Buying Black: On Supporting Black Businesses

4 Half-truths About Black-owned Businesses — and Why You Should Still Buy Black. Lawrence M. Watkins. TheGrio.com. July 23, 2012.

…Last week, I wrote an article for theGrio entitled theGrio’s guide to buying black online. As I was reading the Facebook comments about the article, I noticed a great sense of frustration on behalf of consumers about black businesses. Many commenters said that they will never shop at a black-owned store until these firms make their prices lower, improve customer service, and start selling things that they like to buy. Although these criticisms are certainly valid for many black-owned businesses, African-Americans are stuck in a chicken or egg scenario. We refuse to spend our money with slightly-to-moderately inferior black businesses, because they are not on-par with the competition, but the only way for them to improve is through practice and financial support from their base to keep them in business in the long term. …I fall into this trap just as much as anyone else in our community….
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TheGrio’s Guide to Buying Black Online, Harnessing Black Buying Power to Empower Our Community. Lawrence M. Watkins. TheGrio.com. July 23, 2012.
Buying black has been a hot topic on the Internet among African-Americans for years now, and has been talked about by black leaders for decades. The importance of buying black has been well documented as an avenue to strengthen the black community economically, not only to provide jobs, but also to keep our nearly trillion-dollar buying power in our hands. People like the Anderson Family and Dr. Jeffrey Robinson have conducted experiments and tours centering around the concept of buying black, to empower more of us to do it — yet it seems impractical. But it’s not impossible. How can the average African-American consumer do his or her part in supporting black businesses? It’s one thing to talk in theory about buying black; it’s another thing to actually know how to do so. …
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How To Buy Black. Maggie Anderson. Black Enterprise. July 2012. 
Spending with economic self-help as a goal takes more than good intentions. Here are 14 strategies for conducting your own empowerment experiment.

WHEN CHICAGOANS JOHN AND Maggie Anderson made a pledge to spend all of their income with black-owned businesses for an entire year, they launched a movement that would eventually become The Empowerment Experiment. The story of that year, 2009, has now been told in a new book by Maggie Anderson, Our Black Year: One Family’s Quest to Buy Black in America’s Racially Divided Economy… Along the way, the Andersons—highly educated, upper-middle-class professional parents of two young daughters—discovered that spending with a focus on community self-help takes more than just good intentions—it requires a strategic approach. In the following excerpt from Our Black Year, Anderson details 14 key tips to take economic empowerment from lofy notion to practical and executable reality. Here’s what it takes to follow their “buy black” example.—Alfred Edmond Jr.

Maggie’s Tips for Buying Black the EE Way …. Read more
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The Empowerment Experiment 

EE converts our family’s pledge into a positive awareness campaign about the need for strategic entrepreneurship and conscious consumerism.  Our goal is to trigger a smart movement where Americans of all backgrounds will unite to support quality minority businesses and ensure that the American Dream truly applies to all.  In EE, we focus on uplifting Black businesses and empowering the Black community, as this community suffers disproportionately economically because it does not engage in self-help economics – like everyone else.  Due to this problem, Black businesses do not get the same level of support as other minority-owned businesses.  John and Maggie Anderson, Founders, The Empowerment Experiment (EE)

Empowerment Experiment Shines Light on Black Business Blight. Marcia Wade Talbert. blackenterprise.com. March 20, 2009. 
Chicago couple pledges to “buy black” for 2009. John and Maggie Anderson are spearheading the Empowerment Experiment to support black-owned businesses. 

Like many other blacks in Illinois who live in areas where mainstream grocery stores are absent or distant, Maggie Anderson travels quite a distance to find a grocery store that sells fresh food. The difference is Anderson doesn’t live in a food desert.  She travels 14 miles into Chicago’s inner city to Farmers Best Market because it is black-owned.

Maggie and her husband, John, a Harvard graduate with an MBA from Northwestern University, made a pledge that for a full calendar year, starting Jan. 1, they would only “buy black.” This means the money they spend for food, gas, vacations, and all other purchases will be limited to purchasing products and services of black-owned companies. The couple has switched to Covenant Bank, a black-owned institution, and they even hope to have their debt from student loans transferred to a black creditor. “The whole purpose of taking the pledge is to demonstrate that I believe in black businesses so much so that I want to live off them for a year,” Maggie explains. “We want to see if there is a possibility years from now if all of the names that we hear, the Walgreens, the Hiltons, the Walmarts … We want one day for those families to be of different races,” Maggie says.
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State of the African-American Consumer (PDF). Nielsen & the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA). September 2011
Nielsen Summary:
As businesses look for opportunities to grow their companies and gain market share it is critical that they understand new and emerging demands from consumers, especially within growing segments, wherever they do business. As the population of the United States evolves to become more ethnically diverse, the complexity of such an effort has grown. To help close the gap and give insight as to how to address the needs of the growing diverse base, Nielsen—along with the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA)— developed this report to better illustrate the qualities of the African-American community, the business opportunities that exist, and the best methods for a productive connection between businesses and this community.

The African-American population is, today, the largest racial minority group in America, with a population of close to 43 million. This market segment’s growth rate continues to exceed the overall population’s growth and is making continued gains in the area of education and income. The collective buying power of the African-American population is projected to be at $1.1 trillion by 2015. Collectively the group over-indexes in several key categories (television viewing, mobile phone usage and trips to grocery channels) and exerts a large influence on popular culture and trends, indicative of the high growth industries of the future. The three areas of focus for this report include a review of demographic characteristics, a survey of the programs and mediums favored by the group, and a look at overall consumer packaged goods buying behavior.
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Support Black Entrepreneurs On Small Business Saturday. BlackEnterprise.com. November 25, 2011. Use this campaign to support local enterprises to conduct your own “empowerment experiment”.

  • ‘Tis the Season to ‘Buy Black’. Janel Martinez. BlackEnterprise.com. December 23, 2010. The Anderson family shares tips on how to check “shop at Black-owned businesses.” Blackenterprise.com spoke with the Andersons, founders of EE, about the importance of supporting black-owned businesses,…

The Truth About Black Folks and Our Reputation in Business. BlackEnterprise.com. November 1, 2011
Four reasons some black businesses get a bad rap (and what entrepreneurs can do to fight it)

Black Female? Addicted to Retail? Then At Least Buy Black! Tre Baker. atlantapost.com. October 17, 2011

Black Economics: How Far Should We Go to Support Black Business? The Urban Politico. thefreshxpress.com. June 2, 2011

Why supporting black-owned businesses is a good idea. Harold D. Miller. Post-Gazette.com. (Pittsburgh) May 01, 2011
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Buy Black. Aisha I. Jefferson. Black Enterprise. April 2011.
A circle of Atlanta professionals turns high-minded talk into community action.

If there’s one thing Chandra R. Thomas knows for sure, it’s that you can support black-owned businesses and obtain quality products and services. Considering the success of enterprises such as Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions or Don Peebles’ Peebles Corp., having to defend the quality of black companies might seem passé. But the idea that “black-owned” equals subpar is a notion that persists among many.

“I want to dispel the myth that by supporting black-owned businesses you’re settling for less quality,” says Thomas, a 37-year-old freelance journalist. Thomas notes that African Americans tend to have higher expectations of black-owned businesses than they do nonblack establishments. They are also less forgiving.

“Someone can go to a place and have a bad experience and make a sweeping statement like, ‘That’s why I don’t support black businesses.’ I think that’s the wrong attitude.” Instead, she suggests responding to poor service by cordially asking to speak with the management and making a decision based on the outcome.

“It wouldn’t be so disturbing if we were conservative, modest consumers. But looking at the statistics, we are the largest consumers, so not spending money with African American vendors and business owners is disturbing,” Thomas says.

According to a report released by the Selig Center for Economic Growth, black buying power is on track to reach $1.2 trillion in 2015. The desire to combat such thinking was one reason Thomas and two of her friends established a discussion group primarily for African American professionals, called TalkBLACK. The organization has made supporting black-owned business an integral part of its mission.

TalkBLACK hosts two-hour meetings on the first Saturday of each month at black-owned venues, and encourages attendees to purchase at least one item from the menu. Thomas got the idea to form the nonprofit group while engrossed in a lively discussion with her two close friends. Although they already actively participated in a few organizations, all three longed for a social setting for intellectuals outside of Atlanta’s club scene. The trio knew of others who shared their appetite for passionate discourse about the African American community and soon put their plan into action.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” says Godfrey Fuji Noe, a 38-year-old social and behavioral scientist who, along with Thomas and journalist Bryan Toussaint, co-founded TalkBLACK in December 2003. “I always knew it had—and still has—tons of potential.” The three held informal meetings at which they discussed the organization’s potential format, says Noe. Next, they drove around looking for black-owned venues at which they could host gatherings and further explore the direction the organization should take. “The future is pregnant with possibility,” says Noe. “I see the potential for a radio or TV talk show and perhaps other projects.”
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Support Your Local Black Bank. Black Enterprise.com. July 20, 2011.
Buying Black is only one step to economic freedom, we also have to bank Black

9 Companies and Brands Blacks Should Support and Boycott. Christina Burton. atlantapost.com. May 16, 2011 

Support African-American Entrepreneurs: Buy From Black-Owned Businesses. Katherine Noyes. volunteerguide.org. 

Kandi Challenges Us To “Buy” Black (Video). hellobeautiful.com. August 19, 2010

Black Owned Beauty Supply Store Reveals the Struggles to Stay in Business.  PermedtoNatural.com. February 14, 2011

“…In Chris Rock’s movie “Good Hair” he mentioned that Koreans, who distribute black haircare products, do not sell materials to black owned beauty supply stores. By doing this, black store owners are sometimes forced to close their businesses. In the 1970s and early 1980s this was not the case. I remember buying haircare products from black owned beauty supply stores all of the time. How did African Americans loose [sic] ownership of beauty supply stores that cater to the black market?!…

Check out the video below.  …[VIDEO]…
Also check out the documentary by a white filmmaker named Aron Raven who reveals how Koreans have come to control every aspect of the multi-billion dollar black haircare industry. I believe this film was released in 2006. In the film there is talk about taking back ownership. Five years later African Americans still have not taken control over the black haircare industry. It feels as if we lost an important piece of ourselves. …[VIDEOS]… “

A New Kind of Hair Care: Supporting Black-Owned Businesses. cocoandcreme.com. October 4, 2010

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A Black business community created to support the economic development of Black-owned businesses and to be an advocate for social issues in the Black community.