At the height of my single life, I got invited to a party in the Hamptons by a woman whose family worked at the White House. Not long after that I met some folks who summered at Martha's Vineyard whose family worked with the Vanderbilts. If I wasn't such an arrogant prick, I might have gotten somewhere with those beauties, but I had self-defined genius disease. Ah. Another time.
But I also met, as an Upper East Side wine and cheese poetry reading with Shay Youngblood, the only real talent in the room, a dude who was connected in Africa. He struck me as somebody who had very little patience with most folks and blackfolks in particular. But since he himself was black, he had to be around snooty black functions, just in case. It goes without saying that he was rolling in dough. I dressed nicely enough to get invited to fly out with him to the Congo sometime. He promised me he'd show me how business is really done in Africa despite what the lot of us pseudo-Pan-Africanists thought. I had a very strong feeling that he was dead right, and that rightness gave me an secondary uncomfortable feeling. It was a feeling I recall having once before.
Well, I might as well describe that little event too. It was in Washington DC. This one was one of the first meetings of Congressional Black Caucus Foundation just as their other money got cut off by Congress in the 90s. Present were a stellar array of heads, including Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and the very impressive black guy who was running as COO a now defunct devision of Sprint, plus the New York black communications magnates whose names I'm too lazy to lookup but everybody knows. Anyway, as part of this hoohah, there were some African businessmen in the room and I introduced myself as a young software guy and how could I begin to do business in Africa where my talent would be rare and valuable. The guy gave me this look as though I were a dog who just peed on his Mercedes. Except this was a guy who owned 3 Ferraris and a Maybach.
The net of this was that there is no kind of legitimate entrepreneurial business to be done by enterprising African Americans in Africa. That's why he was in Washington DC. That's why I was a little barking weenie dog who didn't know jack about doing business in Africa.
So now I hear that Congressman William Jefferson allegedly cut himself some side money in doing business with Africa. Introductions to men such as the African fellow with the Ferraris probably don't come cheap, and this is something I'm sure my acquaintance on the Upper East Side knew very well.
Outside the courthouse, Jefferson, wearing a dark suit, blue dress shirt and red tie, spoke to reporters in a low but urgent voice about his wife, five daughters and three grandchildren, emphasizing their Ivy League degrees, their patriotism and their commitment to both church and public service.
He contrasted the family's accomplishments with allegations in the indictment that Jefferson advanced his schemes by placing relatives on boards of companies to solicit bribes and kickbacks.
I get the feeling that Jefferson not a crook, but is now in over his head and will be found guilty as hell. And in fact, I tend to want to defend him in the same way his fellow Democrats defended him, on procedural grounds. It's obvious that's he's a well-connected uppity black man. The problem is that he got that way on the public dime. If he had made an equally large name for himself on the private dime, all of this news would not be news. There are simply a class of blackfolks here in the states who want to do business in Africa, and we're new at it. So I don't doubt for a minute that this isn't some kind of business as usual. But Jefferson doesn't have millions, so he's in trouble. If he had millions of his own, I think he'd have no problem whatsoever laundering 90k instead of stashing it in the freezer. Jeez man, I coulda done better than that. Hell, Ice-T did better than that.
The good news is that he's got kids in the Ivy. They'll learn how to do business with Africa a bit better than their pop.
In case you haven't noticed, we're all pretty much in agreement in the Old School, which can be called the Black Right, that African aid through NGOs is killing Africa in classic Welfare State fashion. We're sick of it and we're not going to take it any more. So I think I had, and we have the right vibe. The question is which kind of business was Jefferson pushing? Entrepreneurial, standard international oil-style bribery, or liberal European NGO Oxfam flies in the face hunger money? My nickel says it definitely wasn't the latter. So I'm real curious to see how business as bad plays in the politics surrounding Jefferson. Whose big toe did he step on, or was he just sloppy? Hmm.
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