Letters to the Editor

Unfair attacks on gold medal gymnast’s hair

It does seem odd that in this day and time of African American hair styles ranging from the natural look to the straight look that we would be so unkind as to pick on a positive black female (“Gabby Douglas and that other n-word — ‘nappy,’” Bay State Banner, Aug. 23, 2012).

She is the first. She will be always remembered and she is a young woman who has received a disservice from her own folks. Are we that mighty that we have forgotten about working together and being like a village and raising up our young?

I am saddened that this point continuously is being talked about.

Ceralou
Via email

It’s about business ownership

Just educating kids and then sending [them] out there to get a job that no longer exists is just plain stupid. (“As jobs vanish, where are blacks left?” Bay State Banner, Aug. 23, 2012).

It’s hard to believe that all of these so-called experts convened and nobody talked about how to educate our kids to be owners, not just employees. The whole economy has changed on a global level. This is not 1967. This is not an industrial, defense economy any more. Jobs have disappeared and are never coming back.

Couple that with the fact you now have players on the international scene that were not there — or as powerful as they are now — competing with the U.S. in manufacturing like China, India, Germany and Brazil.

U.S. corporations can now get foreign workers to make products in their country and pay them less than minimum wage with no benefits. Under those circumstances they will never bring those jobs back. In an environment like that, if you’re smart, you train people how to be entreprenuers. People are going to have to learn how to work for themselves by starting their own businesses.

One of the skills that the professional elite looks down upon is sales skills. If you can sell you’ll always be able to make a comfortable living and sales skills is one of the fundamental skills in starting your own business. I am not saying forget formal education. I am saying that teaching our kids how to be owners should be part of the solution, and if it’s not, these so-called experts are not doing their job.

If so-called leaders are not talking about how to build institutions that can supply goods and services to their own community then they are just blowing smoke and are just filled with their own self-importance. We should be teaching our kids how to be more independent instead of how to be more dependent.

Leland
Via email