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View Full Version : The "Blacks Buying from Blacks" Movement: Is This Reverse Racism?




clb09
05-12-2009, 04:04 PM
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D984SLN80&show_article=1


"When we were a community of black folks who could not go to the white stores, our community of black stores flourished," Brown said. "When we were given the opportunity to go into the white store, it was like nothing else mattered anymore and we wanted to go to the white store, regardless of what the black store provided. We could have the same or better products if we supported (black businesses) in the same way."

Kraig
05-12-2009, 04:06 PM
Racists assholes.

AutoDas
05-12-2009, 04:23 PM
Why not? It's been working great for Africa -- oh wait.

nate895
05-12-2009, 04:25 PM
I ain't touching this with a ten foot pole.

Kludge
05-12-2009, 04:26 PM
Sure it's racist, divisive, selfish, and unnecessary, but I'm going with option #2 since we're on a public forum.

Anyway, I'm sure some of the Whites of the Jim Crow era did worse.

RickyJ
05-12-2009, 04:27 PM
If Jews only bought form Jews they would be in big trouble. I buy from everyone, except Jews. I can't support people that go by the Talmud in any way.

Old Ducker
05-12-2009, 04:28 PM
I think it's great. I am 100% for freedom of association. If blacks don't want to do business with whites, it's fine with me. Of course the opposite is true as well.

brandon
05-12-2009, 04:30 PM
"racist" is such a politically loaded yet meaningless word.

It doesn't exist to me. People are too worried about being politically correct. If blacks want to buy from blacks, fine. If asians want to publicly claim other races have inferior intellects, fine. If white people only want to hire other white people, fine.

I really don't care. And no one else should either. It's just life...

dannno
05-12-2009, 04:34 PM
Why not? It's been working great for Africa -- oh wait.

What has been working? Thousands of years of European colonialism??

tmosley
05-12-2009, 04:38 PM
Option 4: They have every right to do it, it is misguided racism, and they will only hurt themselves.

What they need to do is focus on PRODUCTION within their community if they want to improve it. Consumption doesn't really matter.

AutoDas
05-12-2009, 04:40 PM
What has been working? Thousands of years of European colonialism??

Thousands of years?

dannno
05-12-2009, 04:59 PM
Thousands of years?

Could be, I don't take establishment history as "fact" and I am willing to bet that some form of colonialism existed over 1,000 years ago in Africa, or at least an attempt at such, but of course we all know that it became much bigger in the last 600 years or so.

puppetmaster
05-12-2009, 05:48 PM
need more options....hell it's supposed to be a free country and they can support any private business they want to as well as I can. But I also feel that any private business can choose who they want as clientele based on any reason.

UnReconstructed
05-12-2009, 05:53 PM
freedom of association

Dieseler
05-12-2009, 06:12 PM
Best I remember, back in the day, most Blacks wouldn't hire other Blacks to do any kind of service work for them cause they wanted to get the job done right the first time.
I doubt much has changed in that regard, at least as far as getting something done right the first time. Good money is hard to waste unless of course its a Government hand out.
They can suit themselves, I couldn't care less who they hire or what they suffer because of it.

UnReconstructed
05-12-2009, 06:23 PM
I see this thread going to shit

Golding
05-12-2009, 07:22 PM
It can be argued as reverse racism, I suppose. But people are able to make their consumption decisions for whatever reason they'd like.

tonesforjonesbones
05-12-2009, 07:28 PM
well...i consider that people are free to shop wherever they want. I dislike double standards..and if some white person said this or started this sort of movement...they would be prosecuted for a hate crime or some crap. tones

ChaosControl
05-12-2009, 07:33 PM
Yes, but it is their choice. Everyone discriminates daily in everything they do, it is stupid all the laws we have against it. People still do it, they just find ways around the laws and don't talk about it. People still don't hire the black dude or the asian chick, or shop at the X-only store, they just say it was something else.

jclay2
05-12-2009, 07:43 PM
Option 4: They have every right to do it, it is misguided racism, and they will only hurt themselves.

What they need to do is focus on PRODUCTION within their community if they want to improve it. Consumption doesn't really matter.

This is what I meant when I voted for option 1.

Cowlesy
05-12-2009, 07:45 PM
I have no problem with it. If I knew a store supported such a policy, I could choose not to support it by taking my dollars elsewhere. If enough people disagree with the policy, it'll never meet its true growth potential.

In commerce it's pretty easy. If you find something disagreeable, you have the right to take your business elsewhere. Typically if there's a market demand, someone will provide a product.

disorderlyvision
05-12-2009, 07:47 PM
I think it's great. I am 100% for freedom of association. If blacks don't want to do business with whites, it's fine with me. Of course the opposite is true as well.



Option 4: They have every right to do it, it is misguided racism, and they will only hurt themselves.

What they need to do is focus on PRODUCTION within their community if they want to improve it. Consumption doesn't really matter.

My thoughts as well...

misterx
05-12-2009, 08:28 PM
Sure it's racist, but that doesn't make it wrong. It doesn't hurt my feelings any. If they want to support their own that's their right. Everyone except whites does the same thing.

slacker921
05-12-2009, 08:44 PM
Option 4: They have every right to do it, it is misguided racism, and they will only hurt themselves.

What they need to do is focus on PRODUCTION within their community if they want to improve it. Consumption doesn't really matter.

qft right there..

I have greek friends, jewish friends, european friends, etc... who all support "their own" in some way. The ones who support each other as producers (i.e. they help each other get established in business, give guidance, mentor, bail each other out in tough times, etc) and sell to the "outside" do FAR better than those who try to sell to one another.

Bruno
05-12-2009, 08:48 PM
Its not reverse racism, its just racism. But it doesn't bother me. You just can't have it both ways, though.

zadrock
05-12-2009, 09:00 PM
Most minority groups have historically "supported their own" in some way in this country.

There were thriving black communities in this country in the early and mid-20th century. Think of Harlem or the South Side of Chicago. Black-owned businesses were everywhere. Education was valued. Blacks were shut out of white communities and white businesses and they made their own. You had black teachers, professors, lawyers, doctors, bankers, policemen, etc. etc. You had a real community.

What happened?

FORCED integration happened. As we are all aware, government intervention causes problems and this case was no different. Govt intervention destroyed black communities, destroyed black businesses.

For decades, blacks have tried to figure out where it all went wrong. I have had the opportunity to work on two oral histories of blacks as a transcriber. I have listened to numerous interviews of blacks who lived in these thriving communities and can't figure out why the black community has imploded in recent decades. They blame drugs, they blame lack of education, they blame poor family structure. But they DON'T blame government. And they should because govt is the primary cause.

If this all seems tangential, I assure you it isn't. It is this mindset that brings about this "buy black" mentality. The proponents clearly have knowledge of the successes of the past, but don't understand why it all fell apart. They are trying to rebuild the black communities of the past. What they are missing is the need to break down the govt if they really want to reclaim their history.

Z

brandon
05-12-2009, 09:04 PM
Most minority groups have historically "supported their own" in some way in this country.

There were thriving black communities in this country in the early and mid-20th century. Think of Harlem or the South Side of Chicago. Black-owned businesses were everywhere. Education was valued. Blacks were shut out of white communities and white businesses and they made their own. You had black teachers, professors, lawyers, doctors, bankers, policemen, etc. etc. You had a real community.

What happened?

FORCED integration happened. As we are all aware, government intervention causes problems and this case was no different. Govt intervention destroyed black communities, destroyed black businesses.

For decades, blacks have tried to figure out where it all went wrong. I have had the opportunity to work on two oral histories of blacks as a transcriber. I have listened to numerous interviews of blacks who lived in these thriving communities and can't figure out why the black community has imploded in recent decades. They blame drugs, they blame lack of education, they blame poor family structure. But they DON'T blame government. And they should because govt is the primary cause.

If this all seems tangential, I assure you it isn't. It is this mindset that brings about this "buy black" mentality. The proponents clearly have knowledge of the successes of the past, but don't understand why it all fell apart. They are trying to rebuild the black communities of the past. What they are missing is the need to break down the govt if they really want to reclaim their history.

Z

Thanks for the post, and no it doesn't seem tangential. It's really interesting actually, and the first I've heard of this idea. I'm going to research it some more tomorrow.

zadrock
05-12-2009, 09:27 PM
Thanks for the post, and no it doesn't seem tangential. It's really interesting actually, and the first I've heard of this idea. I'm going to research it some more tomorrow.

Let me know what you find...

I'm not sure anyone has taken the time to put it all together coherently.

I guess what I mean is - it's well known within the black community that there were thriving black cities (or section of cities) during the era of segregation. But no one has really satisfactorily explained the decline.

On the other hand, there is a wealth of information from libertarians claiming that govt intervention has all sorts of negative results.

So I just kind of put the two together, though I admit I haven't done any extensive research to justify my claim. But I still think the facts support my above post.

Two authors worth noting are Thomas Sowell and John McWhorter. While they aren't libertarians, they come pretty close to havng a legitimate explanation for the decline of black society. Another interesting book is Forty Million Dollar Slaves by William Rhoden. He talks about the decline of black institutions like the Negro Leagues and especially the dominance of black colleges before "white" colleges integrated.

Here's the book I worked on: http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=4417 One interesting fact from working on that book - blacks who went to MIT before the 1960s had an AMAZING time at MIT. They loved every minute of it. Blacks who went to MIT after that had many complaints, primary among them being whether they belonged there. That's a natural outcome of affirmative action and it was a question I asked myself when I was there. (Blacks are certainly not immune to this type of thinking.)

anyway, I'm just rambling now - I really should just write a book. :D

Z

silverhawks
05-12-2009, 09:49 PM
How could this be anything but discrimination -they are specifically avoiding white-owned businesses, even to the point of driving 14 miles away. If I walked into a store and said "Oh, this is owned by black people, I'll go elsewhere to buy from white people", you would be quite right to call me a racist.

This is just the latest phase of hyphen Americanism: self-segregation. Nothing good will come from this. We should be focusing on AMERICAN business, not black or white. We should focus on PEOPLE, not their ethnicity.

When I look out into my street, I don't see Mexican-Americans, Asian-Americans, Armenian-Americans or African-Americans. I see Americans. That's all. I don't have white friends or Asian friends, I have American friends.

Is it so much to ask for people to just see themselves as Americans for once?

torchbearer
05-12-2009, 09:59 PM
Anyway, I'm sure some of the Whites of the Jim Crow era did worse.

When I saw the title, I was thinking they are doing the same.
As a free market guy, I believe a property owner can choose to not sell to someone based on anything he chooses. It is his property. He will suffer the loses of a smaller market pool.
So will these fools.
It is racist, I don't like it. But their idea is flawed and will die in its own merit.
How can a company survive by cutting off 80% of the consumers?

zadrock
05-12-2009, 10:10 PM
How could this be anything but discrimination -they are specifically avoiding white-owned businesses, even to the point of driving 14 miles away. If I walked into a store and said "Oh, this is owned by black people, I'll go elsewhere to buy from white people", you would be quite right to call me a racist.

This is just the latest phase of hyphen Americanism: self-segregation. Nothing good will come from this. We should be focusing on AMERICAN business, not black or white. We should focus on PEOPLE, not their ethnicity.

When I look out into my street, I don't see Mexican-Americans, Asian-Americans, Armenian-Americans or African-Americans. I see Americans. That's all. I don't have white friends or Asian friends, I have American friends.

Is it so much to ask for people to just see themselves as Americans for once?


Why is grouping people together as Americans better than grouping people together by race?

Z

torchbearer
05-12-2009, 10:13 PM
Why is grouping people together as Americans better than grouping people together by race?

Z

Geographical groupings have more to do with who you are than your skin color or origins of distant ancestors.

BenIsForRon
05-12-2009, 10:18 PM
Everybody saying this is racist is missing the point. This is simply a method they believe will rebuild their community. Instead of buying tools from walmart, buy your tools from a local, black owned store. A better message would be to buy local, but I still think this is a good thing.

Zadrock makes some good points, but I don't think the decline of the communities is totally due to forced integration. Voluntary segregation, also known as "white flight", played a part as well. As people uncomfortable with blacks moved away from urban centers, investment capital and jobs also left. Public infrastructure was neglected and all we've done ever since is hire more police officers to hide the problem from us.

In conclusion, kudos to these black folk.

torchbearer
05-12-2009, 10:28 PM
Everybody saying this is racist is missing the point. This is simply a method they believe will rebuild their community. Instead of buying tools from walmart, buy your tools from a local, black owned store. A better message would be to buy local, but I still think this is a good thing.

Zadrock makes some good points, but I don't think the decline of the communities is totally due to forced integration. Voluntary segregation, also known as "white flight", played a part as well. As people uncomfortable with blacks moved away from urban centers, investment capital and jobs also left. Public infrastructure was neglected and all we've done ever since is hire more police officers to hide the problem from us.

In conclusion, kudos to these black folk.

it may be beneficial, but is technically racist because it is a policy based on race.
every sociologist will tell you, this variable has no correlation to anything.
culture/geographic location- economics has more to do with who you are.

zadrock
05-12-2009, 10:44 PM
Everybody saying this is racist is missing the point. This is simply a method they believe will rebuild their community. Instead of buying tools from walmart, buy your tools from a local, black owned store. A better message would be to buy local, but I still think this is a good thing.

Zadrock makes some good points, but I don't think the decline of the communities is totally due to forced integration. Voluntary segregation, also known as "white flight", played a part as well. As people uncomfortable with blacks moved away from urban centers, investment capital and jobs also left. Public infrastructure was neglected and all we've done ever since is hire more police officers to hide the problem from us.

In conclusion, kudos to these black folk.

I'm a big fan of buying local. FWIW, I do not subscribe to the "buy black" philosophy, but if all else is equal, I would probably lean towards supporting a black business over a white one.

Like I said in my second post, more research needs to be done. I may have oversimplified a bit in my first post. :D

Yes, the "buy black" philosophy can be called "racist," but so what? A free society allows us all to discriminate. Are they wrong to do it? I don't know, maybe. But in a true voluntary world, we can have these disagreements, but still live in peace.

Z

RonPaulwillWin
05-12-2009, 10:48 PM
Wouldn't this be just racism? Reverse racism means everything is all good in the world. My head hurts.

sailor
05-12-2009, 11:19 PM
Whatever it is, it is very bad economics. It can only hurt their wallets, it can not gain them anything.



How could this be anything but discrimination -they are specifically avoiding white-owned businesses, even to the point of driving 14 miles away.

There is nothing wrong with discrimination. I`d take out a skinny chick over a fat chick, even if I had to drive 14 miles more.

clb09
05-13-2009, 05:09 AM
Here is the video that explains the movement:

YouTube - Andersons Living Their Experiment - Next TV (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XhZD1o_vNg)

But the "experiment" is not new:

YouTube - Phyllis Hyman re Black-Owned Businesses 7/15/87 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8rBR8JwgL8)

Cinderella
05-13-2009, 06:20 AM
who fucking cares...

revolutionman
05-13-2009, 06:30 AM
In most of the country if blacks only bought products from other blacks, they'd starve to death on the street, unable to even rent an apartment due to a lack of black landlords.

Eventually the idiocy of this will occur to the participants in such programs and it will be abandoned.

Frankly though i don't think this is such a bad thing though. the concept is good. If black people can start a campaign to get other blacks to only buy from blacks, then it should be an easy feat to start a campaign to get other local people to buy only from local shops, rather than corporate stores.

I respect the corporation and its right to exist and conduct business, but if i'm a dollar short, the corporate employee makes me put an item back, the local clerk says "Don't sweat it, I'll get ya next time!" with a smile and a chuckle. Thats where my primary loyalty lies personally.

but thats off topic.

acptulsa
05-13-2009, 06:48 AM
I guess what I mean is - it's well known within the black community that there were thriving black cities (or section of cities) during the era of segregation. But no one has really satisfactorily explained the decline.

On the other hand, there is a wealth of information from libertarians claiming that govt intervention has all sorts of negative results.

So I just kind of put the two together, though I admit I haven't done any extensive research to justify my claim. But I still think the facts support my above post.

They most certainly do.

In Tulsa during the oil boom, the Greenwood area thrived. Roughnecking in an oil field was and is hard and dangerous work, and no one does it for chicken feed. Many African Americans have been willing to do this hard work over the years, though. And as a result, the Greenwood area thrived in the ugly old days of segregation. It was called the 'Black Wall St. of America.'

The 1921 riot burned it to the ground. Fortunately, that seems to have gotten the issue out of Tulsans' systems. One incident that infamously ugly seems to have been enough--we haven't had a serious race riot since. And Greenwood came back--better than ever. I remember when I was a kid and first heard about the riot. Having little concept that it had happened fifty years prior, I just assumed that's what had happened to Greenwood. Then I heard about its preeminence as a jazz center during World War II twenty years later than the riot.

My mother patiently explained to me that it declined right after desegregation. The shopkeepers couldn't get as good wholesale prices as the corporately-owned 'white stores'. Couldn't get the variety, either.

Shall we point to the ethnic minorities and laugh? Or shall we look at the rise of China--and look in our mirrors?

zadrock
05-13-2009, 07:11 AM
They most certainly do.

In Tulsa during the oil boom, the Greenwood area thrived. Roughnecking in an oil field was and is hard and dangerous work, and no one does it for chicken feed. Many African Americans have been willing to do this hard work over the years, though. And as a result, the Greenwood area thrived in the ugly old days of segregation. It was called the 'Black Wall St. of America.'

The 1921 riot burned it to the ground. Fortunately, that seems to have gotten the issue out of Tulsans' systems. One incident that infamously ugly seems to have been enough--we haven't had a serious race riot since. And Greenwood came back--better than ever. I remember when I was a kid and first heard about the riot. Having little concept that it had happened fifty years prior, I just assumed that's what had happened to Greenwood. Then I heard about its preeminence as a jazz center during World War II twenty years later than the riot.

My mother patiently explained to me that it declined right after desegregation. The shopkeepers couldn't get as good wholesale prices as the corporately-owned 'white stores'. Couldn't get the variety, either.

Shall we point to the ethnic minorities and laugh? Or shall we look at the rise of China--and look in our mirrors?

I vaguely remembering reading about Tulsa many years ago. Do you know whether there are any books on this subject?

Z

SharkGirl
05-13-2009, 07:22 AM
I don't have a problem with them buying from Blacks only. What I have a problem with is if Whites were to buy from Whites only and the Blacks bring in the NAACP to cry foul, or whoever it is they team with to file racist lawsuits.

I lived in Macon, GA and I was in line at Wal-mart and was next in line to be checked out. There was a Black cashier. She told me to wait. She walked away from her counter, went to the next one, took Blacks out of line there, and put them in front of me and proceeded to check them out first.

And they call Whites racists?

There is racism in every race. The difference is, it's only the Whites who have laws against them for things that happened before any of us were born.

I can guarantee you if we set up a Whites only directory, there will be lawsuits all over the nation. What makes them think what they're doing isn't racism?

Quite frankly, I could care less if they have a Black only network. I hope they won't mind if we don't support their businesses because I wouldn't feel comfortable buying from them if the hate Whites that bad.

acptulsa
05-13-2009, 07:26 AM
I vaguely remembering reading about Tulsa many years ago. Do you know whether there are any books on this subject?

Z

I think there are now. I sort of sorted out the half-buried history along with everyone else who bothered. At that time there were no good books on the subject. After the riot the city sort of went into denial. The subject simply wasn't talked about--until forced school desegregation was causing riots in certain cities. Then, quite suddenly, the old folks started talking about it. Basically, about all they said was there was a riot once and we damned well don't want another.

What we had to dig out was that it was a full-scale invasion with fixed gun emplacements and aerial bombing. Apparently the whole city knew it was going to happen--and everyone in town knew the pretext was bogus (a black guy stepped on some idiotic little white girl's foot on an elevator; he apologized but she still freaked). It would seem that several 'city fathers' encouraged it in the hopes of getting some handy real estate cheap and driving the ethnic types of the area farther from the city center. It took some digging to get to the truth of that.

All my grandmother had to say was that was their day of the week for their maid to visit, and they insisted she stay with them that night (she lived near Greenwood Ave.). Apparently no one in the city, rioter, Greenwood resident, or not, slept much that night. Casualties were over three hundred. The city worked very, very hard to cover up that number. They looked for the bones a while back. Apparently a freeway interchange has buried them deeper than ever. In any case...

Well, I remember that many facts didn't come out until the 'seventies, so don't trust too completely any source older than that. Otherwise, just plug Tulsa Greenwood into your search engine and see what you can find.

Time for Change
05-13-2009, 04:17 PM
It sounds kind of discrimatory but there is nothing wrong with supporting your culture.

Unless you are any other race...then you are an evil racist.