Personally, I feel Burger King would be remiss if they didn’t call Durand Bernarr and get his Crispy Chicken hit. This track might have moved some product.

Lastly, check out the Second City BK parodies. Hilarious!

Got an opinion on this week’s topic? Call our hotline and leave a message about today’s show! You can reach us at (323) 455-4219!

Photo by Anna Mae Lam Photography

How many of your Facebook friends fit this profile? I can name a few. Just today one of my Facebook friends updated her status: “I am just too cute today! Geez lol.” She then posts a picture of herself in her cheer uniform as her school is trying to recruit for next year’s squad. Ok so she had a reason to wear her uniform today for school spirit purposes. But to post a picture and then tell the world how cute you look, get over yourself right? She could have just updated her status telling her friends to come to the information booth so to find out about upcoming cheer tryouts without being extra about it.

But that wasn’t her case just like it is not the case for many other people on Facebook. Why? It is because we are living in a digital age of narcissism. Facebook is becoming the outlet of social narcissism. Wait, let me rephrase that: Facebook is the outlet of social narcissism! I believe we are living in a “look at me now” era.  Everyone wants to be a legend in his or her own mind. Facebook gives them the tool to do it in your face. As if society wasn’t already full of phonies, Facebook adds a new dimensions in fake. If people realized the truth that most people could care less about their daily activities, Facebook would see a dramatic drop off in usage.

Who has those types of Facebook friends who post damn near daily photos of themselves? I have a few friends who do and one of them has an album entirely dedicated for just that reason with it titled: This is why you love me. Seriously, get over yourself! Once upon a time Facebook was only meant for the college community. Now look at it, Facebook is like the refrigerator where you know the same thing is there, but you still check it every 15 minutes. I mean come on, more students are on Facebook zoning out instead of paying attention in class. Granted, Facebook is still used for promoting special events, businesses, concerts, rallies, parties and causes. However, it looks to have gone from reuniting with old friends, networking with new friends and posting occasional pictures that capture memories into a superficial mirror on the wall with the hope of hearing that they are the fairest of them all.

“If Facebook is to be a place where people go to repair their damaged ego and seek social support, it is vitally important to discover the potentially negative communication one might find on Facebook and the kinds of people likely to engage in them. Ideally, people will engage in pro-social Facebooking rather than anti-social me-booking,” Christopher Carpenter said.

Carpenter, who ran the study, defined narcissism as “a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration and an exaggerated sense of self-importance.” He also notes that social networking allows the user a great deal of control over how he or she is presented to and perceived by peers and other users. Do any of your friends fit these criteria?

One of my Facebook friends tries so hard to sound like Dr. Phil in her status updates.  She posted three status updates in the span of twelve hours. “Hanging onto someone who isn’t adding value to your life isn’t loyalty, it’s stupidity.” “Anything worth having in life takes work. The good things never come easy; success, love etc.” Followed up with “Your body is what makes you sexy. Your smile is what makes you pretty. But your personality is what makes you beautiful” I want to ask her what my lucky lotto numbers are for the week because I feel like I’m reading a fortune cookie every time I read her status updates. Get off the soapbox please!

I realize I didn’t mention any of the male friends I have on my Facebook. This is mainly because Facebook addiction has been attributed mostly to women and younger users thus according to the research conducted by Cecilie Schou Andreassen. Facebook needs to go back to what it was originally intended for. It wasn’t intended for you to post a daily picture of yourself in your outfit for the day.

At least one of my Facebook friends had something engaging to say “An interesting topic was brought up just now… can a man call himself a feminist, and accept/expect he is going to receive criticism and his masculinity is going to be questioned??? Does gender automatically define who can be a feminist?”

Finally, something I can comment on!

BLACK HISTORY IN TENNIS

Honoring Althea Gibson for National Women’s Health Week!

TUESDAY, MAY 15th

10am-12:30pm – Free!

@Message Media Ed

(4923 W. Adams Blvd. LA 90016)

ATTENTION: Digital Elders & Friends of Message Media Ed!

JOIN US for a guest forum, taste of tennis and film screening, celebrating tennis hero… Althea Gibson and women’s health!

Special Guest Facilitator… Ronita Elder, Founder, Sports Explorer

http://SportsExplorer.org/

FREE! Refreshments provided!

Dress comfortably and come ready to learn and play in the sun!

RSVP to 323-708-2526

Got an opinion on this week’s topic? Call our hotline and leave a message about today’s show! You can reach us at (323) 455-4219!

Photos by Anna Mae Lam Photography

In the past decade, retail stores experienced a sharp shift in consumer purchasing from brick and mortar to online. This shift resulted in retailers across the nation closing stores, laying off workers and focusing their attention online to maximize profits.

Now another shift is happening. Consumers are accessing the internet via their mobile devices in large and growing numbers. This is important because online marketers were once limited to reaching their market when they were in front of their computer – usually at home or in the office. This resulted in large blackout times where advertisers could not reach their consumers. With mobile marketing, advertisers can reach their potential customers at any time and in any place.

The question now is, as a business, what are you doing to make sure that you are part of this mobile boom?

Producers now have a few ways to capitalize off of this shift.

The first step is to build mobile optimized pages for online storefronts. This will help increase revenue by improving the consumer experience. The easier it is for consumers to navigate mobile sites, the higher the conversions. Not only will poorly designed interfaces increase bounce rates, they can also damage a brand. According to David Nachum, Associate Product Manager at Google, 61% of consumers are unlikely to return to a website they had trouble accessing from their phone. He goes on to say that last year, Google “began to limit ad serving on high-end mobile devices if they pointed to landing pages with Flash-heavy content.”

What this means for businesses is that if your site is not properly optimized for mobile, Google and other search engines will be less likely to point consumers there from organic search. With mobile search growing at an accelerating rate, an oversight like this may lead to obsolescence.

The next step would be to partner up with a direct carrier billing platform company like Mobile Messenger. With the mobile boom comes a new form of payment capabilities that that merchants can use to increase ROI by driving more sales. According to mopay, a payment solutions provider to online merchants, “Direct carrier billing will be a catalyst for innovation and change within the mobile payments industry in 2012.”

The mobile boom is happening right now. Businesses will need to redesign their online face to remain relevant in this mobile world.

About Erdolo:
Erdolo Eromo moved to South Los Angeles from Addis Abbaba, Ethiopia at the age of eight. A natural athlete, he played football for powerhouses Crenshaw High School and UCLA. He went on to earn his Executive MBA from Pepperdine University in 2011. Climbing up the corporate ladder in 6 years, Erdolo is one of the youngest senior executives in the mobile industry. He now serves as Senior Vice President of Sales and Client Services at Mobile Messenger (MM), the largest off deck mobile aggregator in the United States. He is responsible for identifying opportunities and designing strategies for sales growth. By many, Erdolo is considered to be an expert in identifying trends in the mobile commerce space as well as finding new opportunities in which the mobile phone can be used as a billing platform.

The front cover of this April’s edition of The Atlantic Magazine features an article with the headline reading American Mozart: The Genius of Kanye West. I have to admit, seeing this gave me a somewhat depressed feeling. It’s not that Kanye West’s music is, in my opinion, at the heart of our ethnic and national cultural problem (though some of it is). I’ve liked some of his stuff in the past, particularly his earlier things with Twister; Through the Wire (which was uplifting, and like-ably silly) and so forth. But a great deal of it is emblematic of the vacuousness and the mediocrity of our musical culture, if not something quite a bit worse. Take for example one of Kanye West’s breakout hits from way back in 2004, a song called Diamonds from Sierra Leone…

Diamonds from Sierra Leone is sort of a cool song to listen to, minus the fact that, if you chance to pay attention to the lyrics, it has nothing to do with the diamond mines of Sierra Leone. Nothing, no reference to it at all in the original. If you think about it, that alone is astonishing. The imagery of the music video does deal directly with that however, and the video is (again excepting the actual lyrics of the song) poignant because of it. But it’s reflective of the moral confusion of our times that an artist would borrow the name of a subject of such wrenching human tragedy only to use it as the entrance to a song that is in reality both irrelevant to the subject for which it is named, and a self-troubled glorification of the artist himself. In the latter sense then, and it’s coldly ironic, there is some relevance to the matter of the diamond mines of Sierra Leone that Kanye West did not intend. The music video begins with a quote from Mr. West, saying “Little is known of Sierra Leone, and how it connects to the diamonds we own.” Cliche sounding, but very sad, and very true. The song, as noted, then proceeds to do nothing to remedy that sadness, but rather launches into a collage of vanities that I don’t have time to go through here. But in the video a short bit of narration plays before the song, presumably from the voice of one of the slaves from the mines, testifying to the fact that they are forced to slave day in and day out for the icy stone “under the eye of watchful soldiers.” He tells us as we stare at the shirtless figure of a Leonean Rebel as he berates us through the camera, making us, for a moment, the slaves of the mines, that they slaves were forced to kill their own families for the diamonds. Then comes the chilling high-point of the tension, the moment when you see the face of a slave child, and you’re horrified to see the pupils of his eyes wide as saucers because he’s toiled in the mines for so long that his eyes are starved for sunlight. The boys eyes have become something that looks as alien as it does human because that is how his eyes have had to adjust to the unending darkness of the mines.

The tragedy is real, but the poignancy of it is manipulated in the context of the video into a perverse glorification of Kanye West himself. Explicitly, as the video displays him as some kind of hero of the Leonean slaves, but implicitly just by the odd juxtaposition of this type of imagery to the self-indulgent lyrics of the song, (“You know you can call, you gotta best believe it, the Roc stand tall and you would never believe it”). But though the video shows white westerners obliviously wearing and sharing these ill gotten jewels (and then horrified when the blood from the “blood” diamonds crawls upon their skin before the witness of slave children) so uncaring or unaware are they of the human price of their privilege and their luxury, the truth is that the self-absorption exemplified in Kanye’s lyrics is wholly reflective of the mindset that makes such moral detachment possible. Yes the video at it’s end makes a token request of us to buy non-conflict diamonds, and yes Kanye did make a remix that made an effort at dealing with the substance of this issue directly (an effort that fails entirely at being serious or profound. Jay-Z is on the remix, and his entire verse which comprises half the song is again about “The Roc” and irrelevant to the blood diamonds and the slave children of Sierra Leone. Lupe Fiasco, to his credit at least, made a much more conscientious attempt at dealing with this issue in his song “Conflict Diamonds,” inspired by the Kanye tracks). But while the video shows the children of the mines pulling Kanye from the ground as he leaps out of his European sports car, sending it crashing through what I presume was a Jewelers shop. Though the children run to him and hail him as he play pianos in a cathedral before stone figures of Christ and the angels of God, spitting his irrelevant flows as if they were either poignant or profound, Kanye West (whether he realizes it or not) exploits these children and this travesty more insidiously than the people he portrays. Most people buy and wear these diamonds out of ignorance, reveling in the stones themselves, but Kanye revels in the blood diamonds ability to make him look like something he is not: that is a man using music to fight for a higher cause, as opposed to a man using the suffering of others to glorify himself.

Why make this article about Kanye West? To put a microscope on our cultural problem, one general to America and particular to black America. I agree with President Obama that West is (or frequently can be) a “Jack Ass,” but I also agree with him that West is talented, if not to the extent that he seems to suggest (see the Atlantic article). Kanye West is not a composer. He is not a musician, at least not one of any consequence (neither of course are Jay-Z and P-Diddy). I’m not being insulting, those are just facts. He is a producer; one who cleverly takes music by talented musicians and composers of the past, dissects them, and simply applies his oft vain and otherwise meaningless lyrics to them, albeit to great effect as far as his many fans are concerned. But he’s no Bob Dylan, using art to poignantly decry the injustices of our times. He’s no Mozart of any kind. Duke Ellington was an American Mozart, a composer and musician par excellence like Mozart himself. Neither has anything in common with Kanye West. But you don’t have to be a Mozart to make meaningful music, and you don’t even have to be a great musician. Kanye West’s biggest failing, particular with Diamonds from Sierra Leone (as I said before he has made better songs lyrically at other times) is the failing of our modern music generally and that is the fact that it’s orientation begins and ends with glorification of egoism, of materialism, of image and of the self. The thing that makes Kanye West’s Diamonds from Sierra Leone so galling is the fact that it takes an issue that would call upon us to reject these values to truly acknowledge it and, in the guise of calling us to do so, uses it as a vehicle to celebrate some of the very sins of our nature that causes the world to be such a cruel place to begin with.

Got an opinion on this week’s topic? Call our hotline and leave a message about today’s show! You can reach us at (323) 455-4219!

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Background track: 5ree Thinkers, Open Mike Eagle

Hotel Kiss-n-Grind

6541 Hollywood Boulevard

Hollywood, CA 90189

Friday, May 4th

21+  10PM-Until…

In the wake of the Trayvon Martin murder case, a united front in the black community led to the public outcry demanding justice, and even justice by any means necessary for his killer Robert Zimmerman. From the NAACP to the New Black Panther Party almost every black grassroots organization spoke out for justice. And almost every black elected official, minister, and activist called for justice.

But who is speaking for who? Prior events like Jena 6, Hurricane Katrina, the shooting death of Sean Bell, and the protest of the death penalty for Troy Davis, many black activists are only heard from when the issue gets national attention and goes viral through almost every media outlet out there.  This is one of the main problems with black leadership today.

The same poll respondents were asked, “Do you think that most of America defines black leadership to consist primarily of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton?” Nearly three-fourths of survey respondents answered “yes.” A follow-up question was given to the participants in the poll asking, “Do you think it’s a problem that some people identify most of black leadership to consist of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton?”  An overwhelming majority, 81 percent, answered “yes.”

Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are the spokespeople,  the “usual suspects” when it comes to issues of race in the black community. Their opinions are sought out to speak for an entire community. This is not a bad thing because we do need visible black leaders in the community. However with black leadership being centralized, certain issues get missed and others become one-dimensional. Instead of being proactive with our leadership, we only react while our prominent black leaders are mainly seen when the cameras are rolling and the topic is racism. Many experts have speculated that the decline of leadership today is a result of black leadership not evolving post the civil rights movement.

Maxwell will be performing his first two albums, Urban Hang Suite and Embrya on the first night and his last two albums, Now and BLACKsummer’snight on the second night. These concert will take place on Friday, July 20th and Saturday, July 21st. Tickets go on sale to the public TOMORROW at 10 am! Don’t miss this event as tickets are expected to sell out quickly! Ticket prices range from $29.50 – $275.

This is the ULTIMATE LA summer date night! See you there!

Critics say the police gave up when the riots erupted, letting big chunks of Los Angeles burn while looters and hoodlums ruled. The officers say commanders held them back, fearing that street clashes would produce endless violent video loops and countless battered Rodney Kings. To the community the system had failed and everything literally became black and white: All four white police officers had gotten away with savagely beating up an unarmed black motorist.

In 1992, where the LAPD was viewed as an occupying force in their neighborhoods, it was clear that a community was at war. Sgt. Rick Arteaga was one of six officers trying to face down 400 angry residents shouting at him: Four hundred years! You’ve been suppressing us for 400 years! Arteaga, just 29, was thinking, “What did 400 years have to do with me?” At that time, everything!

To this day some LAPD officers are still bitter about the call to stand down, which was infact the right call made not to engage a hostile community frustrated with the racist police tactics in their neighborhoods. On April 291992, The LA riots went down as the most destructive riots in US history that left 54 people dead, over 2300 people injured and over a billion dollars in property damage. It was a most disgraceful time for the LAPD as they became the poster child for police brutality and racism, especially when then Sergeant Stacey Koon publicly defended the use of force against Rodney King as legal and appropriate during testimony in his trial for beating King.

It was a most disgraceful time for the criminal justice system as all twelve jurors: ten white, one Asian and one Hispanic completely sympathized with the four police officers and couldn’t see how they violated King’s civil rights. After the trial, most of the jurors refused to go on record except for one juror who was interviewed on ABC’s Nightline. The juror was quoted as saying the cops were simply doing what they were trained to do and reacted in fear of King either running away or attacking them. It was a most disgraceful time for Los Angeles as the city was divided amongst racial lines as certain areas and communities were visibly neglected. Lastly, the LA Riots were a most disgraceful time for America, as the riots became a world symbol of racial tensions turning into racial destruction.

What has changed in 20 years? Right after the Rodney King beating, the US Attorney General launched a nationwide investigation reviewing all claims of police brutality. An independent commission led by Warren Christopher cited the LAPD for excessive force, racist cops, indifferent commanders and disdain for residents. Then-Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, who was known for his combative style, was castigated as a leader out of touch with the changing realities of the city. Two months following the riots he resigned. Community policing was prescribed as a way to restore the public’s trust and dilute the “siege mentality.” Its focus was on crime prevention and mutual respect between officers and citizens. In 2001 the Los Angeles Police Department entered into a court-mandated federal consent decree after a pileup of scandals and controversies, including King’s beating, the fallout from the deadly uprising that followed, the four police officers’ acquittal, and the Rampart scandal.

The eight-year oversight process ended in 2009, however as part of the reforms issued moving forward, all police cars must be outfitted with camera’s that will record all traffic and pedestrian stops. Also, the LAPD commission must conduct a series of reports on how police officials investigate and resolve claims of racial profiling. To help fight allegations of corruption, officers in gang and narcotic must submit financial records to supervisors. What has changed in 20 years? The LAPD has tried to change its reputation from community oppressor to community partner largely due to the consent decree and independent researchers.

Successive LAPD chiefs disciplined, suspended and fired officers for misconduct. The use of force by officers dropped. Citizen complaints leveled off. LAPD officials became constant presences at community events, meetings and forums, always pushing partnership and dialogue with the community leaders. Today crime is lower than it has been in decades, and 70 percent of L.A. residents say they approve of the LAPD. Twenty years ago, the LAPD was 59 percent white. Now that number is 37 percent. The diversification of the LAPD has helped changed its culture. However, the persisting issues of racial profiling and police brutality are issues that the department must continue to respond to swiftly and with vigilance.

Twenty years ago Los Angeles was a powder keg ready to blow up aside from the Rodney King beating. A high poverty rate in South L.A. where crime and drugs ruled the streets, neighborhoods that were among the most racially balkanized in the nation, angry over the hand slap sentence for Korean American grocer Soon Ja Du, who murdered 15-year-old Latasha Harlins after a dispute over a bottle of orange juice resulting in Black-Korean tensions boiling over. Today 68 percent of Angelenos surveyed believe that all four major ethnic groups are getting along better.

Lastly, what about South L.A where much of the damage and destruction occurred? South L.A. is still written off as banks, corporations, and government officials reneged on promises to uplift the community via home and business loans and social service programs. This is a problem as prosperity in South L.A. is constantly being put on hold due to persistent fears of criminal violence.

Twenty years ago, not everyone had access to cameras, the Internet, and social media. Modern technology has empowered more people to become watchdogs against police brutality with their weapon being the smartphone. Best believe if there is an altercation between a police officer and an individual with witnesses around, someone has a camera phone and is recording the incident ready to post it online.

I was 14 years old when the riots broke out in Los Angeles and I remember vividly the events that occurred before, during and after the unrest. It’s difficult to swallow the fact that 20 years has flown by in a blink as the memories of the events still seem so close. I was asked to share my memories of the events that occurred – here is my story:

My mother lived through the Watts riots so the LA riots was history repeating itself. When people feel pushed up against a wall they have no choice but to fight back. The only difference is that we live in a time where people want to dilute race and make it a non-issue, as if it has no bearing on how people treat each other. That in and of itself can cause people to riot because their experiences are swept under a rug instead of being acknowledged and dealt with.

With the humble ambition in 2006 to teach children in the inner city the game of chess, Fletcher could not have anticipated that in less than six years, he would touch lives of thousands of underserved children.

Currently, Train of Thought services more than 500 students in 24 organizations in the Greater Los Angeles area, the bulk of which are educational institutions and counseling programs. Through chess, Fletcher aids students in developing stronger critical thinking skills, making his students better test takers and more focused academic performers.

In addition to academic prowess, Fletcher has noticed how chess operates as a social catalyst between players. “I have a father and son who take my class as a part of a behavioral therapy program,” says Fletcher. “The counselors were in awe watching them play and talk because in therapy sessions and at home, the father and son did not speak to one another. This came as a surprise to me, since they communicated constantly during chess games.”

Due to the academic gains in TOT participants, Fletcher is the recipient of a UCLA research grant to study the effects of chess players in children with behavioral challenges and struggles with substance abuse.

The study will conduct a randomized controlled pilot-test of the Train of Thought Chess Club program developed by NCADD/South Bay. 300 participants (ages 12 to 17) referred to NCADD/South Bay for family preservation services will be randomly selected for this study. 150 of the participants will receive standard services from NCADD/South Bay.  The remaining 150 will receive identical services, plus a Train of Thought 10-week, 10-session intensive chess club enrichment led by experienced staff aimed at teaching personal discipline and logical problem-solving skills.

Paul J. Chung, MD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Health Services at UCLA, SENIOR Natural Scientist at the RAND CORPORATION, and Director of the UCLA/RAND Center will oversee the study for Adolescent Health Promotion (a CDC Prevention Research Center).

Due to these accomplishments, Fletcher has been selected as one of the 2012 LAULYP ‘Diving 9’ award recipients.  His services to the Los Angeles community will be recognized on Wednesday April 25th at the “To the Nines Celebration” at the Westin Bonaventure, Downtown Los Angeles.

Source: Byrd Publicity

Got an opinion on this week’s topic? Call our hotline and leave a message about today’s show! You can reach us at (323) 455-4219!

The way to wealth is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, industry and frugality; that is, waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both. Without industry and frugality nothing will do; with them, everything. – Benjamin Franklin

The HISTORY

Capitalism & Slavery by Eric Williams

Comments – This book is tied for one of the most important books I have ever read period with Miseducation of the Negro. It is by far the most important financial book I have ever read. To understand the history of system you are engaging is vital. One of the most important lessons I came away with in this book is that capital within the capitalist system will always seek to find the cheapest labor.

Black Titan: A.G. Gaston and the making of a Black American millionaire by Carol Jenkins & Elizabeth Hines

Comments – The biography of arguably one of the greatest business men to ever grace America’s soil. His story of entrepreneurship and building of an empire is worth the read. He owned a bank, insurance company, along with  many other businesses, and before his death was proposing an African American owned stock exchange. His rise from humble beginnings that would make many of us blush today gives one a role model of perseverance.

The 3 TYPES OF INCOME

Comments – Robert Kiyosaki explains the three types of income. He is also the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad. A book that is worth reading but there is much of it that must be taken with a grain of salt.

Robert Kiyosaki: Three Types of Income

Mr. Kiyosaki, while I respect his opinion in a lot of areas of his book, primarily that your house is not an investment, some of his book is a sales job to get you to buy more of his products so reader beware.

The REALITY

The median net worth for African Americans is $2,170.

The median net worth for European Americans is $97,860

And more can be found here:

Men Lie, Women Lie – Numbers Don’t: The Financial State of African America

STOP: African Americans should NOT be maxing out their 401(k)

The TECHNICAL

Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham & David Dodd

Comments – This one will put your mettle to the test. Its long. Its boring. Its fundamental. Its imperative. Benjamin Graham was Warren Buffett’s teacher and that alone makes it a must read. Beyond that this book will provide the discipline needed to make you understand the need for long-term value investing and not subject to the whims of the ups and downs of the daily market.

Common Stocks & Uncommon Profits by Philip A. Fisher

Comments – If Warren Buffett is known as the greatest value investor of all-time then Philip Fisher is arguably the greatest growth investor of all-time. Again, focused on long-term investing but this time in growth companies. Mr. Fisher did not believe in diversification investing but finding a few (7 to 10) really good stocks and being dedicated to them over the long-term.

The WEBSITES

These are websites that I check with some frequency on a weekly if not daily basis. Now while I wouldn’t expect anyone to check them at the rate I do these are websites that should at least find your eyeballs at least once a month. Also check newspapers from around the world. This is important because you want to start to see trends. The reality is that geopolitical and geoeconomical events can echo strongly into financial markets at times. No, reading CNN is not enough. You want to read events from others point of view about the world. CNN gives you the world view from European America’s perch. Understanding the difference can and will give you an edge when examining your company if it has a multinational operation.

www.hbcumoney.com

www.bloomberg.com

www.fool.com

finance.yahoo.com

www.techcrunch.com

www.landreport.com

www.foreignpolicy.com

www.world-newspapers.com

www.tiger21.com

This is just the start of a long road of wealth building but a foundation to begin you on your way. All of these avenues will potentially lead you to other avenues of information. Don’t invest in isolation either. Conversations about companies and their long-term potential with other investors can help you see things you might miss.

MOST importantly – SHARE this information with your family, friends, and community.

Make more money than you spend and don’t spend that much.

Mr. Foster is the Interim Executive Director of HBCU Endowment Foundation, sits on the board of directors at the Center for HBCU Media Advocacy, & President of AK, Inc. A former banker & financial analyst who earned his bachelor’s degree in Economics & Finance from Virginia State University as well his master’s degree in Community Development & Urban Planning from Prairie View A&M University. Publishing research on the agriculture economics of food waste, full-time contributor at HBCU Money, and guest contributor for a number of African American media outlets.

If the majors were making a concerted effort to exclude black players, we would have already heard about it. The University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports surveys racial diversity in athletics and assigns a letter grade based on their statistical findings. Baseball has an overall grade of B-plus for racial diversity. 28 percent of all MLB players are foreign born, spanning from 15 countries and territories. This statistic doesn’t include the minor leagues where 48 percent of all players are foreign born. While other nations have adopted the sport, it has all but disappeared from black communities here at home. The question is why? ”

If you poll a lot of African-American guys that are between 20 and 40 years old [about] what NBA player did you watch and want to be, they’re all going to say Jordan,” New York Yankee’s outfielder Curtis Granderson said. “He was the best player and he looked like us. Baseball, you have a group of players that are playing right now who could say Ken Griffey Jr., but he’s no longer in the game, and there hasn’t been anybody to replace him.”

Ken Griffey Jr. was a household name in the 90’s. In his prime, he was considered the best player in baseball and was predicted to be number one all-time for career home runs. He signed endorsement deals from Nike and Nintendo and had a swing that every black kid picking up a bat tried to imitate. Marketing baseball to the black community has been a struggle in recent years.

For years Major League Baseball has tried to build a grass roots campaign among young African-Americans with its Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) program. It has been around for 22 years, and has 300 leagues nationwide, with roughly 200,000 participants ranging in ages 5 to 18. The program has also produced 185 players selected in the MLB draft including CC Sabathia and Jimmy Rollins. When CC Sabathia threw out the opening pitch to Jimmy Rollins in the 2009 World Series, it was a thrilling historical moment for baseball. It was the second time in MLB history that a series began with an African-American on the mound and another at bat.

Baseball honors Jackie Robinson for his role in ushering in social change, however, experts in the sports world believe that baseball has lost its marketing appeal to today’s black youth. Why? Is it attributed to baseball being out of touch with how to market to the black community? To African American players such as Curtis Granderson, CC Sabathia, and Cory Patterson, MLB’s lack of marketing for their African American stars is a significant reason there is a significant disconnect between baseball and the black community.

Other black players unknown to the community are Ryan Howard, Prince Fielder and Carl Crawford, all All-Star-caliber African-American players who are not household names. Their names are not automatically associated with the sport upon first mention. Just like boxing hasn’t experienced a true black heavyweight superstar since the days of Mike Tyson, baseball has lost many of its black heavyweight superstars whose talents and personal stories served to be an inspiration to black youth.

With that being said, could it be that baseball needs another dynamic player whose name is automically associated with his sport? In retrospect, the cost to participate in baseball, especially in recent years has been a major factor highlighted by TCU baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle. “A good baseball bat costs between $300 to $400 and that’s just for the bat, the good one that you want to swing,” Schlossnagle said. “Then there is the other equipment, too. And now that youth baseball has become all about traveling teams, select teams, and those are expensive for whites or African-Americans. Obviously not every African-American is without financial resources, but in my opinion at the amateur level our sport has become a white-collar sport. Doesn’t mean it’s a white sport, but it does mean that it’s expensive to play.”

For a majority of black households there is only a single mother and a single income. With no father figure to play catch with and with no extra bucks to participate in amateur teams to cultivate their skills, blacks kids lose interest and wind up just picking up a basketball or football and head to the nearest park for a pick up game. Plus, full ride scholarships are more abundant in basketball and football as opposed to many partial scholarships for baseball. “I know it’s expensive, but I’ve gone to places and there are fields,” Granderson said. “You can easily get equipment donated. I don’t know how you fight this one. “

Black baseball players broke the racial barrier that once prohibited them from participating and inspired many to follow behind. But for now baseball’s future seems to lie in the Latino and Caribbean communities. As baseball continues to evolve on the international scene the question still to be asked is: Will the sport suffer because of the lack of visible black baseball players? “All cultures bring something different to the game,” former New York Mets outfielder Gary Matthews Jr said. “The African American player, there is a charisma that he brings from his culture … a little spice. That little spice is missing when we’re not participating.”