Guess what? Fifty-seven percent of Americans support affirmative action, according to a Gallup poll released in May 2004. Tell that to California voters who “turned down” affirmative action (Prop. 209) by 56% in the 1996 State elections. Many of those against affirmative action feel the way of Tennessee Lt. Gov. John Wilder, now apologizing for stating during a public address in May 2004, that affirmative action has helped blacks and women find jobs at the expense of some whites. Or closer to home and more succinctly, quoting a recent letter to the City of Hayward, CA School District Board, “This City is owned by whites and we cannot allow black people and foreigners to continue occupying positions that are meant for whites.”

With no affirmative action to get Blacks into jobs, contracts, college, and the high cost of living, African Americans are leaving California in droves. The Great Migration has been reversed – more Blacks are moving out, then moving in. California, the Promised Land, now has Black unemployment twice that of whites, practically no Black admissions to the University of California system and white male contractors holding 95% of the State and local government contracts.

Nationally, Black Enterprise magazine released the top 100 Black companies, with World Wide Technology of Maryland Heights, MD climbing to a billion dollars annual revenue. This is a first for Black owned firms. That’s good! What is not so good is that the San Francisco Bay Area, the fourth largest metropolitan area in the country, barely made the BE 100 list with only one company, PNS of San Jose. PNS is No. 90 with $33 million in revenues. The fact that Oakland and San Francisco, supposedly two of the most progressive cities in the country, have no representation in the top Black firms in the country, is just another case of “smoke and mirrors.”

The U.S. Armed Forces is 20% Black with Gen. Colin Powell as testimony to its affirmative action success. That’s good! However, with 26% of those killed in action in Iraq being Black or Hispanic, less than 1% of the defense contracts went to either Black or Hispanic companies in 2003. There should be a Congressional hearing on Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s abuse of minority companies as well as the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. Perhaps, when Democratic Illinois State Senator Barack Obama becomes the 3rd African American elected to the U.S. Senate this fall, he can make a difference. His Bay Area supporters and fundraiser's, Oakland Attorney Paul Washington and 100 Black Women President, Brenda Wright, think he will. Let’s “Keep the Faith?”

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