MemoirAndUtopia |
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BETA SITE: STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION
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There are attempts to address the issue of Slavery Reparations in the fifty American states and in various California regions. Manchester Bidwell, for example, is a community job development program in Pittsburgh PA where inner city and at risk persons of any age may become trained in skills from ceramics to small scale agriculture. Perhaps this is a form of Slavery Reparations at work. In Huntington, Beach CA, the Bruce family, in 2022, received back title to property wrested away in the early 20th century. The Bruce!s are Black and will now lease the property back to the City for hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. This is claimed to be a form of Reparations. California legislative bill AB 3121, is an opportunity to tackle the questions of Slavery Reparations in a larger sense because, as the explanation of the bill says, “Constitutionally and statutorily sanctioned from 1619 to 1865, slavery deprived more than four million Africans and their descendants of life, liberty, citizenship, cultural heritage, and economic opportunity. ”
Pictured above is the locally famed Grace’s Pastries, a hub of multi-racial activity for over 30 years, at the intersection of Crenshaw Blvd. and W. Jefferson Blvd. (90018) in Los Angeles City. In “Little Tokyo to Crenshaw,” S5 Ep5, Nathan Masters of PBS’s “Lost LA” tv show recalls this as Sanon, the area where Japanese Americans returned from World War II incarceration enjoyed thriving, harmonious relations with local African Americans before racial covenants were outlawed in 1948. Two blocks south, CBRE Inc. is slated to create the mall and housing project Crenshaw Crossing. Both locations have the potential to become high traffic, multi-ethnic transiting locations because both are situated within two blocks of the intersection of two Metro-rail subway lines that are currently under construction MSEE will be a tourist attraction that will help link the community to the rest of Los Angeles, bringing over one thousand visitors per month to view exhibits and to take classes that cover the broad range of commercial sales and entrepreneurship activities. Exhibits will include symbols, e.g., team jerseys or balls, from a number of Los Angeles landmark "teams”. For example, LosAngeles baseball!s Dodgers, basketball!s Lakers and football!s Rams exemplify the entrepreneurial and sales acumen that would benefit young people. I have also asked that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, lend, on a rotating basis, film industry paraphernalia for display within the Museum of Sales & sEntrepreneurship Education. In addition, MSEE will welcome periodic or regular sessions members of the Academy or sports team sponsors who will offer advice regarding within-industry sales and entrepreneurship, e.g., film production, distribution, marketing, casting, agenting, and the broad range of commercial film and sports industry skills. Californians will remember the movie FAME, as it was a very popular depiction of an Advanced Placement, AP, level magnet high school devoted to the performing arts in LaGuardia High School, New York. In the early 1970s, I volunteered for Workshop for Careers in the Arts (WCA) which became Washington DC!s Duke Ellington high school for the Performing Arts. My experience with WCA coupled with my work as an Assistant Professor of Race and Political Economy have resulted in my determination to “knock-off” what WCA has become as the Duke Ellington High School for the Performing Arts by creating, in the Black community of Los Angeles, “MSEE, The Museum of Sales & Entrepreneurship Education” with, eventually, a school for theEntrepreneurial Arts and Sciences. My goal is to ensure that “minority” kids learn as early as junior high/middle school the necessity to create goods and services for their community as they create generational wealth. The MSEE will begin as a museum but can be expanded into a Public School for the Entrepreneurial Arts and Sciences which will be unique in America and perhaps in the world. In addition, MSEE will welcome periodic or regular sessions with members. Sales and marketing are a foundation part of entrepreneurship. They link the product creator to the consumer. Though products and selling styles have evolved over time, the need to sell has been an enduring constant. Sales and marketing have given America a preeminent position within global commerce. The Museum of Sales & Entrepreneurship Education will teach low-income clients both business building skills and product selling skills, and it will display for them past marketing successes and failures. California legislative bill AB 3121, is an opportunity to tackle the questions of Slavery Reparation in a larger sense. This is a proposal that the MSEE—perhaps re- named “The Biddy Mason Museum of Sales & Entrepreneurship Education,” be included —as an independent line item—in any resolution of the study to address the economic opportunity deficit experienced by African Americans in the Los Angeles area of California as one of the “appropriate remedies of compensation, rehabilitation, and restitution for African Americans." Yours sincerely, Jesse Rhines PhD. Social Entrepreneur & Founder, MSEE |
Please take the time to suggest other images of legal and tasteful Sales and Entrepreneurship--successful or failed-- that might be included here.
Comment to Dr. Rhines: [email protected] |