On Feb. 19, the Bakersfield College Indoor Theatre hosted author Claud Anderson, who focused on strategies to demolish the racial issues of African Americans.

Anderson, author of “PowerNomics: The National Plan to Empower Black America”, is the current President of PowerNomics Corporation of America and has also held several political positions in his lifetime, including advisor to Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign in Florida, and the writer of the first affirmative action plan in the United States. In all of Anderson’s endeavors, including his presentation, he has maintained a singular focus on ending the racial divide in society for African Americans.

Anderson began his presentation by delving into the strategies of PowerNomics, which he described as, “a new way to think, see, and behave in race matters.”

One step that Anderson stated as crucial to solving the racial issues among black Americans is to understand the problem.

“People in this society see based on their experiences, and they draw conclusions without really understanding the problem”, he said.

After learning more about where and how racism originated in America for African Americans, the next step to take, according to Anderson, is to “start pooling your resources, so you can come together and create jobs, goods, and wealth for black Americans.”

Without resources, Anderson expressed that African Americans don’t have the ability to succeed in this “race based” society.

After the Thirteenth Amendment was passed, Anderson stated, “Wealth determined your opportunities for the future, and the white man after slavery ended came out with 3,500 times more wealth than a black person.”

This idea that wealth determines a person’s future opportunities was one that Anderson emphasized.

“Today, black people do not own more than one-half of one percent in our society”, he said.

After discussing slavery Anderson fast-forwarded through history to the 1960s and the origins of benign neglect.

This idea, according to Anderson, began under President Richard Nixon and was meant to take the focus off of the Black Power movement and place the focus on all minorities. In this way Anderson said, “The government replaced and displaced the benefits that should have been used to solve the race problem in America.”

Because there was never a strong focus on just African Americans as a single group Anderson claimed, “Martin Luther King Jr. was wrong to focus on social integration because the focus should have been on learning to respect and empower each other before being integrated into society.”

Another step in the PowerNomics presentation Anderson emphasized is building an independent community.

“Black people don’t have a group self interest and they have been taught not to”, he said.

To build a community, Anderson said there is no need to be against other groups in society, and he said the actual change needs to come from building an independent economic structure.

The last step in Anderson’s presentation was to control politics in Black American’s favor by expressing the importance of building a community by pooling resources to create wealth.

“The burden of being represented in government lies within whom you elect to office, and it is your job to elect someone who will represent your point of view”, he said. Through these steps of PowerNomics, Anderson believes it is possible to solve the racial divide in our society, but he left audience members with this warning: “Racism is a team sport, and you either play as a team or you won’t survive.”