The New York Amsterdam News, The Daily Challenge, The Beacon, Our Time Press, among others.  In these papers, relevant issues which have local, national and international implications (from school board concerns to U.S. relations with Africa), and which the major media outlets appear to ignore or hide, are often brought to light.  It is only when such periodicals struggle or become defunct, as happened with the City Sun, that we realize how relevant they really are.  Giving a great deal of support to these various information outlets will expose and reduce the hold media conglomerates have on the flow of information and control of political debate.

The crisis of politics and media power, are not the only dilemmas we face.  What is also increasingly evident is the dilemma of spiritual deterioration. This deterioration manifests itself in the form of selfishness, prioritizing our own advancement at the expense of the masses, and measuring our goals and successes in the forms of fame and fortune.   The current major political parties, economic system, and media reporting are parts of the problem rather than the solution.

Solving the spiritual dilemma begins with spiritual leaders radically changing present human relationships and bringing people together who are willing to struggle for freedom, justice and equality for all of humankind. The movement that aims to change human relationships along these lines can lead to the beginning of the transformation process of our governments, ideologies, and even our religions and is our only chance of achieving world peace. We desperately need such leaders with integrity who are willing to inject a dose of spirituality into the veins of our society.  By spiritual leader I do not necessarily mean religious leader, clergy or anything of that sort.  Spirituality refers to a willingness to serve on behalf of others, setting aside material interests and tending to the needs of the least among us. It is insufficient and useless to think any longer in terms of the commonly used labels of Democrat, Republican, Liberal and Conservative.
Spiritual leadership requires working towards a cause higher than self, party or ideological orientation. The higher cause, improving the human condition, must be the canon which we use to decide which ideas are discussed further and which are abandoned. Then the dialogue and debate will be able to be civil and conducted by rational and reasonable minds. It is also insufficient to think in terms of  giving our allegiance or voting based on the color of their skin. (It is indeed difficult to not think of power through racial lenses when we were held powerless for so long based on race.)  The focus still has to be on spiritual leadership with integrity.

Why shouldn=t leaders be evaluated based on race?  If we evaluate merely on race there is a greater risk of approving leaders who do not have the desire or ability to progressively lead the people. The basic needs and wants in our society, and the anxieties that result from not having those needs and wants met is common to blacks, Whites and others. Poor people, the AHave-nots@, suffer anxiety to secure or maintain a job in order to maintain the basic needs to survive (food, clothing and shelter).  The main difference between blacks and Whites is the inordinate amount of blacks amongst society’s have-nots.

The type of leadership we need from individuals and institutions is spiritual leadership with integrity, free of addictions to materialism, not driven by quests for the accumulation and consumption of things and attaining power for self- aggrandizement. The process of democracy from government Aof, by, and for the people@ has been transformed into a power grab by lobbyists, lawyers and legislators.  We have to find daring leaders and institutions (churches, mosques, synagogues, NAACP, Urban League, Million Man March local organizing committees, etc.), who will use their unique positions to devalue monetary wealth, materialism, and the quest for power as the values we strive for.
Once we begin to study the leaders on which the media has focused lately and attempt to understand their motivations, one thing becomes obvious: although their approaches, friends, and enemies vary drastically, many of their goals and motivations are very similar. The questions we have to ask ourselves are:  What are the issues? What is at stake? What are the principles these leaders have dedicated themselves to fighting for? Where can we find the new leadership? We need institution builders such as Booker T. Washington, Rev. Flake, those who recognize the sins of the power structure such as Rev. Sharpton and Min. Farrakhan, intellectuals in the mold of W.E.B. Dubois and Cornel West.  We need brilliant politicians such as Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and Ronald Dellums, and those who can negotiate within the power structure such as the late Ron Brown, Vernon Jordan and William Parsons.  The most effective leadership is in such a collective, with serious leaders galvanized around the higher cause of improving the human condition. Unity is vital because no one person has all of the traits necessary.  It emanates from the common, unifying theme of the higher cause.

Although we do need unity, we do not need, and can never attain, uniformity. What is the difference? Unity implies that we are one in our purpose and goals, improving the human condition, increasing world peace, ending human suffering and misery. Uniformity implies that there should be a monolithic group- that we should think alike and behave alike.  Uniformity is something black communities are measured by, but something that no family, church, community or society can ever achieve. Unity is possible once the group defines and articulates its values and objectives. Allowing unity without uniformity is necessary, yet it will not emerge from politics as we know it today. This theme of unity was recently echoed by the great Civil Rights and Pan Africanist leader Kwame Toure at an event celebrating his life and legacy.  Mr. Toure said, AWe must have unity in our community, and we must understand that we can have unity in the widest diversity. We have a responsibility to insure this unity@.  The challenge for our political leaders today is to lift the veil of partisan postures. The cause has to be bigger than the interests of the party, winning the next election or arguing our ideologies. Neglecting to define, articulate and commit to a higher cause is what produces selfishness and erosion of civility amongst our leaders. This same condition eventually gives rise to the loss of faith, in our leaders and institutions, and cynicism amongst the electorate. It also represses that certain part of each of us that yearns to connect and contribute to a whole, greater than ourselves. The talented leader might be apprehensive about dedicating themselves to public service. The intelligent, concerned citizen might not feel compelled to go to the voting booths on election day.

The higher cause can only emerge from and be sustained by  honoring the capacity that is unique to each of us as individuals. If our priorities continue to be commitment to self and partisan interests, rather than the interests of the community, we will lose touch with the best elements of our humanity- the capacity to contribute our unique thoughts, creations and discoveries. We will be deprived of the potential leader=s capacity to think of new economic concepts, to discover new political paradigms and to ponder new possibilities.  We will be deprived of a golden opportunity to improve the human condition. We will be deprived of a chance to achieve victory against what Peter Drucker calls Athe turbulences, the transformations, the sudden upsets, which have made this century one of the meanest, cruelest, bloodiest in human history.@  Some would describe all of this talk of spiritual leaders, new relationships, new politics as empty rhetoric, idealistic and impossible.  I would respond by asking them what alternatives do you propose?  It is necessary to analyze, to dialogue and to debate. But more than anything this is the time, the precious present, to begin creating the bright future that we all desire.  This is a time for men and women of action.
The only alternative is to continue on our current chaotic path.  We would do so at our peril.

Here’s an interesting fact: nationwide, the number of businesses owned by African- Americans has gone through the roof in the last few years.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, black-owned companies increased a whopping 46% in the five years between 1987 and 1992, from 424,000 firms to 621,000.  This is nearly twice the rate of increase for non-black businesses.  From what I can see, this is a good news/bad news situation.
The good news is that the basic message of community self-reliance appears to be taking hold in the African-American community.  More than ever, people seem to be getting the message that wealth and stability come from owning a piece of the economy.  You can’t get laid off if you’re the boss, and you can’t be underpaid by a company if you own it.
The other part of the good news is that 44% of the new black firms report that they do most of their business with people of color.  So almost half of these black businesses are probably serving our community.

The not-so-good news is that black firms are still only a tiny part of the economy.  Most African-American firms bring in less than $10,000 in a year’s time, which isn’t enough to live on.  Out of more than 600,000 black companies, only a tiny handful–3,000–had sales of more than $1 million in 1992.  From the numbers, it would seem that a new wave of entrepreneurs are starting small businesses–including home-based network marketing operations–to supplement their regular jobs.
And here’s a real shocker: the highest concentration of black companies isn’t in Atlanta, Chicago or New York.  It turns out the highest concentration is in Washington D.C., followed by Maryland and Mississippi.  These three areas combined are home to half of all black businesses.  Washington and Maryland make sense as a place to set up companies that do business with the federal government (especially in light of the cutbacks in federal workers during the 1980s). What’s going in Mississippi is anybody’s guess.
The census data comes from the Survey of Minority-Owned Business Enterprises and can be found at http://www.census.gov

Nothing Ventured,
Nothing Gained
The proposed merger between Citibank and Traveler’s Insurance has, predictably, triggered an outcry among community activists.  Many of us have been nudging Citibank for years to increase the bank’s level of lending in inner-city communities.
But in many cases, seeking more bank lending misses the point.  While some companies could benefit from a bank loan, the vast majority don’t need one more monthly bill to pay. Loans can help, but what’s really needed are equity investments–long-term infusions of capital that get repaid only if the business succeeds.
In other words, what we need is venture capital.

The good news here is that the amount of venture capital out there is reaching all-time highs.  Nationwide, venture capitalists invested over $12 billion in 1997, a 20% increase from the year before.  But nearly half of those investments went to high-tech companies in the fields of software, electronics and communications.  So venture money is bypassing the neighborhood- level mom-and-pop stores, and seeking big returns from companies on the cutting edge of technology.  That doesn’t mean ordinary retail and service businesses can’t succeed.  But it appears, for the moment, we will have to convince Citibank and other financial sources that neighborhood-level commerce has as bright a long-term future as any software company.