This week, and the past week being two of the most challenging of my life have led me to ask the question, what brilliant minds discover the creative cutback options that keep the greed of corporate america afloat and able to continue to live their lavish lives? The heads of the boards seek out and appoint the most creative frugal minds in order to discover ways of keeping themselves at the top of their game during times of stress and less. It is critical to corporate, that they implement revised rules and regs that allow them to take advantage of every angle possible.
They find the experts and then when this work is done, they sleep well. And they attend church on Sunday mornings, and give thanks for undeserved riches and splendor, all in the name of our holy father, our GOD Almighty. With of course the one tiny exception, somewhere deep down, they believe they are more mighty than GOD. Smarter and more conning, he forgives them this though, at least this is how they feel. And Monday comes...
With swift and sharp knives, their sharp brilliant minds recommend; take down the middle management man, replace him with the less experienced assistant, and don't offer the same pay, let them stay where they are with the implied intention to promote if skills show themselves as worthy, next let go the hundreds of production line men and replace them with contract workers, just think you pay them yet carry no health contributions for them, what a coo! Don't consider hiring, this will cost you too - All this in the name of expense reduction and there are also so many small initatives that can cost consumers pennies on the dollar to keep the heads of corporations where they need to be! Request payment to use airplane bathrooms, charge quarters for plastic cups, enforce rules that don't allow internet use at work unless it is for the expressed purpose of benefiting the company!
What wonderful reports they promote on Monday mornings to upper management! How great to show cost savings initiated by sheer brain power! Thoughts generated during odd hours of the night, whims that create the most powerful cost savings imaginable all in the name of Corporate GOD-DOM!
You may wonder what I'm babbling about? What might any of this mean to anyone? Simply this, there are men and women being paid tremendous amounts of money to think of ways in which to save large corporations money, at the detriment of employees or consumers. These thinkers do not get anywhere near the windfall of cash their creative ideas generate, but they do get just enough to make them feel special and they continue to think of ways to make rich white men richer.
It was not until I hit my mid forties that I really began to comprehend how much money was out there in the world. And just how much of it was relegated to white people only... It is absolutely, positively true what Eddie Murphy said on a Saturday Night Live skit during one of his mock imitations. He pretended to be white and went undercover, he proved a point demonstrating that whites look out for each other in a way that surpasses all comprehension. The multiude of all other races or genders have no idea just what this private club does for each other on a daily basis. We have no earthly idea how large this enterprise is... we just gratefully, catch and snatch at any and all crumbs that come our way, and we survive until we die.
To be sure, there are many others of color who do accumulate some wealth, and when it comes to the haves and the have nots, this minority is satisfied with this small accumulation, enough so to put to rest the aggitation it imparts on the races. But, the truth is, this modest amount of wealth of the minorities does not really touch the tip of the ice burg! If we really took a strong look around the America we live in, we would see there is a major disportionate amount of wealthy american white men who run America. And when times are hard, they could care less about the minorities, they care lots about their own only and this has never been more blatantly apparent than it is right now.
Very small example, look at an corporation in America that has a white CEO, white CFO, and white Board of Directors and you can count on your fingers, on one hand how many middle management black men will be in their organization. They balance their affirmative action numbers by stratically placing large numbers of black women in the middle american jobs such as processors, sales clerks, claim adjustors, etc., or even as mid managers. While upper management, (the place where some assembence of real money is concerned), is realized by white women or ulitimately white men on their way up to their rightful place, their birth right so to speak...
As a black woman, when I hit my top dollar amount in corporate america at $64k, I thought I was something! Isn't that sad, when that is not even real money in the true scheme of things!
And not so sad still, is I was satisfied with it, happy at this peak in corporate because I could take care of my family and really didn't want anything more than to continue on till retirement.... but isn't that what I was raised to feel, as a christian? Greed counts not a good man or woman? Wasn't my gratefulness enough to sustain me and my world? Apparently not, because when the bottom fell out, and there was nothing left, I was asked by corporate white america to feel that I did not deserve this amount! To demand, or even contemplate I had experience to justify this amount was considered an absurity to the white world I sought shelter and relief in? Why the adacity of me! To try and penetrate the practice and patience of their world, during times of strife! During easy and plenty sure, there is enough to spare.
But when life is unsure and consumers are discouraged, they hold on to their meager saving, then corporations pull back and they cannot bare to part with what other races consider "plenty"...
then the bewilderment begins to work it's way into the souls of non-white americans and we wonder, why, once again, we are not good enough?
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