Lummie Pace, Sr. married Rosa Mae Neal (my great-grandmother who lived to be nearly 100). Rosa was born in 1902 in Chubbtown, GA – a small community near Cave Spring, GA in Floyd County near the Polk County line. It is near Cedartown, GA, which is outside of Rome, GA. Rosa’s mother was Mary Evelyn Chubb, of the renown Chubb Family. The Chubbs are a source of great pride in my family because they were set free by their master during slavery. They moved to a remote area of Floyd County and established their own Church (Chubb’s Chapel United Methodist Church), stores, gristmill, blacksmith shop, sawmill, distillery, and more. They also established their own family cemetery, ran a post office, and a lodge. The town was eventually named after them and carries the name to this day. The church, cemetery, and many of their establishments are still in existence today, along with many of my relatives who still live there. The following is an excerpt from the Floyd County Encyclopedia regarding the Chubb Family:

“These darkeys were farmers around Chubbtown, near Cave Spring and the Polk County line, whose industry and thrift enabled them to accumulate considerable property, gins, mills, houses, etc. They are law abiding, respected by the whites and generally good citizens. Their master set them free before the Civil War.”

The Chubbs at one time owned 32 rural lots of land, each containing 40 acres. Approximately two thousand acres are still family owned today. The following is a Youtube video of my cousin Elvira Bray Stone, who was my great-grandmother’s first cousin. She is currently the oldest living direct descendant of the original Chubb brothers who founded Chubbtown. I am proud to be a part of this lineage.

My granddad was born on a farm to sharecroppers and was the 6th of 12 children. Besides him, only the youngest two finished high school and he was the only one to earn a college degree. In those days, large families were encouraged (for farm work) and it was common to allow one child to be “wasted” and allowed to obtain an education. The Hales were well respected in Greenwood, MS and extremely active in the Church. My great-grandfather Church Hale purchased a model-T Ford in 1925 for $444.10. When my granddad was a child, he was stricken with typhoid fever and the town doctor declared that he would die, and no hospitals would admit a black child. My great-grandmother Lee Ellen prayed over his body for an entire night and miraculously my granddad survived and recovered. Here’s to feeling blessed and fortunate! (In case you missed the connection, I created a tribute to my grandfather here)

A female slave named Millie from Richmond, VA was sold to Benjamin Ingram, a white slaveholder in Georgia. Her father was Black and her mother was Native American. Benjamin fathered her first child, Henry Ingram. Henry’s granddaughter is Cleo Ingram–my grandmother. Due to this caucasian lineage, this side of my family had extremely fair complexions. Cleo’s father John Ingram had blue eyes and could easily pass as a white man during the Jim Crow era. When my grandmother was a child growing up in Atlanta, the African American newspaper was the Atlanta Daily World. The paperboy who delivered this newspaper in their neighborhood was named Nathaniel Bronner,  who became a millionaire as one of the Bronners brothers who opened the beauty supply company still in existence today in Atlanta. John Ingram held a stable job for 17 years as a chauffer during the great depression years. They owned nice homes, cars, and put their children through good schools. My grandmother finished Spelman College in 1944 (Delta Sigma Theta) and her sister finished Clark Atlanta University. John Ingram’s sister Corinne Ingram married Luther Moreland; together they opened a large funeral home that remained in the family for generations. My great-grandfather John Ingram eventually worked in this business as well, for the rest of his life. They became wealthy and enjoyed the elite social circles of African American society.

People could work at McDonald’s and promote up into management and signficiantly improve their people skills and learn about management. There are people who did this and are now executives or who own multiple locations now and are entrepreneurs. To me, it seems like a lot of kids today don’t realize that many of the jobs that they used to take (working at Six Flags for instance) are now being taken by adult professionals who have been laid off or out of work. Also, many times your first job is like your first car; you don’t get the shiny Lexus right away (unless you’re rich). You may get an older buick first and later on you work your way up to the car you want. Aren’t careers similar? Your first job is never your dream job. Ask most people about their first jobs and many times we can all laugh about it but recall the important things that we learned. These types of experiences help us get where we are. My first real job was as a telemarketer where I sold credit cards via cold calling. It was a great starting point and I learned a lot.

Has this drive been lost? What do you think? It’s perplexing to have kids who have no work experience say that an entry level job is beneath them. This is especially true when they don’t have corporate internships or other options to fall back on. It’s one thing to have options but it’s another to not have any and still not be willing to do whatever you gotta do to move up.

Click Here for the Video

To Be Equal#10
March 9, 2011
Stop the Lies about the Financial Meltdown

Marc H. Morial
President and CEO
National Urban League

“I pledge…Every American lives in safe, decent, affordable, and energy efficient housing on fair terms.” One of the National Urban League’s four I AM EMPOWERED goals.

No, President Obama was not born in Kenya.  Superman is not real.  And there is no Monkey-man roaming the streets of Hoboken scaring the daylights out of little children.  Some urban myths are nutty.  Some are funny.  But some, like the one about mortgage loans in low and middle income urban neighborhoods being the cause of the financial meltdown can be downright dangerous.

Since this assertion was first made several years ago, the National Urban League has called it for what it is – a weapon of mass deception, shifting blame for the economic crisis from Wall Street where it rightfully belongs onto the backs of hard working African American and Hispanic homeowners, who for decades were routinely refused home loans and a fair shot at the American Dream.  Leading economists have agreed with us, including Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke; FDIC chairman, Sheila Bair; and Nobel Prize columnist, Paul Krugman.  And now, a new study by the congressionally established Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission conclusively states that the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), established in 1977 to prevent redlining and spur homeownership in urban neighborhoods “was not a significant factor in subprime lending or the crisis.”

Undergirding this myth is the claim by some that the CRA requires banks and thrifts to make loans to unqualified low-income and minority borrowers.  They contend that a higher default rate by those borrowers caused the housing meltdown.  Aside from the fact that the law clearly states that CRA lending must be consistent with safe and sound banking practices, there is no evidence that CRA caused lenders to make risky subprime loans that contributed to the crisis.  In fact, most subprime loans are not made to minorities or low income borrowers.  Between 2005 and 2007, 58% of higher costs loans were made to white borrowers, and fewer than 30% of subprime loans in 2006 were made to low and moderate-income borrowers.

According to Commission chairman, Phil Angelides, “The debate about the role of the CRA should now be over…We found that this crisis was avoidable and was caused by widespread failures in financial regulation, dramatic breakdowns in corporate governance, excessive risk and borrowing, government officials ill prepared for the crisis and systemic breaches in accountability and ethics at all levels.”  In short, black, brown and poor people, aggressively spurred on by the CRA did not cause our economic meltdown.  This has been a yarn spun by some who wish to shift the blame from Wall Street to Main Street.

The latest to use this as a weapon of mass deception is Florida freshman congressman, Allen West who, speaking at a February Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, singled out the CRA as the cause of the housing crisis.  He added, “If government gets out of the way of the private sector, it would not have happened in 2008.”

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission disagrees and so do we.  With millions of people out of work, instead of clinging to discredited ideological theories, our policymakers should be focused on creating jobs and making sure that more citizens are able to realize the American Dream of homeownership.

###

10TBE 3/9/11 ▪ 120 Wall Street ▪ New York, NY 10005 ▪ (212) 558-5300 ▪ WWW.NUL.ORG

However, I think to an extent a lot of people are over thinking this. To me, people sagging are just doing it because it is a style. A fashion trend. Recall that Mark Wahlberg “Marky Mark” used to sag his pants in Calvin Klein ads in the early 90′s:

To an extent it’s a rebellious form of expression for youth, which every generation has done in different ways. The 70′s had Afro’s and hippies, the 80′s had the Hip Hop movement, etc. I’m Generation Y. I was born in the 80′s and grew up in the 90′s. For me, I remember sagging being a big part of Hip Hop. Most kids today don’t even know what Hip Hop really stands for (4 elements of Break Dancing, Scratching/DJing, Graffiti, and then Rapping). Self expression was key. We used to rock Cross Colours, Karl Kani, fat rope dookie gold chains and Adidas suits. When I was a kid groups like TLC, Kris Kross and even MC Hammer were wearing extra big, baggy pants–so this became the cool style to represent. We wore big baggy pants too, and saggy pants naturally came with it. I used to sag my pants every single day! I didn’t care what my parents or any adults thought, their complaints went in one ear and out the other, and they would verify that to this day! They hated it. My friends and I would even laugh at people who wore their pants “correctly” at their waists–we thought that looked funny! Anyway, I think that’s all it is with these kids today. They do it because it’s the cool thing to do. In school it’s extremely important to “fit in” and be cool. If the most popular kids in school are sagging, you’re going do to it too. Especially if the girls seem to respond to it positively (which they did).

As you grow older however, this should change. I used to sag everyday, but somewhere between me being a Freshman at Morehouse and earning my degree, I changed. I stopped wearing tennis shoes, Timberlands, T-shirts, wavecaps and baseball hats, and started wearing dress shirts, ties, sport coats and dress shoes. Somewhere along the line it wasn’t cool for me anymore and I stepped my game up. I guess you could call that growing up and becoming a man. So I have a bigger concern for someone who’s 30 years old and still sagging, as opposed to a 14 year old kid trying to be cool. My solution to stop sagging however is simple: young boys will do anything to get the attention of girls. If young girls stopped kicking it with guys who sagged pants and told them it was wack, things would change immediately! Almost everything young boys do is somehow related to getting girls!

Double Standards? – We’ve all seen the bad ads depicting black kids sagging, such as this one:

However, at the same time there are still ads out there with white models sagging and it is received positively:

Also, should these new sagging laws apply only to men, or women too? It doesn’t seem like anyone is complaining about situations like this: 

Regardless, there are strong efforts pushing for sagging to be illegal. Check this out: 

In conclusion, I DO NOT support criminalizing sagging pants. I think it looks bad just like the next person (now that I’ve grown up), but realistically I only see this type of legislation penalizing minorities most of the time. Just another excuse to arrest us due to poor fashion choices isn’t a good idea to me. On top of that, our legal system can’t afford wasting so much time on this.