Ghana Wants Once-Enslaved Diaspora to Come Home

Ghana Wants Once-Enslaved Diaspora to Come Home

released on 12/27/05 at 09:40:28 CAPE COAST, Ghana For centuries, Africans walked through the infamous "door of no return" at Cape Coast castle directly into slave ships, never to set foot in their homelands again. These days, the portal of this massive and fearsome edifice has a new name, hung for all to see on a sign on the side leading in from the roaring Atlantic Ocean back into the slave fort: "The door of return." Ghana, through whose ports millions of Africans passed on their way to plantations in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, wants its descendants to come back. Taking Israel as its model, Ghana hopes to persuade the descendants of enslaved Africans to think of Africa as their homeland, to visit, invest, send their children to be educated here and even retire here. To encourage more to come, or at least visit, Ghana plans to offer a special lifetime visa for members of the diaspora and will relax citizenship requirements so that descendants of slaves can receive Ghanaian passports. On the home front, Ghana is starting an advertising campaign to persuade Ghanaians to treat African-Americans more like long-lost relatives than rich tourists. That is harder than it sounds. Full Article

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/26/news/ghana.php

  ¶ 12/27/2005 10:06:00 AM 0 comments

  Fw: Friends open local tax firm

Friends open local tax firm - http://www.cjonline.com/stories/122205/bus_taxfirm.shtml

'Our goal is to help people make money'

By Michael Hooper The Capital-Journal

Five friends have opened Compro-Tax in Topeka to help people file their taxes and provide bookkeeping services.

Compro-Tax conducted a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday at 3707 S.W. Plaza Drive. The office is in a commercial building east of the south Topeka Wal-Mart.

The five owners/tax preparers are Shantel Downing, George Murray, Louise Jones, Denise Bailey and Sydni Holland. Each person took a 12-week course and passed a test this month, authorized by the Internal Revenue Service, to fill out tax returns, Murray said.

Jones said she has been helping people file taxes for about 12 years. She has had a home-based business and said she has filed more than 100 income tax returns every year for more than 10 years. She is bringing those clients with her to Compro-Tax.

She said she likes Compro-Tax because it is a national tax preparation firm that keeps abreast of yearly changes in tax law and helps affiliate offices comply.

Compro-Tax, of Beaumont, Texas, has more than 100 offices in more than 16 states. It was founded in 1982 with the mission of empowering the community from the bottom, according to its Web site, www.compro tax.com.

"Our goal is to help people make money and do the best we can," Bailey said.

The new Topeka office has six computers, Internet access, telephone and fax machine. Wichita has had a Compro-Tax office for a year.

Murray said he likes the location of the Topeka office because there is so much traffic from White Lakes Center, Wal-Mart and workers at the Target Distribution Center, Frito-Lay and Forbes Field.

Mayor Bill Bunten said opening a business is always an adventure with highs and lows.

"It's America at its finest," Bunten said. "You take a chance. Some businesses make it, some don't. But I have a feeling this will make it.

"What a good time, too. We're proud of you, and we're pleased you're starting your business here. We wish you well."

Marilyn Evan, an ambassador for the Greater Topeka Chamber of Commerce, handed the owners their first dollar of profit before they cut the ribbon.

COMPRO-TAX

Address: 3707 S.W. Plaza Drive, Topeka

Phone: (785) 266-0040

Services: Tax preparation, refund anticipation loans, electronic filing, bookkeeping and computerized financial services.

Michael Hooper can be reached at (785) 295-1293 or michael.hooper@cjonline.com.

Anthony S. Bush/The Capital-Journal

Compro-Tax owners, from left, Shantel Downing, Denise Bailey, Sydni Holland, Louise Jones and George Murray, cut the ribbon at their new office, 3707 S.W. Plaza Drive, with Mayor Bill Bunten and Greater Topeka Chamber of Commerce ambassador Ed Carmona.

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  ¶ 12/22/2005 09:38:00 AM 0 comments

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  ¶ 12/18/2005 06:43:00 PM 0 comments

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  GET CORPORATE SPONSORS AND INVESTORS Nationwide (BlackNews.com) - The Best Pitch is the leading company that connects African American clients to corporate sponsors by providing a state of the art Corporate Directory for only $9.99, that connects you with the right decision makers. In addition, The Best Pitch connects African American Business owners throughout the Nation with over 7,000 investors. Satoya Cole, a customer of The Best Pitch, confides, "African American Business owners and entrepreneurs have the good ideas, we just don't have the resources. And honestly we don't even have the money to hire the big wig firms to even get where the other businesses are. The Best Pitch gets us to where we need to be without shelling out all of our money. Who can beat $9.99? They got me 1 million dollars from an investor. I went to a company that charged me $3,500 and didn't even get me the results that I needed." The Best Pitch connects African Americans who are serious about growing their business and having their dreams come true. The Best Pitch plans on continuing to level the playing field for African Americans, by not only providing access to corporate sponsors and investors, but by also chipping away at the big time publicity firms that charge $2,500 - $5,000 per month. Jennifer Martin, Vice President explains, "We plan on being the Wal-Mart of business services. We provide the same excellent services, we just provide them for customers who were virtually ignored for years and years." Ms. Martin continues, "African Americans for far too long have been relying on just their word of mouth in the community. And they know as a business owner it's not enough, but they simply can't afford to do anything but that. We have decided to make sure that they can afford it." Corporate sponsors are so interested in bridging the gap that they have provided The Best Pitch with extra assistance to ensure that they continue to be reasonable to the African American community. It's a very vital community worth $680 billion dollars. How it works? The African American business owner simply goes to the web site: www.thebestpitch.com, subscribe to the services, and instantly the customer receives the services that he or she needs. The Best Pitch connects Black Business owners to investors who have portfolios ranging from 1 million dollars to 20 billion dollars. And those investors trust The Best Pitch to deliver qualified applicants to their business. As the fourth quarter comes to a close, corporate sponsors are gearing up for next year, and are ready to align with the African American community, and they have specifically and explicitly made it clear that The Best Pitch is the company that they want to hire to make sure that their brand is connecting with their customers. Sheryl Wiley, "They make it seem so easy to receive abundance it can really scare you. When I got the call that I received the sponsorship I almost fell out my chair. I screamed and tears streamed down my face, and the customer service rep just said calmly, 'We got over that hurdle together. We made it ma'am'. I knew then that I'd keep coming back to this business over and over again. I will recommend them to everyone." No newcomer to investors, corporate sponsors, or the media, The Best Pitch has hired former investors, corporate sponsors as well as journalists to ensure that they deliver the best service to both their client and the Corporate world. Charles Singleton, communications director explains, "Once any African American receive our services they rave on and on about it. I think we've grown without any commercials, and without any radio simply because our customers are telling everyone. The vice president just decided to start implementing commercials and getting the press involved on a consumer level because so many of our current customers state, 'everyone should know about this service'. And I agree everyone should." The Best Pitch closes the gap between the Black community and the rest of the world. For more information: Visit The Best Pitch's Web site www.thebestpitch.com customerservicerep@thebestpitch.com  ¶ 12/02/2005 08:19:00 AM 0 comments

  A Lesson for the New Millennium by Willie Lynch VI Let's fast foward to today. This is the New Willie Lynch Letter written by his great-grandson. The original WILLIE LYNCH'S SPEECH ON SLAVE CONTROL was delivered by his father Willie Lynch on the banks of James River in Virginia in 1712. Lynch was a British Slave Owner in the West Indies. He was invited to the colony of Virginia in 1712 to teach his methods to slave-owners there. The term "lynching" is derived from his last name. Remnants of Willie's methods are still in use today. Please pass this on to as many as possible. HOW TO MAKE AN ECONOMIC OR GHETTO SLAVE: A Lesson for the New Millennium by Willie Lynch VI, building on my great-grandfather's work, we can see how we can continue to reap profits from the Blacks without the effort of physical slavery. We will focus on the current methods of containment that they use on themselves: 1. IGNORANCE 2. GREED 3. SELFISHNESS. The IGNORANCE of blacks is the primary weapon of containment. A great Man once said, "the best way to hide something from a black is to put it in a book'. This statement is so true. We currently live in an information age. Blacks have gained the opportunity to read any book on any subject through the efforts of their fight For freedom and integration yet; they refuse to read. There are numerous books readily available at Borders, Barnes & Noble and Amazon. com, that would help them reach economic equality (what should Have been their fight all along), however, very few of them read consistently if at all. As long as we continue to publish books for our benefit and keep books, computers and the Internet out their hands we will never see the masses of them rise above the slums and projects. My great-great-grandfather said, "for example, you take the slave, if you teach him all about your language, he will know all your secrets, and he is no longer ignorant .... and having a foot is one of the basic Ingredients incidental to the making of the slavery system. "The masses of them are fools because they don't read. They will never figure out that we have all the information a person needs to succeed in America in the books, magazines and newspapers we read all the time. GREED is another powerful weapon of containment. Blacks since the abolishment of slavery have had large amounts of money at their disposal. Last year they spent 9 billion dollars during Christmas and represent about 450 billion dollars in purchasing power. That will easily allow any of us to use them as our target market for any business venture. Being primarily a consumer people they function totally by greed. They continually want more without any regard for saving or investing. They would rather buy some new sneaker than invest in starting a business or a community development organization. Some will even neglect their children to have the latest Tommy or FUBU, they still think that having a Mercedes and a big house in the middle of the ghetto gives them "status" or that they have achieved the American dream. They are fools. The vast majority of their people are still in poverty. Living in slums, projects and run-down homes. What have they achieved? Their greed holds them back from making better communities for themselves. With the help of BET and the rest of their black media, we will continue to see huge profits like those of Tommy and Nike. "They, will continue to congregate in their 'buppie" communities and slums trying to show off to each other while we build solid communities with the profits from our businesses. Some would argue that this last method is the most powerful one of The three. SELFISHNESS, ingrained in their minds through slavery, is one of the major ways we can contain them in a slave status. We all know that any group united under one vision can accomplish anything. The Bible shows that even God acknowledged in the Tower of Babel story that a people united can accomplish anything. With this said, we understand that the most effective way to keep them contained is to create divisions among blacks as a people. One of their own, Dubois said that there was an innate division in Their culture. A 'Talented Tenth' he called it. He was correct in his deduction that there are segments of their culture that has achieved some "form' of success, however, that segment missed the fullness of his work, they didn't read that the Talented Tenth was then responsible to aid the Non-Talented Ninety Percent in achieving a better life. Instead, that segment has created another class, a buppie class that looks down on their people or aids them in a condescending manner through hare this with those you love various community and fraternal organizations. The selfishness of the buppie class and the "it's all about me" attitude that is prevalent throughout their people has caused them to isolate both classes and caused them as a whole to achieve nothing great for themselves in the form of solid communities, business or economic empowerment. They will never achieve what we have. Their selfishness does not allow them to be able work together on any project or endeavor of substance or when they do get together their selfishness gets egos in the way of the goal. Their so-called help organizations, with large budgets and some existing for almost a hundred or more years, seem to only want to promote their name without making any real change to the communities in which they live. They are content to sit in conferences and conventions and talk about what they will do and award the best speakers a plaque. Is their no end to their selfishness? I doubt it. They lack essential information for combating selfishness and that is that TOGETHER EACH ACHIEVES MORE! They do not understand that they are no better than each other because of what they own. Most of those buppies are one or two paychecks away from poverty. And of which is under the control of our pens in our offices and boardrooms. Yes, we will continue to contain them as long as we keep them from reading, let them buy anything they want and keep them thinking that they are really "helping" their communities by paying dues to some organization. By the way, don't worry about any of them reading this letter, remember, they don't read. http://emergingminds.org/thinktank/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3304#3304 NUFF SAID.   ¶ 12/01/2005 10:15:00 AM 0 comments