#186. Losing the Lottery

"What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." So the moniker of Sin City goes, for Las Vegas exists to allow America a place to retreat to momentary bliss, potential financial ruin and the wonders of a one-night stand coupled with all the trappings of said illicit encounter.

All people on the planet wish for instantaneous wealth, begot through the luck of the roulette wheel, the Poker table, Blackjack, Black Friday Lines or through a state-sponsored lottery.

Other people, instead of seeking the instant gratification of riches through chance, invest their money in 401Ks, Mutual Funds or CDs, thereby planning for the long term benefits of wealth creation - compound interest baby - over the short term sensation of winning a scratch off card from the local 711.

It must be said, Black people love the idea of instant gratification. Take for instance Black athletes who hit the genetic lottery jackpot and make it to professional sports. Seven figures or more quickly pouring into a newly created bank account makes for an impressive trip to the strip club for a joyful - yet soon to be dolorous - session of "Making it Rain".

Yet, Black people find these avarice-induced downpours of Benjamins an expensive deluge of momentary monetary showering, for money only begets more money when it is put into a savings account and not into the G-String of some random girl:

"Via Half Sigma, we learn the factoid that 3 out of 5 former pro basketball players are broke within a half decade of being out of the game. The typical NBA player makes millions of dollars and has a two digit IQ. That's a recipe for trouble -- both overspending and getting scammed by advisors."

Sports Illustrated, the magazine that is for Black people what Popular Mechanics is for white people, recently ran an interesting article that talked about How Athletes Go Broke. If you read between the lines, the article is largely about Black people in athletics who after winning the genetic lottery go out and splurge with the fervor of a sixteen-year-old girl with her daddy's credit card:

"What happens to many athletes and their money is indeed hard to believe. In this month alone Saints alltime leading rusher Deuce McAllister filed for bankruptcy protection for the Jackson, Miss., car dealership he owns; Panthers receiver Muhsin Muhammad put his mansion in Charlotte up for sale on eBay a month after news broke that his entertainment company was being sued by Wachovia Bank for overdue credit-card payments; and penniless former NFL running back Travis Henry was jailed for nonpayment of child support.

In a less public way, other athletes from the nation's three biggest and most profitable leagues—the NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball—are suffering from a financial pandemic. Although salaries have risen steadily during the last three decades, reports from a host of sources (athletes, players' associations, agents and financial advisers) indicate that:

• By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce.

• Within five years of retirement, an estimated 60% of former NBA players are broke.

Does pointing out this unpleasant of financial irresponsibility strike SBPDL as utilizing Hate Facts to make a point? Let's get back to the "What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" aspect of this entry.

Only seven states in the nation don't have lotteries, as the prospect of quick millions is an enticing idea entertained by millions of people who hope to duplicate the spending capabilities of pro athletes whom they enjoy spending vast times watching on television.

The United States is a country that has a government that spends money like a recently drafted Black athlete and worse, acts like an enraged lottery loser when Hate Facts are deployed in any conversation about race:

"A woman being driven around in a rented limousine pulled up at a coat store and announced she'd won the lottery and would pay for everyone's purchases, police said, but she ended up causing a riot when customers realized it was a hoax.

Angry customers threw merchandise around and looted, leaving the store looking as though a hurricane had passed through it, police said.

Linda Brown was arrested Tuesday after an hours-long shopping spree that began when she hired a stretch Hummer limousine to drop her off at a Burlington Coat Factory store, police Sgt. Lt. Michael Deakins said. Brown walked to a cash register and loudly announced she had won the lottery and would pay for each person's merchandise up to $500, he said."

Linda Brown - a Black woman - the poster child for Black people playing the lottery in America. An incredible report on Gambling and the Lottery can be found here, as our friends at the National Gambling Impact Study Commission decided to deduce the role of gambling in the United States.

A recent study conducted at the University of Georgia discussed the HOPE Scholarship - created through lottery revenue for Georgia students to go to college in the state for free - and brought forth some interesting data:

Third, lottery play is heaviest among African Americans (National Gambling
Impact Study Commission 1999, p. 3-4). Clotfelter (1979), Clotfelter and Cook (1987),Borg and Mason (1988), Hansen (1995) and Price and Novak (2000) all argued that lottery expenditures are disproportionately higher for African Americans than for whites.

Stranahan and Borg (1998) argued that although African Americans were not more likelyto play than whites, conditioned on playing, they spend much more on lottery tickets than whites.

...shows that lottery sales per capita are much larger in counties with a large share of
African Americans than with a small share. The bottom three quintiles spend $201, $201 and $200 per person, per year on lottery tickets, which contrasts sharply with the upper two quintiles (over 36.1% black) that spend $250 and $402 per person on lottery tickets. The quintile with the largest share of African Americans purchases lottery tickets at twice the rate of those in the lowest three quintiles."

So Black people trying to get rich quick - who weren't blessed with athletic skills or who spent on the money they earned thanks to those athletic skills - purchase an inordinate amount of lottery tickets, thereby allowing white people to attend school for free:

"The irony is that while HOPE caters more and more to middle-class suburbanites, it's the parents of Crim students – and not the parents of Mill Creek ones – who are shelling out more of their income to cover the scholarship's costs. That's because HOPE is paid for by the Georgia Lottery.

"Once you decide you're going to fund public activities with a lottery, you are going to be funding them on the backs of people who tend to be lower income and people with less education, which in the South also means disproportionately black," says Christopher Cornwell, a professor at UGA's Terry College of Business who's extensively studied HOPE. "That's just a reality."

Of course, focusing on Georgia neglects the other 42 states with a lottery, which have significant data to prove the theory SBPDL is postulating:

"The director of Arkansas’ lottery insists the games scheduled to begin this fall will not target the poor and minorities.

But if ticket-buying patterns in Arkansas follow patterns in lottery director Ernie Passailaigue’s home state of South Carolina, those groups will be the most likely to become frequent lottery players.

Among other things, the results showed:

—Blacks made up 19.7 percent of the state’s adult population but accounted for 23.2 percent of lottery players and 38.4 percent of frequent players.

—People in households earning under $40,000 accounted for 28 percent of the state’s population, 31.3 percent of lottery players and 53.4 percent of frequent players.

—People with no high school diploma accounted for 8.9 percent of the state’s population, 10.5 percent of lottery players and 20.8 percent of frequent players.

—People whose highest educational achievement is a high school diploma or GED made up 25.1 percent of the total population, 24.3 percent of lottery players and 33.3 percent of frequent players.

—People who said they have no Internet access made up 29.6 percent of the total population, 30.2 percent of lottery players and 41.1 percent of frequent players.

Asked for his explanation of those statistics, Passailaigue said in an interview last week, “There are certain traditional lottery games that are offered that appeal more to minority populations, and those are specifically the three-digit game and the dour-digit game.”

Drawings are held daily in Pick 3 and Pick 4 games. The winning numbers in daily games often are used as the basis for illegal gambling, Passailaigue said.

“It’s cultural,” he said. “It’s been going on since time immemorial. In South Carolina — I don’t know how it is here — you have two different what we call ‘numbers games.’ You have the numbers games run by the South Carolina lottery, and then you have the illegal games, the street games.”

South Carolina’s 2008 lottery study showed that more than 50 percent of Pick 3 and Pick 4 players were black.

Dale Charles, president of the Arkansas branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said he believed Passailaigue’s assessment was far from accurate. The state lottery director does not want to admit the real reason why blacks play the lottery frequently, Charles said.

“The reason why black people play it is because they are trying to make their lives better for themselves and their families,” Charles said. “But they are failing to realize (the) chances of winning aren’t so great. We think, ‘This is going to be the time,’ and we get hooked on it and we just keep playing and keep playing and keep playing until it becomes an addiction."

Black people want to be rich, and instead of long-term wealth creation an epidemic of short-term financial growth strategy permeates throughout the Black community, well, everywhere the lottery is played (even in Obama's Chicago):

"It’s just minutes before the televised noon lottery drawing, and hurried, last-minute players are lining up inside 115th St. Food & Liquor on Chicago’s South Side.

One of them is 60-year-old homemaker Minnie Vaughn.

“I have no strategy,” she said. “I play the same numbers every day, maybe $7 or $8 worth.”

John Brown started buying lottery tickets the day he turned 18, the legal age for playing the Illinois Lottery.

“On average, I’d say [I spend] about $25 a day,” said Brown, now 36, a laid-off laborer. “But I don’t mind because I know, sooner or later, I’m going to hit something.”

Predominantly African American or Latino, low-income Chicago communities have generated the highest lottery sales in the state, shows an analysis of Illinois Lottery records since 1997 by The Chicago Reporter. In addition, residents in these communities spent a higher portion of their incomes on the lottery than people in more affluent areas. And despite the state’s recent economic downturn, lottery spending has increased, the Reporter found.

In the South Side’s 60619 ZIP code area, lottery players spent more than $23 million on lottery tickets in fiscal year 2002, more than any other ZIP code in the state, according to lottery sales records. The 60619 area includes parts of the predominantly black neighborhoods of Chatham, Avalon Park, Burnside and Calumet Heights."

So, it seems the data overwhelming highlights yet another Hate Fact that few will admit is important to discuss, for instant gratification affects one community more than others. Stuff Black People Don't Like includes losing the lottery, for the reality is that Black people play the lottery more than other races, and though they lose, they keep playing the lottery in a game that even Sisyphus wouldn't try, even if the Gods ordained him too.

#602. The Morning After 'Making It Rain'

All people throughout history have secretly desired the ability to control the weather. Farmers who saw their crop ruined due to droughts; high school football players who dreaded the 100 degree weather during two-a-days in the summer; and George W. Bush, just days before Katrina hit New Orleans, all wished the ability to manipulate the weather.

However, only Black people have mastered the idea of controlling precipitation and this amazing skill is known as "Making it Rain":

"When you're in da club with a stack (of money), and you throw the money up in the air at the strippers. The effect is that it seems to be raining money."

Black people, particularly Black athletes, are highly adroit at channeling the weather Gods and creating a monetary monsoon at their command when visiting strip clubs.

Adam "Pacman" Jones, a prime example of the modern Black athlete, was involved in one particular magical evening, when he was able to conjure up a financial flood that reminded some people at the strip club of the old saying, "Apres-je, le deluge":

"...what happened inside a Las Vegas strip club on Feb. 19, 2007, when Adam "Pacman" Jones showered scantily clad dancers with money. Just minutes after "making it rain," Jones was involved in a fight inside the club. A short time later, three people were shot outside the club.

Shortly after 2 a.m. on Feb. 19, Jones and an entourage of about seven people -- a group that included his stylist; his business manager, Chris Horvath; and Robert Reid, Jones' massive bodyguard for the evening -- arrived at the Minxx Gentlemen's Club & Lounge...

Jones told police he arrived at the club with "close to $100,000." He took $40,000 out of his Louis Vuitton bag and exchanged it for several stacks of $1 bills, which he put in a black trash bag, according to his statement. So much money was thrown onto the main stage that dancers, after their sets, started filling buckets with the loose bills covering the stage."

Adam "Pacman" Jones uncanny ability to "make it rain" was upstaged by the exploits of fellow NFL player Vince Young, who also has the God-like ability to perform feats of down-pour of dollars at a moments whim:

"The last time a member of the Tennessee Titans decided to "make it rain" while hanging out at an event with Nelly -- people got shot and lives were ruined. But Vince Young isn't one to learn from other people's mistakes...While onstage with the rapper during a performance in Houston last week, Vince rolled out a wad of cash and started showering the crowd with dollar bills. But unlike the incident with his former teammate Pacman Jones, everyone emerged unharmed this time."

"Making It Rain" is a popular rap song, that contains these wonderful lyrics that allow the world to see how Black people can conjure up the ability to perform daring feats of weather manipulation:

"Oww Scottie lets make it rain on these niggas...

I'm in this bitch with the terror got a handful of stacks Better grab an umbrella

I make it rain, (I make it rain)

I make it rain on them hoes make it rain,(I make It rain)

I make it rain on them hoes I make it rain,(I make it rain)

I make it rain on them hoes I make it rain(I make it rain)

I make it rain on them hoes"

Black people - particulary Black athletes and rappers - can "make it rain" with an authority unlike any Indian chieftan performing the most elaborate rain dance. However, the idea of "making it rain" does have horrible ramifications, as the celebratory evening can leave devastating memories in the morning after, not to mention the financial lunacy of unloading massive amounts of cash with a low return on investment proposition.

The morning after "Making it Rain" can be a traumatic experience for Black people, as Pacman Jones found out:

"Police seized $81,020 in cash belonging to Tennessee Titans cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones, money they said sparked a melee and a triple shooting at a strip club over the weekend, court documents show

Jones was showering more than 40 strippers onstage at Minxx Gentlemen's Club & Lounge early Monday with the cash "intended as a visual effect," according to a search warrant. But a scuffle broke out when the Houston promoter who hired the strippers told them to pick the money up."

Jones was suspended from the NFL for one year after this incident, and Vince Young has never recovered from his bout with "Making it Rain", nearly committing suicide and losing his starting job to a white quarterback.

Stuff Black People Don't Like includes the morning after "Making it Rain" for the ability to create spontaneous weather patterns yielding wads of cash for strippers, strips away the judgement skills of the person performing the feat. Yet, this is one of the few instances when Black people do leave a solid tip, however the ramifications the morning after are to great to warrant "Making it Rain".

FYI - ESPN has removed the clip below that exposes the story of Pacman Jones: CLICK HERE TO VIEW IT.

#117. Not Finding the Leprechaun

Leprechaun's are a myth originating in Ireland and largely living in South Bend, Indiana now, where the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame hope to one day find a pot of gold at the end of their football season.

However in a town near Mobile, Alabama, Black people have found what is purported to be a Leprechaun and are attempting to capture it to acquire the pot-o-gold he has stashed.

As the famous video by NBC reporter Brian Johnson shows, Black people in Mobile community of Crichton rose to international prominence as they discussed the mythological creature inhabitating one of the their trees: and how they would get the gold!

This is the one of the first times in recorded history that a white person has been welcomed with open arms into the Black community and many pundits have wondered if the Leprachaun's might play a vital role in finally ending the Cold War in race relations that isn't showing signs of thawing anytime soon.

A major news story was published on the Leprachaun that helped generate even more publicity for the Mobile town and the Black community there:

"Pretty soon, there were long traffic jams as out-of-towners brandishing Irish flutes and torches drove into Mobile to catch a peek. Many quickly found that, if they shone a torch up at the tree, the leprechaun would disappear. "I've seen him more than once," said John Trinidad. "You just have to keep staring long enough and he'll show up. I told friends about this and they thought I was nuts but they've now seen him too. "No one had heard of Crichton before. Now if you type in the word on the internet, all you get is stuff about leprechauns."

Some of the more incredible quotes from the video:

"To me it look like a leprechaun to me, all you got to do is look up in tree... who all seen the leprechaun say yeah (to which a large group of Black people respond yeah)!!!

Could be a crackhead that got hold of the wrong stuff and it told him to get up in the tree and play a leprechaun."

One Black person even brought potions to ward off spells and had a magical leprechaun flute that has been passed down for thousands of years in his family.

However, no gold has been found yet and the Black residents of Mobile are trying to do everything they can to find it, even potentially uprooting the tree where the leprechaun was first spotted:

"There is a pot of gold under the leprechaun tree. -We are working with a local citizen who is planning on uprooting the tree via rented backhoe in order to determine if there is in fact a pot of gold under the tree. This plan has been delayed as it turns out that the tree it on city property and a permit is needed to dig it up. Despite all the evidence, authorities have not yet provided this permit."

Black people want to find this Leprechaun in Mobile and will do anything to get it. Stuff Black People Don't Like will include not finding the Leprechaun, until Black people finally get their hands on this white man's gold for good.

#22. Saving Money for the Future

One of the most important books ever written, The Richest Man in Babylon, is ostensibly not to be found on most Black people's bookshelf. USA Today has recently published a shocking story regarding the un-niggardly mores of Black people and their lowly savings rate.

Black people are not fond of saving money, when compared to their white counterparts:

"African Americans are more than twice as likely as whites or Asians to take a hardship withdrawal from their 401(k) plans. The withdrawal rate also was higher for Hispanics, although not as high as African Americans'. Asians had the lowest rate....African Americans and Hispanics also are much more likely to take money out of their 401(k) plans for emergencies, which could further stunt long-term savings growth. And they are less likely to invest in stocks in favor of low-risk investments and real estate, increasing the risk that their savings won't keep pace with inflation, retirement specialists say."

The article would go on to state:

"Since 401(k) plans are now the primary retirement savings tool and the savings disparities are so significant, it's apparent that minorities are likely to retire with less financial security, said Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments."Without a significant effort to improve savings and investing behaviors, African-American and Hispanic workers are in danger of retiring into poverty," she said in a statement."

Black people, based on this study of 401(k) plans, have the innate ability to save, although it would appear, according Alicia Munnell, that:

"African Americans and Hispanics also are less likely to inherit money than whites, Munnell says, which leaves less of a financial cushion against hard times. As a result, she says, these groups have a tougher time putting money in a retirement account and also tend to be more cautious about investing in the unpredictable stock market.

Minorities also may be held back by family obligations, says Monique Morrissey, economist at the Economic Policy Institute. If a worker comes from a demographic group that has been disadvantaged over generations, she says, the individual is more likely to be responsible for family members."

Taken into context, don't these quotes about inheriting money and the purported disadvantaged groups just further substantiate the idea of innate inability to save money among Black people, if they are unable to have any money to pass on to their progeny, it would lead any sane person to infer from the available data that generations of Black people have never saved money.

Black people haven't just started not saving money, as this USA Today article would want you to believe, but have always been against saving money, hence the reality of generations of Black people without money to inherit. No one saved any in the previous generation.

Dave Chappelle, the comic Black people don't like, has shown us in a hilarious skit what will happen when reparations are finally given to Black people, and the results fit in nicely with the reality of "delayed gratification" that Black people seem to not like either.

In the skit from his hit-TV show, Chappelle lampoons Black people who have recently received reparations:

"...Chappelle reparations skit, where blacks blow it all on trucks of menthol cigarettes, gold chains, FUBU, fried chicken, and so on was in essence what would happen. In something approaching amazement, he asked me if I was aware it was satire. Of course, but only in the aesthetic particulars; the wasteful splurging with no thought of tomorrow was obviously what would happen, just as with lottery winners."

The idea of "Delayed Gratification" is not just a nefarious stereotype of Black people, as the USA Today published study on Black peoples inability to save - conducted by Hewitt Associates - proves. Black people, as one prominent psychologist has written, display:

"The impulsiveness component of psychopathic personality includes an inability or unwillingness to delay immediate gratification in the expectation of long-term advantage. The first study to demonstrate differences between blacks and whites in the delay of gratification was carried out by W. Mischel in Trinidad in the late 1950s. He offered black and white children the choice between a small candy bar now or a larger one in a week. He found black children were much more likely to ask for the small candy bar now, and this difference has been confirmed in three subsequent American studies. This racial difference has been noted but given different names by different writers. In The Unheavenly City Revisited, Edward Banfield writes of the “extreme present-orientation” of blacks, and Michael Levin writes of “high time preference,” an economist’s term for preferring cash now rather than a greater sum in the future."

Black people live for the now, epitomized by the idea of "Get rich or die trying" which is the ethos for the Black community. Black people will continue to view saving money for the future as Stuff Black People Don't Like and will continue to blame others for the generational problems.

Chappelle's Show
Reparations 2003
www.comedycentral.com
Buy Chappelle's Show DVDs Black Comedy True Hollywood Story

Chappelle's Show
Reparations 2003 Follow-Up
www.comedycentral.com
Buy Chappelle's Show DVDs Black Comedy True Hollywood Story