Tag Archives: African American

Three Terms Hindering Africa America’s Institutional Development: Affirmative Action, Diversity, & Minority

Posted on May 8, 2012 by | 3 comments

By William A. Foster, IV

“All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.” – Tennessee Williams

This article will probably get me in trouble with the politically correct police and let’s all hold hands and get along crowd who typically have an idealistic view that all the resources in the world can magically be distributed evenly across all populations. However, truth is truth especially as it pertains to social, economic, and political (SEP) interest and until we have their idealistic world we have to consider that groups will continue to battle over power to control the resources much like what happens with every one of God’s other creations – imagine that. SEP interest drives every group’s institutional and individual decision-making except for one – African Americans. African America continues to chase the ever elusive ghost of assimilation and inclusion into the (European) American Dream to the expense of its own power. Below are the three terms that to me psychologically have and continue hamper our development and why.

Affirmative Action

Simply put this has been one of the most damaging policies toward a stronger African-American institutional power development. Affirmative Action was a bill pushed for by certain Civil Rights Movement (CRM) groups and was signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. It owes its roots to desegregation and the court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS in 1954.

Desegregation’s ultimate culmination into the affirmative action law was all but the signature that wiped out African-American institutional development. Prior, we built towns such as “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa, OK and Rosewood, FL and countless self-sufficient African-American towns. These towns would be torn apart ultimately because of our lack of ability to obtain political retribution for social and economic attacks against us which is where the aim of the CRM should have been. Instead, a movement within the CRM decided that equality meant to be assimilated into European American owned and controlled institutions. We would all but abandon towns which we built, businesses we started, and colleges that were founded for our interest and then begin to define success not by what we owned or controlled anymore but by being the “first” to break through into institutions where we weren’t wanted and out flanked socially, economically, and politically. Despite an understanding that in capitalism the ultimate power lies in what you control directly or indirectly and what you own.

Today, less than 15% of African-Americans who can go to college attend HBCUs despite the institutional implications that a college and university can bring to a community as noted in The University of Power & Wealth. “Success” is defined as moving out of our neighborhoods and then we wonder why our elementary and secondary schools are weak. They are weak because the demand that drives home values up which in turn increases the amount of taxes available to fund our schools and then allows them to develop and pay quality teachers was abandoned so that we could live in a “good” neighborhood. The educated and professionals instead of being a permanent presence in the community for children to see (positive social capital) instead leave children to look up to those hanging on the corner (negative social capital). It use to be that our doctors, teachers, and other professionals lived in the community and therefore set the barometer of that community. Yet, we’ll claim they can find role models or they should seek out mentoring programs missing the point of setting the rule in a community for kids instead of hoping they’ll find a way to be the exception. Before affirmative action, we started companies like C.R. Patterson, the only African-American owned automobile manufacturing company. Now, most of define our success by the car we drive not the ones we build.

Minority

The problem for African America allowing itself to be labeled a minority are numerous but I’ll address specifically as it relates to economic policy and actions. In 2008, Dr. Verna Dauterive, alum of Wiley College, donated $25 million to the University of Southern California in memory of her late husband. The money would be used to fund a scholarship for minority students that pursued a doctorate in education. Who is a minority? The answer is simply anyone who is not a European-American male. That means the scholarships from that donation, at a school whose African-American population is not even five percent, never even have to be used for an African-American. It means that if USC so chose they could give that scholarship to anyone that’s not of African descent from here on out and they would be meeting the requirements of that donation. It should also be noted that USC has a $3.5 billion endowment while her undergraduate alma mater Wiley College has a reported $50 million endowment. To say the $25 million would have gone further at Wiley impacting African-Americans is without question.

Recently it was noted by Jarrett Carter, Editor of HBCU Digest, that many HBCUs lead their states in minority purchases. In fact, Prairie View A&M University, Mr. Carter noted leads the state of Texas with 38% of its contracts awarded to minority businesses. Again, it should be pointed out that does not mean $1 has to go to African-American businesses. As a former employee and graduate assistant at Prairie View A&M University it was not unusual for us to hear stories about European American families with businesses making the wife 51% owner of the business in order to access minority contracts. You have to love loopholes.

Diversity

Every year certain business magazines release “Most Diverse Companies” and they are always speaking of the labor that works for these major corporations. The reality is that while the labor might be diverse the ownership is still typically 99.9% European American. The current idea of diversity just means you were able to get the most talented of other groups to work for another group’s economic interest. Again, I can’t state enough that it is ownership who gets rewarded the most long-term not labor. We see this in college football where schools like the University of Texas have 50,000 students of which only 500 are African-American males and 50% of them are on the football or basketball team. A football team composed of almost 70% African-American males, and is the most profitable college football program in the United States. The profits then go into non-revenue athletic scholarships which are predominantly European American (see golf, softball, swimming, baseball, etc.), along with aiding research, faculty salaries, and much more. The 1% of the population with no SEP power at the university providing immensely to the 99% with all of the SEP power. Now that’s a change.

It is always important to note who is defining what. I always get annoyed by “diversity” often being hijacked and/or pigeon holed to only mean multiple cultures. Diversity is also always talked about from a European American majority. That is to say in a room of 10 people if you have 7 European Americans, 1 African-American, 1 Asian American, and 1 Latino American you have diversity. However, if you have 7 African-Americans, 1 European American, 1 Asian American, and 1 Latino American it is not perceived as diversity. This is the hurdle that HBCUs often face in perception by not only society as a whole but even sadder by African-Americans themselves. Every time a conversation about diversity comes up I have to point out there are a number of variables by which one can create a diverse setting beyond ancestry. If I have a room of eight people of African descent with two from Jamaica, two from Ghana, two from America, and two from Brazil and each of those two is a mixture of male/female then do I not have a diverse room? Yes, I do. I just happen to have one foundational link of ancestry. I can add variables such as but not limited to geographical upbringing, economic class, education, gender, etc. Just for the record HBCUs have always been willing to take poor and underserved European Americans and others. The reverse still is not true unless of course you can do something exceptional on a football field.

We must define things from our point of social, economic, and political interest and not just blindly follow someone else’s idea of what is “good” as their idea of “good” is always from their point of view and interest. I was on a radio show where one of the guests proclaimed to me that Martin Luther King, Jr. was fighting for our right to move into someone else’s neighborhood. A clear problem of what happens when you allow someone else to control your history. Even a man who screamed for our self-sufficiency as many seem to forget has had his image and message watered down over the years. In capitalism, everything is ownership or labor. This is neither good nor bad. It just is and we all know that knowing is half the battle.

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Dwayne Wayne And Ron Johnson Dropped The Ball – HBCUpreneurship

Posted on May 1, 2012 by | 6 comments

By William A. Foster, IV

The more an idea is developed, the more concise becomes its expression; the more a tree is pruned, the better is the fruit. — Alfred Bougeart

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What if Sergey Brin and Larry page, founders of Google, went to Hillman? Would Google still have been created? Yes. Would they still become billionaires? Probably not. The two men combined are worth an estimated $37.4 billion. Their combined fortunes are greater than Harvard’s endowment, almost 30 times the size of all HBCU endowments, and over 90 times the size of all HBCU research expenditures combined. The last being vital because it was the very thing that allowed the two men, PhD research students at Stanford, to create the search engine that is now a verb. Instead, it could be argued they would end up creating a great new search engine and selling it for pennies on the dollar to Microsoft. Ensuring of course that whichever one (ended up being Dwayne) and wanted to work for said company would have secured themselves employment. Notice, I said very distinctly employment and not ownership.

It is in one of the final episodes of the legendary show “A Different World” Ron Johnson or Ron, the loveable sidekick and best friend of Dwayne Wayne, and ironically the one who has the most entrepreneurial spirit of all the characters on the show comes up with a video game concept that helps children learn. It is no coincidence that him growing up with a father who owned a car dealership inspires his constant risk taking, so the entrepreneurial bug pops up constantly throughout his time at Hillman. One of the more classic Ronpreneurial moments is when he and Mr. Gaines, who ran The Pit at the student center, purchase a nightclub together. An all too typical expression of African-American entrepreneurship and one that has little to no substantive impact. Dwayne Wayne on the other hand is the math genius who seems destined to “succeed” by programming amazing products for the likes of Kenishewa. In fact, in the episode this is exactly what happens as Dwayne takes Ron’s concept and uses his programming skills to bring the game to life. Dwayne tells Ron about bringing the concept to fruition and in the excitement Ron excitedly says “this could be the start of Wayne & Johnson”. For all of Dwayne Wayne’s brains his entrepreneurial IQ never got past zero. He never hesitated to cash in for the short-term payday, subsequently putting his friendship with Ron in jeopardy for not acknowledging it was his idea,  and never once thought about the long-term wealth and institutional impact their own company could have. The brains of these two men would have been the perfect balance that business relationships often need. Ron’s ability to create ideas, generate sales, and risk taking balanced with Dwayne’s ability to bring ideas to life, analytical strategy, and risk aversion would have made for an absolutely powerful business combo. Now, instead of this being the launching of a software company Dwayne Wayne runs with Ron’s concept develops it and simply sells it to Kenishewa and secures a job. Ownership? None. Paycheck? Sure. Bigger picture? Missed.

What could have been? One could ultimately imagine a very successful software company (See Google, Baby Einstein, Electronic Arts, or Microsoft) being born out of the Wayne & Johnson partnership. Years down the line Wayne & Johnson would be giving internships and employment opportunities for Hillman students and donating hundreds of millions back to Hillman for a new research facility, new stadium, higher faculty salaries, and scholarships to reduce Hillman student debt loads. Oh did I mention Wayne & Johnson becomes so successful that they end up acquiring Kenishewa?

No matter a student’s academic department at their HBCU there should be an entrepreneurship class specifically designed for their major and/or department that teaches them how to turn their major into a business that they can take back to our communities and build. From mathematics, engineers, psychology, and beyond every single major should be able to understand how to transform their entity into a business that they own and/or co-own. They should also be able know how to cross-pollinate with other majors. Biology major meets engineering major? What do they create? Behold a bioengineering firm. Mathematics meets sociology? I have no idea but the fact that the conversation is being had leads me to believe the brilliance in our students would come up with an answer and more important a company. We should not be producing labor but ownership as well from our institutions. Our HBCUs too often promote their “successful” students being those who go off and work for large European American companies (making their companies stronger and wealthier) while the masses of their students wait exorbitant amounts of time searching for employment hoping to become an affirmative action quota. It is ownership which will bring down our unemployment rate which is always double the national average, it will help close the wealth gap, provide the wealth to influence the political system in our favor instead of always begging for favor, and pump much-needed infrastructure capital back into our HBCUs and communities so we can compete. We know that when America catches a cold we catch pneumonia. If the latest AP report shows that 50% of recent graduates are unemployed or underemployed what do you think that number is for HBCU recent graduates? It is time for us to do for self as we know our ancestors did in places like Tulsa, Rosewood, and countless other African-American towns across this country. We can compete but we have to compete to be more than just labor. I’ve always said and continue to say capitalism doesn’t reward hard work. It rewards the ownership of hard workers.

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The University of Power & Wealth

Posted on April 23, 2012 by | 7 comments

“Our success educationally, industrially and politically is based upon the protection of a nation founded by ourselves.” – Marcus Garvey

Many in the African American community believe that colleges and universities are simply there to educate a student so that they can go on to get a job. However, colleges and universities more than any part of our society are institutions of power and wealth creation more so than any other institution.  I’d touched on some of the economics of universities previously in the article “Can African American Muscle save African America?” This is mainly because they, more than any other institutions,  can touch all three parts of the SEP (social, economic, political) development model. Through their teaching they can influence the social aspects of a community by providing strong cultural identity. Through research they can create economic opportunities, and their research can also influence policy in local, state, and national governments.

The social development of students to serve their community can be seen in a university like Brandeis, a Jewish institution, which has a MBA program in Jewish studies. This program identifies potential Jewish leadership and hones their skills to run Jewish institutions in the community handling the social, economic, and political aspects of these institutions. Per their website it states “This innovative program prepares future Jewish community executives with the full complement of MBA/non-profit skills and specialized knowledge of Judaic studies and contemporary Jewish life.” They also offer a program called the MPP-MA in Jewish Professional Leadership which states “By preparing professional leaders with a full array of policy analysis and development skills, as well as specialized knowledge of Judaic studies and contemporary Jewish life, it trains students to design and implement innovative solutions to the Jewish community’s most critical problems, and to analyze and reform existing practices.” As you can see the university is catering to the core demographic that it was founded to serve. It is ensuring that their institutions that serve their community are well equipped with leadership that understand the historical & cultural (social), economic, and political aspects that the Jewish community face and will allow it to prosper and protect itself.

Next, let’s look at the economics that colleges and universities can produce for a community. What do Google, Time Warner, FedEx, Microsoft, Facebook, and Dell have in common? They were all founded on college campuses. Google founded at Stanford, Time Warner & FedEx at Yale, Microsoft and Facebook at Harvard, and Dell at the University of Texas. The six companies whose wealth value as measured by their market capitalization (except Facebook who has a private valuation are measured by a stock’s share price times number of company shares outstanding) is worth an estimated $530 billion. To put it in perspective these six companies wealth alone is 63% of African America’s buying power which is valued at an estimated at $850 billion.

Economically-speaking, colleges & universities primary driver of funding is research. Research in many instances is turned into businesses. These businesses tend to hire and have its initial investors come from the very university and nearby communities they are launched from. The wealth these businesses generate comes back to the university and community in the form of larger endowments, more research dollars, and more scholarships. These scholarships allow its students to graduate with less debt, which allows for early accumulations of wealth instead of paying down student loan debt. These businesses by hiring primarily from the institutions they sprung from help the employment of the demographic they serve. In the case of University of Michigan their research that will be transformed into business ventures will attempt to transform Michigan’s economy to one less dependent on the auto industry and its appears more into bio-tech businesses which should drastically improve Michigan’s unemployment rate (presently at 12.9% vs. National of 9.2%) in the years to come. The state of Utah’s UStar program (using taxpayer dollars) through its two state universities Utah and Utah State is focusing on the spillover industry from Silicon Valley. UStar’s mission stated on their website is stated as “UStar created a number of research teams at the University of Utah and Utah State University. Spearheading these teams are world-class innovators hungry to collaborate with industry to develop and commercialize new technologies.” BP in 2007 gave $500 million to the University of California-Berkeley to “develop new sources of energy and reduce the impact of energy consumption on the environment.” This $500 million is more than ALL HBCUS research budgets combined ($440 million) according to the National Science Foundation tracking of college and university research budgets.

Individually speaking we can see how this wealth has culminated into the hands of people at the universities who were fortunate to be a part of these founding companies. Facebook’s 1st investor Eduardo Saverin was a fellow student of Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard. His $15,000 investment, had he actually held onto it, today would be worth $7 billion. Google’s initial investors were professors from Stanford where Page & Brin founded the search engine. Same goes for Microsoft where Bill Gates initial investor and partner was classmate Paul Allen whose current net worth is $13.5 billion primarily in part to his Microsoft holdings. Dell Computers founded by Michael Dell in his University of Texas dorm room also has his primary investors from UT.

We have also seen the philanthropic power of this wealth to impact communities at work as well. Mark Zuckerberg recently donated $100 million donation to Newark, NJ school system. T. Boone Pickens four years in 2006 ago set a record with a $165 million donation to Oklahoma State University which, as has been reported, “surpasses the $100 million Las Vegas casino owner Ralph Engelstad gave the University of North Dakota in 1998.” The two donations by Pickens and Engelstad together are equal to over 25% of all HBCU endowments combined and over 50% of HBCU research budgets. T. Boone Pickens donation alone could put 412 African American students a year through undergraduate DEBT FREE or 110 African American doctors through medical school DEBT FREE at HBCU medical schools Charles Drew Medical School in California or Meharry Medical School in Tennessee. Graduating debt free could allow these doctors to be more likely to choose working in hospitals in African American communities as opposed to chasing a high paying job they need to pay down the massive student loan debt they occur. How would that be for improved medical care to our community?

The power to influence political policy is evident at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. Their current areas of focus are Arab media & politics, conflict resolution, drug policy, energy, health economics, homeland security, international economics, religion & culture, science & technology policy, space policy, tax & expenditure policy, the Americas Project (Latin America policy), the Transnational China Project (Chinese culture & policy), urban studies (African American policy), and the U.S.-Mexico Project (border policy). They have also recently sponsored an organization for the Iraq Study Group. Even our beloved Barack Obama’s cabinet is infected with Ivy Leaguers as noted in the article “Barack Obama taps into the Ivy League revolution with his cabinet” which notes that 22 of the 36 cabinet members are from Ivy League universities. Universities that still hold less than a 10% African American population. While Obama has a diverse cabinet the probability of this happening if he himself were not African American is highly unlikely (see previous 43 cabinets). It goes on to say “Even in Obama’s Washington, money and surnames matter.” The reality is people in power tap into those whom they know and who are qualified (or not) more than they tap those who they don’t know and are qualified. The old adage “Its who you know not what you know” speaks to a large part of the social networking importance of colleges and universities.

The question is then how do we improve our HBCUs to become the vehicles that can serve our SEP interest? First realize that these institutions are more than just a place to get a degree. As you can see their depth is possibly the greatest vehicle of development our community has at its disposal and that their existence is for the very thing we seek and that is to help uplift our community today and for generations. Secondly realize every mind and body has a value. This IS capitalism people. EVERYTHING has a value. For American college and universities each warm body generates an average of $33,000 in tuition revenue per year. HBCUs only get $6 billion of the $54 billion in African America’s annual tuition revenue pie meaning $48 billion is leaving our community to predominantly European American colleges & universities in tuition revenue alone. This forces our 95 HBCUs to operate on an average of $63 million per HBCU to have very little in the way of improving facilities, recruiting talented faculty, and expanding their research budgets, which could influence the SEP of our communities. To put that $63 million in perspective Ohio State University’s ATHLETIC department operates on $107 million per year (primarily funded by African American muscle). The fact that only a roughly 10-12% of African American students who can attend college choose to go to HBCUs limits these institutions from improving themselves as they are always strapped for operation revenue meanwhile being asked to compete from the perspective of: Howard v. Harvard, Charles Drew Medical v. UCLA Medical, or even Prairie View A&M vs. Texas A&M in the areas of SEP development and leaves us at the mercy of someone else’s institution solving our problems who has no real interest in doing so.

We must redirect our charity giving. A blog on African American giving I read recently said of our $11 billion we give annually to charities, $7 billion goes into churches. By making a concerted effort to redirect $2 billion of this would vastly improve the state of our HBCUs and should not dampen our religious institutions. Because while I’m all for saving our souls it is high time we invest in improving the fate of the bodies which house our souls and the institutions that were created to serve them and our communities. Too many of us faithfully pay our tithes and give little thought to our secular institutions like HBCUs. Their fate I dare say will be our own and without our own institutional power to combat institutional power of other communities we will be forever at the mercy of others awaiting them to bless us with their leftovers. It is time to once again do for self as all others do and as we use to do. Operate like a nation or become a destroyed people.

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The Miscelebration of African-American “First” 2012

Posted on April 2, 2012 by | Leave a comment

By William A. Foster, IV

The mere imparting of information is not education. – Dr. Carter G. Woodson

Are we American or not? Are we African or not? Over 100 years after W.E.B. DuBois first brought the theory of “double consciousness” to our minds, it is an answer that in our celebration of achievements we clearly still struggle with. We continue to celebrate our firsts into historically white institutions and give little credence to our accomplishments within our historically black institutions, subconsciously continuing to view our own institutions as second class. I continue to firmly believe a people are a reflection of its institutions. These institutions include the family, businesses, schools, and etc…

Every year we watch as Major League Baseball celebrates Jackie Robinson’s breaking of the color line of baseball and we as African-Americans cheer right along in joy. Yet, looking through the owners’ box of the three major American sports (football, basketball, and baseball) there is only one African-American owner 60 plus years later. Sorry, the Los Angeles Dodgers recent purchase by the Magic Johnson “Group” for $2 billion appears to have Magic Johnson as no more than the face of the group not the actual money, decision maker, or principal owner. He appears to be no more than a minority owner similar to that of Jay-Z with the New Jersey Nets and LeBron James with Liverpool FC. Magic as it were appears to be a convenient double irony if you will as the face of  the group buying the team that broke a mythical labor color barrier in Major League Baseball. A “color” barrier I will touch on later had nothing to do with race. The real money and principal financier behind the purchase of the Dodgers is the Guggenheim Partners, a financial services company with $125 billion in assets under management. The operations of the team appear to be in the hands of Stan Kasten, a baseball executive although there is uncertainty whether he too has an ownership stake. Ironically, the man we love to hate Michael Jordan is still the only African American principal owner of a North American sports team.

The Negro Leagues who have been long since forgotten provided ownership as well managers and a more talented league of baseball from its inception, and yet over 60 years later we see little celebration of Rube Foster the Father of Negro League Baseball for what he did for the African American community economically, socially, and culturally. Meanwhile, Branch Rickey is praised for his “courage” of breaking the color line. The real color line that Jackie impacted for Branch was the “green” color line as the Dodgers with Jackie would break attendance records for the league at both home and away games making Branch Rickey an even wealthier man as Jackie was “paraded” before all-white crowds amazed by the “super negro”. We will hail the accomplishment of Ernie Davis being the first African-American to win the Heisman at Syracuse, forgetting it only cemented the expedition of talent from our HBCUs both athletically and academically, and crippling them financially. Academically, we’d rather celebrate Ruth Simmons becoming the first to become president of an Ivy League college instead of celebrating Daniel Payne who was our first college president at Wilberforce. Our neighbor state to the east Arkansas, we celebrate the Little Rock Nine who desegregated the all-white school there but in the process, serving to cripple black controlled education. No teachers came with them, nor principals, administrators, nor ability to control or influence curriculum, and in the decades to follow the Arkansas public school system as it pertained to masses of African-Americans would be a microcosm of its former strength in producing quality and quantity of brilliant black minds. This year, I watched as many African American friends and associates cheered on different HWCUs in March Madness, schools who routinely have less than 5% African American populations, typically no more than one African American on the board of trustees if any, and African American donors (where the real power lies) typically are so insignificant the African American and African diaspora population at these HWCUs is at the mercy of whatever leftovers are seen fit for them. Yet, the majority of African American population has no problem throwing their social and economic support behind these schools no matter how marginalized we are within them in terms of institutional power. Meanwhile, Shaw University women’s basketball team won the division II national championship and received very little press (even from our own) or fanfare about this amazing accomplishment. It was HBCU Nation’s 1st national championship in basketball since 2005 when the the Virginia Union men won and the first since 1988 for an HBCU women’s program when Hampton won.

We are in the process of indeed celebrating our demise and forever imbedding in our subconscious that we and more importantly our institutions are, and always will be, second class in this country’s mind. Carter G. Woodson says simply “If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.” To take Dr. Woodson’s quote a step further, we must do more than celebrate our history, but we must celebrate the history that moved us to a self-sufficient, self-governed, and most important a race that loves itself. Right and wrong can be argued and become a grey topic but I simply ask this continuous of cause and effect, that is to say, do the first we celebrate contribute to a positive impact on the African Diaspora going forward or are we celebrating a perceived subconscious step closer to being accepted as “white” that will destroy our culture and its history?  This editorial is not an attack on those above but seeks to raise a conversation of are we properly examining the history we celebrate. Are we simply trying to celebrate that still ever elusive ghost of “whiteness”? I dare say we would not celebrate the first African-American to have been allowed to serve in the Ku Klux Klan or would we? Malcolm X many times believed that America was just as guilty as Nazi Germany for her atrocities against African-Americans. Yet, we continue to celebrate the entrance of a few into the very institutions that even in 2012 commit social atrocities against us from industrial prisons to under funded schools from elementary to college level as if this is some accomplishment that is helping us solve the ails of restoring our community pride and ability to succeed. Instead of seeing it for what it is and that is a drain of our leadership and excellence from our community into theirs while the masses of us as African-Americans are still struggling to get out of the proverbial and literal gutter. Because we all know that acceptance into their institutions so many times means turning your back on your own if you want to remain “accepted” and the losing of institutional power. It is not enough to celebrate history but to celebrate that history which uplifted and moved along the hopes and dreams for all of us and not that which highlights the divide and conquer of us over time.

To read the 1st Miscelebration of African-American “First” published click here.

Mr. Foster is the Interim Executive Director of HBCU Endowment Foundation, sits on the board of directors at the Center for HBCU Media Advocacy, & President of AK, Inc. A former banker & financial analyst who earned his bachelor’s degree in Economics & Finance from Virginia State University as well his master’s degree in Community Development & Urban Planning from Prairie View A&M University. Publishing research on the agriculture economics of food waste as well as writing articles for other African American media outlets.

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The Shake Up At OWN

Posted on March 22, 2012 by | Leave a comment

By William A. Foster, IV

In great attempts, it is glorious even to fail. – Cassius Longinus

There appears to be a storm brewing on the horizons at OWN. Maybe, it could even be described as a hurricane. SNL Kagan yesterday reported that OWN, the 50/50 partnership between Oprah Winfrey’s HARPO & Discovery Communications, is hemorrhaging money. In 2011, the network posted a loss of $107 million and is expecting to post a 2012 loss north of $142 million. It is cliche but “OWN, we have a problem.”

OWN this week shook the place up by releasing 30 people and letting go of Rosie O’Donnell. This probably still won’t resolve OWN’s ratings issues. Oprah Winfrey is learning that there is a ocean of difference between operating a one hour program and being responsible for twenty-four hours of programming. The short-term answer has been more Oprah. She has been interviewing the likes of Lady Gaga and Bobbi Kristina Houston. The latter coming shortly after her mother’s death which seemed to leave a bit of a bad taste in some people’s minds and leaving the network still searching for its strategical footing.

It appears both HARPO and Discovery overestimated just how much Oprah Winfrey people really wanted. There is the reality that when Oprah Winfrey backed Presidential Candidate Barack Obama and promoted a controversial religious book that her ratings started a steady decline among her conservative viewership. Ms. Winfrey and Discovery were banking that she would be riding a wave of popularity into their new partnership. Her decision to abandon her apolitical and neutral stances on political and religious topics apparently cost her more viewers than they thought. Up until that point she was essentially Teflon on sensitive issues but those issues were rarely if ever political or religious, which are more divisive than your typical hot button issues.

I’ve made the argument previously that Oprah Winfrey would do well to become a NFL Owner and work out a deal to feature her team on OWN. Whatever the solution is however, let’s hope the leadership at HARPO figures it out quickly or we could see Discovery dissolve the partnership and network. HARPO’s ownership at 50% is the largest current African American owned stake in a network and its potential failure would be a serious setback in our need for more not less institutional ownership.

Disclaimer: There is no ownership of Discover Communications by myself, my business, or my family as of this article’s publishing.

Mr. Foster is the Interim Executive Director of HBCU Endowment Foundation, sits on the board of directors at the Center for HBCU Media Advocacy, & President of AK, Inc. A former banker & financial analyst who earned his bachelor’s degree in Economics & Finance from Virginia State University as well his master’s degree in Community Development & Urban Planning from Prairie View A&M University. Publishing research on the agriculture economics of food waste as well as writing articles for other African American media outlets.

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