(ThyBlackMan.com) I’ve been teaching finance at the college level for 20 years, so I know how money works. I’ve also been a black man for as long as I can remember. So, putting these two things together, I can tell you that as a black man, I feel quite strongly about the fact that we have to understand money if we are ever going to get this racism monkey off our collective back.
So, in preparation for Black Friday and the New Paradigm forum in Washington DC that I’m hosting with Dr. Steve Perry and former NBA player Etan Thomas, I thought I’d give a few reasons that it is imperative that we use at least 10% of our money to buy black on Black Friday:
1) If we don’t create our own jobs, then who will? Do you really think we can advance economically while begging for jobs from people who’ve been trained to dislike us? How delusional is that?
2) Are white, Jewish and Asian people seeking out black businesses or their own? Maybe we should pay attention: Community power is accumulated by those who are committed to the idea of building something that is greater than themselves. The word “community” is predicated on the selfless notion that we all contribute to the grand ideal and do what is necessary to build something for our children and grand-children. If you don’t feel that you owe anything to the black community, then the fact
is that the black community owes nothing to you.
3) Because your children will be watching what you do: Do you want your kids to endure the stress and disappointment of stumbling through corporate America and ending up as angry as the rest of the black middle class? Maybe we should give our kids a chance to get off the economic and psychological plantation. The first step toward being economically free is to become psychologically free. So, we can’t raise our children in the cage of irresponsible and unintelligent consumption.
4) It gives us the opportunity to change the definition of “Black Friday”: The word “black” is already there anyway. Maybe God is trying to tell us something.
5) Because black people have more spending power than the countries of Turkey, Australia and Taiwan: Our money is our power and we shouldn’t just give it all away. The truth is that compared to the rest of the world, we are filthy rich.
6) It would give us a chance to really p*ss off Bill O’Reilly: As you know, bigots like O’Reilly are convinced that black people can’t stick together. But I won’t spend more time talking about an old man who doesn’t matter.
7) Because economic equality is the next (and perhaps most important) step in the civil rights movement: The civil rights movement gave us political power, but we failed to listen when Dr. King and Malcolm X told us about the importance of obtaining economic power. Having political power without economic power is like getting a driver’s license when you can’t even afford to buy a car. That’s why most of our gains have been rolled backward.
8) Because strong black businesses build more strong black businesses: Imagine if every great black baseball player had stayed in the Negro Leagues. A professional sports league gives birth to thousands of small businesses whose livelihood is contingent upon the success of that league. When the Negro leagues disappeared, these businesses disappeared along with it. Integration is not always our friend, at least in a racist society.
9) It gives us a chance to resurrect Black Wall Street: Black Wall Street was the nickname for a Tulsa, Oklahoma community that learned the secret of keeping its dollars inside its own neighborhoods. As a result, the African Americans in this community were doing better than the whites across town. This didn’t sit well with enemies of progress, leading to the community being b****d to the ground. Similarly, the Internet is a virtual community, where people are connected demographically rather than geographically. By conquering and occupying Black Friday, this would give us a chance to circulate our dollars among one another, instead of giving all of our money away. There are few cures for racism better than creating a few more black millionaires.
10) Because we HAVE to do this: Jobs that pay a living wage are disappearing and black people are engaging in the fastest economic moonwalk in history. If we don’t come to terms with how to survive in a capitalist society, the fact is that we won’t be surviving at all.
Let’s do this thing: Buy Black on Black Friday. It’s time to Occupy our Wallets. Don’t be afraid of your greatness.
Staff Writer; Dr. Boyce Watkins
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition. For more information, please visit http://BoyceWatkins.com.