Breaking the Cycle

Praise the Lord Saints

In light of the current issues that arose with the District 6 City Council debate hosted by The Gathering of Pastors at Greater Mt. Zion AME Church and the Mayor debate held at the Hilton, I’m just gonna be as brief as I can this week.

I only want to say this, at the time I am writing this there will have been a city town hall meeting if you will with regards to the so-called “Economic Development” of Midtown.

This has been going on every since I moved here some 28 years ago and just as it was superficial back then, it’s gotten worse as time has passed.

There were some changes maybe 10-15 years ago and it looked like it was heading in the right direction, but there has been a staggering halt to the movement as it relates to the South St Pete side of town.

But anyone can see there is major development taking place and it has been for the past 4-5 years and the blacks of the South St Pete or Midtown area have received an infinitesimal amount to say the least if that.

I was in a post discussion on Facebook earlier this week and it seems that certain folks think that I am not aware of the backdoor, behind closed door, under the table goings on that have omitted black sub contractors from earning a living. They, for years, have listened to massa tell them what courses they had to take, what certifications they had to have, how much it would cost to take these courses just to be considered for bids in this area.

I know first hand from one of the former biggest, and only general contractor to start and complete a multi million dollar project so trust me this is not speculation.

They have used the phrase “you have to be licensed, insured, and bonded” in order to be considered.  Some completed this only to be told that now they have to state how many projects they have completed in the past that would qualify them for the project. Well, that is the major catchall that sinks most of them because they knew prior to asking that question that once they completed the “necessary courses, certifications, licensed, bonded, and insured, you didn’t have any work for them to post to their resume` of qualifications thus they don’t even get consideration.

I busted up one of the commonly used tactics that they used to disqualify them by saying that they reached out to the local subs and what they would do is hold these meetings where the courses would take place, have them sign in so that they would have a listing of the subs that participated in the courses, but knew none would be able to carry the amount of insurance needed for the major projects, boom disqualified.  But, when the contract was awarded, did they reach back out to the subs to say I will give you at least a piece of the pie if you can get a crew to do the work?  Of course not.

Here is another beauty, Tom would sub out to Chelsea, Jim’s wife, who just happened to have a sub company specifically for the need of the project.  The funny thing is Chelsea would then sub lease Jim for all the work.  But because Chelsea owns 51% or more of the business, its listed as a minority owned business and when black subs would complain, of course the major hitters in this area that got most of the big hits would say see we hire minority subs!

I could go on and on but the reality is this, they have allowed us to play ourselves for decades and because we ask city government to give us unrealistic things like reparations, equality in our black schools, help stop the war on —-, you enter whatever in the blanks, there never is or was a war on anything, propaganda to stall or deflect the real, and while we are so caught up on this, the gay, Asian, and well non-black groups have swooped in and took almost complete control of our neighborhoods and communities.  We don’t own gas stations, corner stores, schools (fyi – 75-85% of the administration of Pinellas County is white female), construction projects, the list goes on and on.

It’s no different than the Willie Lynch speech in which he told the then slave owners to stop beating them and use psychological warfare on them, which is one of the reasons I will never listen to a pysch today.  They think they have all the answers and when they are proven to be incorrect, attempt to use a Fraud tactic.  I know its spelled Freud but what they do merits the first one.  Nothing personal.

While I may not agree with the methodology of the Uhuru’s, you can’t debate the facts.

I can’t predict the future of St. Pete but I can say this, wait 5-10 years if you won’t to try to get what’s been due us, or y’all cause the wife and I will be residing in another city. One that cares about us as a people, cares and is actively helping, vets, disabled vets, the homeless, and our youth.

Till next week,

God Bless.

Rev. Dr. Robert L. Harrison, PhD