“This must be a multi-front movement in which we use every possible strategy and tool available to us. That undoubtedly includes economic boycotts, which are a form of fiscal resistance,” responded Rahiel Tesfamariam, writer, social activist and founder of Urban Cusp magazine to an e-mail from The Final Call.
“With the $1.1 trillion buying power of the African-American community, it is absolutely necessary to withhold our hard earned earnings from a broken system that often values property over people. It is a way for us to assert that we have had enough and will spend ‘not one dime.’ We refuse to be driven by America’s rampant materialism and capitalistic values at a time of communal grief and rage,” said Ms. Tesfamariam.
According to various reports, there was an 11 percent drop in Black Friday sales this year to $50.9 billion from an estimated $57.4 billion in 2013. While analysts are not attributing the decline to boycott’s by thousands still angry and outraged by the deaths of Michael Brown Jr., 18, Eric Gardner, 43, Tamir Rice, 12, Tanisha Anderson, 37, John Crawford, 22, Akai Gurley, 28 and countless others at the hands of police, others argued it did have an impact.
Tesfamariam agreed; stating the economic boycott led by young Black men and women in response to the Ferguson decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Brown, played a major role in this year’s decline. “Not One Dime” was another online hashtag that garnered tremendous grassroots support.
“The boycott galvanized through social media started out as an online grassroots effort, but caught the attention of countless African-American celebrities who backed it by promoting to their millions of followers. Our collective efforts were a tremendous display of solidarity and resistance by a community that is fed up with racial profiling and the systemic devaluation of Black life,” said Tesfamariam.
Supporters of the push to direct Black spending habits to Black-owned businesses note the potential impact it could have on effectively addressing problems of high crime, poor education, lack of jobs and health disparities that plague poor, Black and brown communities.
In a recent commentary, “We Need to Use Our Black Economic Power,” psychologist Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu raised a series of questions.
“How can a group have over 3 million people with college degrees be so under-developed economically? How can a people have over 10,000 elected officials have so little economic power? Why do African-Americans only spend 3 percent of their income with each other?” he asked. “Could that explain why only nine out of every one thousand African-Americans start a business, while other groups are above 100? Or could it be that Black parents socialize their children to get a good education, or to get a good job, while other groups encourage their children to become entrepreneurs?” continued Kunjufu.
Boycotts are a start but cannot be the end result. It must be ongoing, noted Tesfamariam.
It is not enough to withhold money but the money and resources Black people have must also be redirected to empower and uplift Black communities, she explained.
“This includes but is not limited to supporting Black-owned business and causes, as I have called for through the #BlackDecember campaign. Black-owned banks and financial institutions play a major role in this, as where our money is housed matters just as much as where it is spent,” said Tesfamariam.
Black communities also must begin to understand the need for its community to explore greater job creation and small business empowerment, because self-determination and self-sustainability are critical to any strategy for economic empowerment, she continued. “I and other activists engaged on this front know how critical it is to shift the mindset of our community in order to build fertile ground for this strategy to be sustained on a long-term basis.”
Black people advocating for unity through the pooling of economic resources, boycotts or direct and strategic targeting of finances is not a new strategy. From Marcus Garvey to the Hon. Elijah Muhammad, patriarch of the Nation of Islam, Black people pooling money and working together to better their circumstances has been a constant throughout history.
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