Hi, I'm Herman Hartman with N'digo Studio.

Thank you for being with us today.

We're in the living room today with experts, and we're going to talk about affirmative action, diversity, equity.

See where it is.

Reverend Gregory Livingston, he's a minister.

He's a social activist.

He's a civil rights leader.

And he is the president of economics global.

We have Robert Blackwell junior.

He's a businessman.

He's a real entrepreneur.

He's the founder and CEO of quant 16 and Advanced Analytics company, talking to experts about diversity, equity and inclusion.

Since the beginning of affirmative action, diversity is under scrutiny.

And it was President Kennedy who signed an executive order in 1961 and used the term affirmative action, meaning inclusion of all sectors of society.

So we want to talk about how it operates.

What's the dynamic?

What's the diversity picture today?

Do you think you.

For more information about this show, follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Funding for this program was provided by Illinois Student Assistance Commission.

The Chicago Community Trust.

Sin City Studios, Lamborghini Chicago, Gold Coast, and Downers Grove.

Blue cross, blue.

Shield of Illinois.

Commonwealth Edison and the Illinois Health Plan.

Gentlemen, welcome.

Thank you.

Okay, Bobby, you got analytics company quantum 16.

Tell us what it is.

What does that mean?

Okay, so I'm a I'm a mathematician that turned into a trader that had a company their own financial modeling systems.

So what we do is to use what I call it the mindset, math and methods of the quantitative hedge funds for industry and government to help them find money.

Okay.

So now what do you think about affirmative action diversity as it exists today?

Well, I personally I think they ought to call it diversity, equity and inclusion because it's not an illusion.

It's not real.

So people are talking about, you know, all this diversity stuff.

But if you look at the number.

So I did a study of the 2010 census.

And these are the numbers.

If you take all companies by ethnicity with employees, you'd have majority owned companies who are 9.4 trillion women, a trillion Asians, 455 billion Hispanics, 276 billion in blacks, 98 billion.

You bang on the totem pole.

Even though blacks have double the education or achievement on average as Hispanics.

And if you actually dive into those numbers, which you'll see is most of that is passed through.

So companies wanting to take credit for being on the billion dollar round table and everything, what they're really doing is they're passing through big numbers with low margin.

So it gives the appearance of doing things.

But Martin Luther King said in 1965 of the good things in life, blacks have half and of the excuse me and of the bad, he has a double share.

Nothing's changed between 2000 year 2020 18.

As of 2018, black people are the only group in the United States that made less.

In 2018 than they than they did in the year 2000.

No.

Well, just us, no wealth.

We have no money.

And that's the biggest problem that we have as a people.

So when people now you have people running around and acting like black people are taking opportunities from everywhere.

And this is the real issue.

Well, there are some people who talk about the equality of opportunity versus equality of outcomes, who really believes that some poor kid, some poor young person who's let's say they've got Einsteins intellect, they got good character, they work like a pig, that they have the same opportunity as a son of a billionaire who's a drug addict and alcoholic and never done anything.

If you really think that that poor kid who's prepared has the same opportunity as the son of a billionaire, you're delusional.

So this is the problem that we have.

This is all a bunch of fake marketing.

And that's why black people are at the bottom of everything.

So I don't know why we're arguing about something that was never real in the first place.

So if we want to go back and look at our history, what was the height of black business in our country between 1910 and 1930?

Corresponded with the Black Wall Street.

And how did that come about?

There was actually a real businessman who cared about the country.

So in 1895, Booker T Washington gave a speech at the Atlanta Exposition where he said, America's never going to be what it can be until black people get included in the economy.

He said, we don't need to live around you, but we have to be a part of the economy.

Otherwise we will be disproportionately involved in crime and other bad outcomes.

Julius Rosenwald, who was a Chicago one who was the CEO of Sears, said what's happened to black people is wrong.

It's what happened to our people in Europe.

So he responded to Booker T Washington.

Together, they built 1300 schools in the South, which is how black people got educated.

Remember, 90% of black people lived in the Deep South, right?

So in the height of segregation, mind you.

By the way, we have all this in segregation.

That's another topic.

There's always segregation.

So between 1910, in 1930, you had the Black Wall Street, which came out of this partnership between Booker T Washington and Julius Rosenwald, and they started the Negro Business League because Booker T Washington said the purpose of education is to teach at one is to have good character and to prepare you to be a part of the economy.

So the Black Wall Street between 1910 and 1930 were the height of black business participation.

And we were and by the way, there was 81 of them all in the Jim Crow South.

The height of black education was between 1940 and 1960.

So entrepreneurial participation in the modern parts of the economy that create wealth is what takes groups from poverty to prosperity.

Our problem is nobody does business with black people.

Black people get lots of lectures and no money.

And that's why we're in the situation we're in.

So, Greg, you are, president of economics, which is a term that actually Doctor King use.

Tell me what economics means.

You know, economics.

Doctor King was talking about racial equality and economic equality.

And so in 2007, Reverend Jesse Jackson and I were in, London, in England, where we started Aqua Nomics UK.

And so we went all around the country, you know, and talking to the various groups, various minority groups and the like.

And so that's where I got the idea of economics global.

You know, I live in New York now, but I'm coming back home to Chicago.

And one of the things and I really appreciate what I'm going to call you, Doctor Blackwell with Doctor Blackwell, who said, you know what?

This is a hot button piece here.

One of the things that I hear in New York often, and because it is New York, you know, because, you know, I think 40% of Africans came through Sullivan's port and 60% came through through Jamestown.

But then there's a different group that comes through Ellis Island who came looking for opportunity.

Those who came through Jamestown and Sullivan's port did not come looking for opportunity.

They were brought here to be slaves, to do slave labor.

And so, you know, Oftentime and this is a hot button piece.

People will say in New York, we're all immigrants.

And I'll say, no, we're not.

You know, my paternal grandfather was born in 1883, Arthur Livingston, my great grandfather, whose father was a slave.

I said, so, you know, we you know, it is it is a matter of understanding in America because people get angry when we bring up, some of the things that America has done.

But President Kennedy's term, 1961, affirmative action is real.

And it's important because we're talking about law as well.

And one of the yes policy, there was a policy that started before we became a federal constitutional republic in 1788.

In 1740, we had the Negro Act, the Negro Act.

And that was saying that black people could not be taught to read.

We could not travel in groups, we could not organize, we could not assemble, we could not do all of these things.

And that the slave owner had the right to beat or even kill a rebellious slave that went from 1740 1776 as the Revolution, 1788 we become a federal constitutional republic that goes all the way to 1865, when that's ended.

That wasn't the affirmative action.

That was the firm action.

But but it was affirmative.

We worked.

We worked without insurance.

We worked without wages.

We did all those things.

We had guaranteed employment.

We had housing that companies have actually, you know, in South Africa, we know the Nazis.

I did a piece on Vinegar Run, which was a policy in Germany, in Nazi Germany, about not having black like Louis Armstrong.

And Hitler didn't even like Mickey Mouse.

He was too black.

But they studied Sullivan's sport to learn like South Africa did, how to put forth apartheid and then how you use these minorities or disadvantage as a labor force.

I mean, America is the model for many of these egregious societies.

And so what happens is that when you change the law, culture and the law don't always track you can change the law, but it doesn't mean you change a person's heart.

I'm sure Doctor Blackwell can attest.

It's one thing to be allowed into the country club.

It's another thing for people to talk to you once you get in, you know?

And so just getting in is not enough because there is something in America's DNA.

This is a dangerous statement I'm about to make.

There's something in America's DNA that part of who we are that identifies us in the world.

You know, when I was living in Chicago, I did a thing, on the fifth floor of City Hall during the Laquan McDonald piece at Rahm Emanuel.

And there was a white police officer that said, you are racist.

You're racist.

And I knew the president.

I said, hold it.

Everybody says, so what do you mean, I'm a racist?

He says, you are.

Let me ask you a quick question.

He said, sure.

What's that?

I said, can you tell me of any laws or legislations that black people ever drafted or legislated to restrict the citizenship of white Americans?

He said what?

I said, let me flip it for you.

Can you tell me of any laws and legislations that have been drafted by white people to restrict the citizenship of black people?

He walked.

Away.

So let me let me move forward.

Let's let's move to now.

So companies have had diversity programs, inclusion programs, equity programs.

And now we're seeing the disbandment of such programs.

Companies like Ford Motor Company, Coors Beer Company, John Deere Company Lowe's, Brown-Forman liquor.

Now as we have gone through the civil rights movement, we have protested those companies as they have not hired us, done business with us, board moved up in their hierarchy.

So now that these companies are disbanding, these type of programs, what's the dynamic of that?

What does it mean, Robert?

Well, I'm going to tell you, I don't care because I wasn't real in the in the first place.

That's my view.

Weren't getting business.

Of it was fake.

It's always been fake.

If it weren't fake, those statistics that I gave you, we wouldn't have been at the bottom.

They're all fake corporate marketing.

How did they get away with it?

How do you say Coors beer?

Okay.

I have a diversity program.

Take me in first.

Let's just take the take.

What about government governments?

40% of GDP.

Black people have the biggest influence over city government.

That's the biggest caucus in the US government.

Native Americans have their own procurement vehicle in federal government.

Native Americans, if you're a Native American, they can give you a no bid contract for $100 million.

And that's because of the treaty.

The treaty?

Yeah.

Where's the thing for black people?

There's only two people ethnicities mentioned in the in the Constitution.

Black people, native and Asian Americans.

Where is the thing for black people?

There's nothing.

And in my view, the issue we we have is like, why do you care whether somebody doesn't like you or not?

That's irrelevant.

It's irrelevant whether somebody likes you because you're a woman, because you're a man, because you got curly hair, because you got a big it's irrelevant.

What's relevant is whether or not you get business, because there is nowhere in the world where poor people are healthy, educated and safe.

No black country, no white country, nowhere.

So the question is, how do people go from poverty to prosperity?

There's only one way that is entrepreneurial and participation in the modern parts of the economy that create wealth, that leads to the appreciation of education and social capital.

Social capital is when you reach back and you pull people from your community along, but more importantly, you create an aspirational roadmap for your young people so they know where to place their bets.

Our problem is, and I've asked this question at least a thousand times, named two black entrepreneurs that would be nationally known with no connection to sports or any form of entertainment.

You know how many times anybody's been able to answer that question?

Zero zero.

That is the biggest problem we have.

In my view, we should narrow our focus to economic participation by getting people to just do business with black people that are ready to do business.

And in exchange for that opportunity, they got to go and bring other people along.

That is what used to happen.

Our business people, black business people, were in front of every big movement in our country, including, by the way, Apple, the abolitionist movement.

There was a black man named James Wharton who was one of the richest people in Philadelphia in the late 1700s.

So black man who was one of the most the richest people in Philadelphia, he funded the abolitionist movement.

Where did his riches come from?

His.

He started a business, a sailing business.

He actually there was a white person of goodwill and I would say positive movement in our country comes from the collaboration of people of goodwill.

And there were white people of goodwill, because if there weren't, we'd all be dead or still slaves.

That's it.

If there were no white people of goodwill, there were.

And I think we have to acknowledge that everywhere in the world.

Listen, we got our hoodlums, they got their hoodlums, we got our angels.

They have our angels.

In my view, the only thing we need to worry about is our participation in the economy.

And stop asking other people to save you.

Stop asking other people to fund your programs.

We don't need any more.

What?

I'm going to call it little black kid programs where people give you black people lectures because they have little black parents and some little green bills.

They take care of their own little black kids.

All right.

And that's where our focus should be.

Let me ask you this.

As we have talked about affirmative action throughout the years.

One of the problems, I think, is that minority came from the Kennedy.

Affirmative action.

But that became a word.

That word minority meant black Americans.

That's what it meant at that time.

1961.

However, women became minorities.

Gays became minorities.

Everybody at this point in time is a minority except a white man.

The question that you beg to answer is, should there be a target that is black American exclusive?

I would say yes.

Let me say this as well.

You know, one of the things that tends to happen, in doing black business is because, yes, we need everybody.

We are not the ones that imposed segregation or discrimination.

It was imposed upon us.

We use the word black because we understand there is a narrative that has been imposed upon society in order to mute that black piece, because the thing about it, you pulled a Doctor King earlier.

Like Doctor King said, When America sneezes black, the Negro gets pneumonia.

We are the leaders, the vanguard of everything that has happened in this country.

But it's it's it's it is all it is.

Must be that way.

Because our human spirit cannot be broken.

Because the whole thing here to me, that the power is all of this is greed is money.

And what we have to understand is the power of money.

And to use that in order to get that.

One of the things that rainbow push was great for, and it's something that I want to continue to do, is that many of these major companies that you mentioned, we have to buy shares in those companies and show up at the shareholder meetings and voice what we think needs to be done.

Somebody says, well, nothing will happen.

Well, nothing will happen if you do nothing.

But if you do something, if you show up, if you begin to speak these things and other people began to hear you.

But it takes something called courage.

What I'm saying is that we have to have a, a, a rebirth of our minds.

There has to be a second emancipation.

The first emancipation was about the loosening of physical shackles and manacles.

The second one is about the shackles and manacles that are on our minds and spirits.

And so when you go talk to a lot of black people, which we do, many of them have been, you know, so used to being down, that down has become the normative state.

And so many of my white brothers and sisters, like in New York, I talk to all of them Jews, Gentiles, the whole deal.

And it's amazing what I hear in terms of the honesty of opinions.

And when they meet someone like me or someone like you or someone like you, they say to you, you're not like other black people that I've met.

That's dangerous.

That's not our fault.

That is your malady that must be healed.

All right.

How do you feel about reparations?

Is there economics in reparations?

Is that an answer?

Is that a solution?

Is it real?

My reparations can be, in my view.

We've been held down.

There were another set of rules, and I think we've had.

I might get to this.

I think we've had three great American movements.

We need a fourth.

The first was the founding of the Republic.

The second was the abolition of slavery.

They tend to happen once a century.

The third was a civil rights movement.

But now I believe that we need a movement of people of goodwill dedicated to proving that the free enterprise system works for everybody.

And how do we do that?

When people do business, just do business with the black entrepreneur in proportion to our talent.

Every benefit of the free enterprise system will come to our people.

No percentage, no precision.

It's all in my view.

They've tried it.

It's fake.

And all they can do is there are three kind of lies.

I don't know if you've ever heard of three kind of lies.

Lies?

Damned lies and statistics.

So they can.

You can make up any kind of thing in the world.

In my view, we got to rethink this.

If we.

We can't go back to things it never created benefit from us.

They did didn't create benefit.

And that's just easy to measure.

All we need is to go from poverty to prosperity.

We don't need white people to like us.

We don't need anybody else to like us.

We don't need to heal anything that happened to our great grandparents.

In my opinion, mathematically.

You just need money.

You need money so you can take care of your kids.

And by the way, every one of us was helped by some other black person.

There was a man named Earl Neal, I'm sure you know, knew Earl Neal.

Earl attorneys.

Or Neal.

Yes.

Of course, Langdon's father, he.

Was my attorney.

Every black person that's been in business that I know in my generation got helped by Earl Neal.

That's right.

We benefited from those people that came before us.

So if he wasn't in a position to have a business, he couldn't help me.

There was nothing that I could have done for O'Neill.

But he helped me because he didn't think I was a hoodlum.

That's my view.

Just do business and measure that.

Do business for the sake of business.

Only give people who are already.

There is no lack of black talent in our country.

Just do business.

What do you.

Think about reparations?

Is that an economic solution?

Oh, of course it is.

You know, for me, and I don't expect the business community to really be out there to make this happen.

You know, I'm in New York, and so I a little organization called Reparations Revolution, got in contact with the, consulate consul general, the consulate, the Netherlands, the Dutch.

So there we are, out there on the streets.

And six, six, six Third Avenue.

The U.N. community was blocking traffic on during rush hour.

And so, he he wants to talk.

He wants to talk before we start this protest there about reparations.

Why the Dutch?

The ducks were a slave trading juggernaut.

The West Indian, the East Indian tea companies, all these things.

And so, anyway, talk to the Afro Dutch in Amsterdam, of course.

And next thing we know that the Dutch Prime Minister was saying, yes, we do need to talk about cash reparations.

The one looks at the ledger, doing business and doing math.

If youlook at the historical ledger, doing business, doing math, if you just look at the numbers, doing business, doing math, one side of the ledger has a whole lot of positives, a whole lot of everything else on the other side of the ledger is empty.

So doing business or doing math, I look at the ledger and say, something is wrong here.

Why is this side have nothing and this side has everything.

That we call assets and.

Liabilities.

That's called crime.

That's called crookedness.

That's called illegitimate business.

And so the business has been illegitimate.

How do we correct that?

Do we just say, let's forget about it and start here?

No, you can't do that.

Because if you do that, let's do that.

For every thing in the Bible, there's something called Jubilee where there's forgiveness every 50 years of all debts.

So if we're going to do that, then everybody starts in 50 years.

We forgive all debts.

We start over.

There are all kinds of economic strategies and schemes that we can do.

But if we look at the actual ledger and let's remove the emotion, there has been bad business.

And so doctor Sandy Darity at Duke University, an economist, has a tremendous book out called From Here to Equality and Doctor dear to.

And I have consulted him about reparations.

It's been magnificent.

He's really about the cash as we understand it.

One of the things that I've been working on was creating a global reparations fund, because Karl Marx said that it is the black skinned African slave that funded the industrialization of the Western Hemisphere.

So we know it was the black skinned African slave to use what you said in terms of, the the typical light skinned, dark skinned, all that kind of stuff and black black being something entirely different in the UK.

But we know what it means in America.

And so when we look at reparations, when we look what's owed, what, what it takes, again, to do anything like that.

Because remember, Doctor King was the most hated man in America.

At the time for nothing.

Yes.

Of living, not death.

Right!

When he was alive because of what he was saying.

Because there was a great conversation between Minister Farrakhan and Mike Wallace on 60 minutes.

Well, Mike Wallace said, isn't Nigeria the most corrupt country on the planet?

Isn't it disgusting?

And Minister Farrakhan said, how dare you talk to me about Nigeria?

And I live here in America.

And you talking about, well, what about what America has done is doing this, that and the other.

Let's go to Flint and check the water.

Let's do these things.

I don't expect businessmen to really to be on that side.

But if we're going to talk about numbers, look at the ledger.

Pure numbers.

Is anything old for the labor that we've.

Given the free labor.

Free.

But it went forth.

But it ain't supposed to be free.

Paid me.

You know what can I say?

This Bloomberg business, you know, I'm in New York, Mike Bloomberg, Bloomberg business, did an estimate that in 1860 they said that, the slaves were oh, that were worth more than all of the manufacturers, gold railroads and banks in America.

So Bloomberg, Mike Bloomberg, the business they gave it a low estimate at 1860 of $42 trillion.

42.

Trillion.

On that note, I want to thank you for watching.

We've had a great conversation, a critical conversation on diversity and equity, inclusion and the concept of affirmative action as it has affected impacted black America.

Thank you.

Gentlemen.

Thank you for being.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

For more information about this show, follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Funding for this program was provided by Illinois Student Assistance Commission, the Chicago Community Trust.

Sin City Studios, Lamborghini Chicago, Gold Coast, and Downers Grove.

Blue cross, Blue shield of Illinois, Commonwealth Edison and the Illinois Health Plan.

N'digo Studio.