The Black Informant | African American Commentary, News and Community Building

For starters, you gotta love the name of this organization:

Philadelphia Coalition to Eliminate Economic Injustice from Live 8

Here is some more excerpts of the press release:

“A coalition of predominantly African-American business, civic and community leaders, working with Philadelphia’s African-American Chamber of Commerce (AACC), today likened the economic exclusion of blacks in the City of Brotherly Love to the economic hardship suffered by sub-Saharan African nations and have called on the event organizer, Bob Geldof, and the entertainers scheduled to participate in Philadelphia’s Live 8 Concert, to intervene on their behalf or to cancel Philadelphia as a concert venue.”

“…According to the members of the Philadelphia Coalition to Eliminate Economic Injustice from Live 8, the city of Philadelphia has made no public commitment to ensure that black vendors and businesses will fairly participate in the anticipated $40 million in expenditures that are expected to result from the concert.”

“In fact, the AACC sent a hand-delivered letter on June 14, to the City’s Commerce Director, to Mayor John F. Street, to members of Philadelphia City Council and to Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell, requesting black vendor, business and workforce participation at Live 8 and at a center city vendor’s mall, before, during and after Live 8. In response to that letter, the Commerce Director has replied that black vendors can begin doing business at the vendor’s mall only “after July 4,” and the city has made no public commitment that there will be appropriate levels of black business involvement in the concert planning and related business opportunities.”

“…The Coalition points out that Philadelphia has a long history of excluding black businesses from full economic participation and that it is hypocritical of the city to participate in an event whose purpose is to bring economic equity to Africans while Philadelphia continues to actively discriminate against black businesses locally.”

“…Commenting on the situation, A. Bruce Crawley, chairman of the African- American Chamber said: “Apparently, Mr. Geldof and his colleagues have some awareness of the economic challenges faced by blacks in Philadelphia. In fact, the Philadelphia Inquirer, in exploring the reasons why Philadelphia was selected as a concert venue over other U.S. cities, quoted event producer Tim Sexton as saying: ‘You can’t think about poverty without looking at the streets of Philadelphia, where that’s an issue. (more…)’”

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Now personally, I cannot attest to the alleged discrimination against black business owners in Philadelphia by city officials. What I do know is that Philadelphia politics in general is historically very dirty. While I think the comparison of the economic condition of the black community in Philadelphia to that of sub-Saharan African nations is a bit much, the issue of poverty in this city is very much real. Yanking the ear of the bleeding-hearted who want to step over inner-city America while embarking on some “holy” crusade to save Africa is something that I have been preaching on this site for a very long time.

You would think that for a city with a black Liberal mayor, economic discrimination would not be a issue. He certainly ain’t the first.

If Mayor Street is guilty in this situation, this group needs to just make sure that they do not take the heat off of him even after Live 8.

I’m a big fan of businesses wining city contracts on merit; however, with a city that (according to them) is %43.2 percent black, and with the low numbers of these black-owned businesses getting this contracts, I say it is worth investigating these raised complaints with the city.