Introduction Maulana Karenga, Guest Editor

This special issue on Ethnicity and Public Policy explores critical issues in public policy from various vantage points. Its scope is wide-ranging and aims at delineating and analyzing discourse and practices which both inform and constitute public policy on ethnic questions. It includes theoretical, historical and practical studies and represents a variety of approaches to both the definition and discourse of ethnicity and public policy on the national and international level

Being in antiquity

Ancient Egypt, Greece, India, and Christendom, among others, historically suggest themselves as veritable treasure-troves for ontological exploration, each having identifiable source events, powerful mythopoeic traditions, and revelations that exploded over a geographical region producing the ethos-aesthetics of a people. Coming at ontology from different angles, these sustained explorations of antiquity, sometimes across the span of more than a thousand years, are among the most powerful human inquiries into existential meaning and truth. This priceless human heritage must not be locked away in the museum of knowledge; it was never meant to be forgotten, but to be remembered and engaged with again and again in a practice of anamnesis. Thus the archeological work incumbent upon us here could justifiably begin by looking at these wisdom traditions and their corresponding ontological foundations

Cooperative Economics for Lower Class Communities

According to Jessica Nembhard a professor of community justice and social economic development at John Jay College, cooperative economics is an autonomous association of a persons united voluntarily to meet the parties involved; economic, social, and cultural needs. Goals and aspirations are made possible through a jointly owned democracy controlled by the enterprise for the purpose of the parties involved. With the complexity of the new digital environment of the twenty first century I believe it is important to teach young adults coming into society the value of working together and how it helped to bring autonomy to society. Breaking down the history of economics and linking back to its cooperative origins will help develop young adults to be more team oriented making them capable of becoming autonomous members society. In a society that desperately needs moral autonomy, cooperative economics could serve as an instrumental component to fostering equality in capitalist America. Media literacy is going to be utilize to help young adults comprehend the influence of the media on their cognitive development. By teaching cooperative economics as an enrichment program to lower class communities I can foster cognitive development for the youth, and it would give impoverished community’s foundations to build a better future. I present the idea of a community banking system to help create structure in lower class communities. As well, the banking system would only be for the community serving the purpose of teaching young adults how to save their money and use it wisely. The media teaches selfish consumerist behaviors which is detrimental to fostering community growth. The consumerist society orchestrated by the media teaches young adults to continuously spend money on goods and products. Young adults need to understand cooperative economics so that they build the community in the right fundamentals to establish growth and autonomy. I believe by teaching media literacy and cooperative economics we can establish autonomy and decrease the violence, drugs, and abuse in lower class communities