Opinion
Powerball: Cashing in on the ‘Lootery’
I
remember when I was about 7
or 8 years of age, the two eld-
erly
ladies
who
lived
downstairs from my family would
give me a ladies’ handkerchief tied
in a knot with some coins and a
piece of paper inside. They would
have me walk up the street and
give it to another lady about two
or three times a week. Of course, I
would get a piece of candy or a
nickel for doing so. Little did I
know at the time that I was “play-
ing the numbers” for them.
Back then it was a game of
chance that involved a few pen-
nies bet on a number, which I
believe came out each day in the
newspaper business section. I
think it had something to do with
the closing number on the stock
exchange or something like that. I
can hear the older folks who are
reading this article saying exactly
what it was and how the winning
number was retrieved. I am sure
they remember.
Fast forward to the early 1970s,
I believe, when the states began
commandeering the numbers rack-
et, primarily run in Black
neighborhoods, and turned an ille-
gal activity into a legal game of
chance, called the Lottery, which
has evolved into what I call the
“Lootery.” The few coins in the
E CONOMIC
E MPOWERMENT
James
Clingman
handkerchief and the hopes of
winning $25 or so have changed to
monthly shell-outs of hundreds of
dollars by individuals with hopes
of winning millions of dollars. The
only thing that has not changed
among many Black folks is the
dream book that tells what number
to play if you happen to dream
about death, or the sky, or a trip, or
a meal, or a new job, or a car, or a
truck, or the devil, or God, or you
name it. Whatever the dream,
there was a corresponding number
attached to it.
The lines formed at the stores
and folks started spending mil-
lions and billions on “the
number,” all in an effort to “hit
it.” Many folks would use their
last dollar, their rent money, their
bill money, their lunch money, to
take a chance because they had a
feeling or a certain dream, or saw
a certain number somewhere. The
funniest thing was the folks in line
with their sheets of paper and their
long list of numbers to play each
week. When they got up to the
counter they would almost whis-
per the number to the clerk. I
often wondered why they would
do that; I attributed it to a scarcity
mentality and the fact that some of
us don’t want our brother or sister
to prosper, thus, we keep our win-
ning numbers to ourselves.
The recent $580 million Power-
ball jackpot, the largest in history,
lars, and except for those who hit
it big and then lived in misery
after winning, most people would
do some very good things with
their windfall. But, in general, the
“Lootery” has become a legalized
frenzy of transferring hard-earned
dollars mostly from those who can
least afford it, to high-salaried
“Lootery” directors and others
who just love it when those balls
start dropping through the tubes.
They always win, no matter which
numbers come out. Sure, some of
Many folks would use their last dollar,
their rent money, their bill money, their
lunch money
was the craze of new wave
“Lootery” players. Some folks
spent hundreds and thousands of
dollars on 1 chance in 175 million
to win all that money. Finally on
Thursday morning, November 29,
millions of people were tearing up
their worthless tickets as their
dreams of winning the prize were
dashed. The “Lootery” had gotten
them again.
I guess it’s fun and it feels good
to imagine what you would do
with a few hundred million dol-
the money goes to schools, but
where is the benefit when it comes
to our children receiving a better
education?
In general, the
“Lootery” is just another regres-
sive tax.
Here’s my solution to making
the Powerball “Lootery” at least a
bit more palatable and the chances
of winning a bit higher. When the
total gets to $100 million, let the
drawing be for 10 winners of $10
million each. As the pot increases,
the individual amounts for the 10
winners increase proportionately.
I am no mathematician, but it
seems simple enough to me; just
have 10 drawings. If only one per-
son wins among the 10 drawings
pay out one-tenth, move on to the
next week, and draw 10 once
again. I am sure some of those
highly paid “Lootery” directors
can figure it out.
My point is this: If we are going
to have $500 million as a prize,
why not intentionally spread that
prize to more people. I would love
to see 10 winners of $50 million,
or even 100, $5 million winners,
rather than one winner, or even
two splitting a $500 million pot.
Think about that when you’re
standing in the next line of
“Lootery” hopefuls and dreamers.
Who knows? Maybe there can be
some changes made in how the
prize money is allocated, and you
will have a better chance of win-
ning. Oh yeah, remember a
brother when you hit.
Jim Clingman, founder of the
Greater Cincinnati African Ameri-
can Chamber of Commerce, is the
nation’s most prolific writer on
economic empowerment for Black
people. He is an adjunct professor
at the University of Cincinnati
Opportunity and Diversity One Industry at a Time
T
here is a missing component
to the national discussion
concerning how to strength-
en and rebuild the American
economy. It is true that high
unemployment, a weak national
infrastructure, the need for
stronger public education, the con-
centration of wealth and the deficit
are all challenges to the nation’s
economy but being left out of the
discussion is the continued eco-
nomic marginalization of racial
and ethnic minorities.
The American economy has
always been strongest when it’s
kept the middle class within reach
for most Americans. But with
white households holding nearly
20 times the wealth of black or
Latino households, and with rising
disparities in unemployment,
poverty, and income, the future of
the middle class has never looked
more uncertain. As the country
rapidly becomes majority-minori-
ty the nation’s economic
well-being is increasingly tied to
overcoming racial economic
inequality.
The economic challenges that
people of color face are reflected
in the recently released NAACP
Opportunity and Diversity Report
Card which analyzes the hotel and
lodging industry. Mediocre grades
among the five leading hotels we
examined—Hyatt,
Starwood,
Wyndham, Marriott and Hilton—
reveal the widespread lack of
investment in minority suppliers,
the over representation of people
of color in the lowest paying entry
level positions, the under repre-
sentation in the more highly paid
career track positions and finally a
lack of commitment to collecting
basic diversity data that could be
used to strengthen inclusion
efforts.
Our report shows that black-
NAACP P RESIDENT /CEO
Benjamin Todd Jealous
owned businesses, which com-
prise 7 percent of all businesses in
the U.S., make up only 0.9 percent
of all vendors receipts —a trou-
bling red flag that signals how far
corporate America has to go in
their supplier diversity outreach.
And while people of color are 36
percent of the population, only 13
percent of the governing bodies in
the hotel and lodging industry
consist of people of color.
One of the most disconcerting
findings of our report card is that
all of the top 5 hotel and lodging
corporations do not collect diver-
sity data from their franchise
properties. This means for four
out of five of these leading corpo-
rations no data is collected for the
majority of their individual
hotels. This is unacceptable.
The NAACP is calling for these
corporations to collect the diversi-
ty data already mandated by the
government through EEO1
reports. We are also asking for
planners of major events to
request EEO1 reports from any
individual hotel they are consider-
ing for their event so they can
make diversity and inclusion part
of their assessment as to which
hotel is worthy of their business.
The National Coalition of Black
Meeting Planners has already
voiced support for this action and
we will be working with our com-
munity and civil rights partners as
well as local bureaus of tourism to
make widespread the use of EEO1
data as an important and widely
used factor for determining which
hotels qualify to hold major
events.
The EEO1 survey is a primary
means that the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission uses to
advance its mission derived from
the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Title
VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act
focused on prohibiting racial dis-
crimination in employment and
almost 60 years later we still find
great racial and ethnic disparities
in business and its workforce. The
Opportunity and Diversity Report
Card and our call to action for
greater use of EEO1 data should
not be seen as just a “civil rights”
matter but should be understood as
a means of dealing with one of the
greatest threats facing the Ameri-
can economy over the next thirty
years, racial economic inequality.
We at the NAACP have always
seen racial inequality as a grave
threat to the country and in the
next few decades if serious action
isn’t taken to bridge this divide the
entire nation will see the econom-
ic results of this inequality.
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December 5, 2012
The Portland Skanner Page 5