Buying Black?

In the midst of the Coates phenomena I saw a call for people to buy copies of TaNehisi Coates' Between the World and Me at black bookstores. I found the suggestion laughable.

The current state of black booksellers gets at the impracticality of buying Black. If there are only fifty four leftRead FBS The Fifty Four Black Bookstores Here we obviously have not been buying black enough to sustain certain institutions in our community. To tout black bookstores as something worthy of support in the face of the Coates phenomena is like giving us the chittlings while somebody else eats the hog. Though Coates is black and blackness seems to be up in the mix, it is the type of blackness that would be hard pressed to survive or be popular without white folks.

The economics seem to be less important than the message, however, black folks ain't realy making money off the book. It could be we didn't even do the cover design-fascinating. Publishing is an industry and the corporations who do the work serve as brokers for cash flow to their workers. If few of those workers are black, black people loose. It is a very uncommon idea, but for our authors who actually influence (through cultural production/literature) to be disconnected from such an issue hints at the how far we haven't come. Some portions of black success seem to be opportunity for individuals and white organizations. To imagine that a series of successful star anythings will change the landscape of our economic survival is to believe in trickle down economics. Albeit, whites have learned the game post Civil Rights. The black genius author is as much genre as it is talented individual.

The drastic changes in the bookselling industry have given all booksellers a run for their money; but still, to be clear, if we want to get rich-the idea that selling books to African Americans is the way to do it, reflects a lack of clarity about our culture. In many ways the black book market our bookstore engaged in was a leftover of the largest market.

The dynamics of the market and bookselling have been written about extensively here on Free Black Space and if you read us you know we have also discussed the other factors at play in the demise of black bookstores. In other words, we are not simply blaming black people for their demise. We could cuz it often seems like that is the most practical thing to do, but things are more complicated than that.

Where blacks purchase their consumer goods is as much a question of practicality as it is belief system or ideal. The market presses towards practicality for consumers, while the idea of buying black is a lower tier religion folks may profess but can't seem to integrate into their life.

For instance, in the P.G. County I live in there are limited African American purchasing options for most products and services. Retail's showroom often seems to be the most depressing. The black consumers in P.G. County get excited when Macy's and Victoria's Secret come to town. Major retailers are a sign of our comeuppance. It is the post segregation phenomena. A study of African American history will lead to a street where we cannot even purchase certain products. Imagine that, a blackness that makes it so some folks under certain circumstances won't even take your money-in a country were money is worshipped! It is enough to make you think you are not good enough, and have you buying something from someone white like you are desegregating a bus you need to ride in order to get to work on time. Our freedom now is to buy anything we want, if we have the money. In many ways consumerism is our most accessible freedom.

Though it must be said in P.G. County and many places all over the country, one can utilize African American businesses or individuals to facilitate insurance, schooling, restaurants, clubs, barbershops and salons, financial management, and a host of other products and services. Yet, the amount of services needed are rarely in sync with the demand. Even in one of the wealthiest African American counties in the country, purchasing black is full of a series of problems that prevent us from utilizing our true business potential.

The truth is, I found a buy black option laughable for the same reason Coates didn't take the option of publishing his blockbuster book with his father. He would have lost money. His father's press was to small to handle the volume of copies to be produced. The Atlantic would most likely have not stood for it. Within the empire of language, blacks lack sufficient infrastructure to handle the large projects and success of many of our authors. I am like Coates. Why be black in business if it limits your potential to actually distribute your ideas? The question is more practical than black, and the same reason blacks will by pass a black option that charges a few dollars more on a product.

Let me say clearly for the record though I understand the practicality, I also understand our inability to make a different set of decisions prevents us from being free in the millennia. In other words, envisioning a transformed America where everyone works for white folks is some crooked form of satire. I might also add, as crooked a form of satire as the majority of our heroes being cogs in the wheel in larger systems of power. If one considers how we are employed, it is arguable that some strange cousin of slavery rules most of us.

Purchasing an item at black bookstores requires someone In fact Black Books were one of the last things one could actually do that was black. The reality is most blacks and whites don't wanna sell books to black folks. One can be clear there's little or no money in it.

Money isn't important, but then again money is important, and the choices authors and intellectuals make about their work and its production, distribution, and shape in the world are connected to money. Prestige means money. PWI's more time to make money. Wider distributions-more money. Awards-more money, more speaking engagements.

I think for some, we imagine that those who critique the position are simply hating; but the truth may be much closer to freedom. It is hard to imagine a world one hundred years from now without more black businesses and the community being closer to freedom than it is now.

But I also understand the Nation of Islam bean pie, Black Nationalist work for yourself approach is only but so viable in terms of economic infrastructure. Though Farrakhan is leader who speaks truth, he is most importantly financed by his followers. In many ways he functions like a mega pastor whose Church is not Christian.

Black Wallstreet is gone, U. Street is gone. Gentrification of the Chocolate City, the Nation's Capitol, is an extraordinary event that occurred over the past decade or so. In many respects blackness is not financially viable except among the elite, the pre-educated, the churches, and in the barbershops and salons. The Free Black Space makes money for black people and provides jobs for blacks. Where there is little free black space, imagine the money flowing out of our community, or the money flowing from whites to a very small portion of blacks who operate at the pinnacle of these fields. They can easily be made into Black History Month symbols, but lack the infrastructure to employ themselves or build other businesses in their industries.

It is strange that black progress has given rise to fewer black businesses. In the community I live in, many years ago, the residents demanded more upscale retail come to the county. Again, we are the same P.G. County connected to Prince Jones in Ta Nehisi Coates Between the World and Me. We are one of the richest black counties in America; but if you go down the road, the Asian community in Montgomery County has a whole range of businesses designed to provide their community with products and services. Albeit, the Asian advantage is the mother county concept. They come from some place else they can still remember while African Americans imagine themselves as coming from some place else but being here, wanting to be here. Being different but wanting to be the same.

I also have to add, that I signed in on a petition against Male Privilege this week, which talked about Black Men being dedicated to acknowledging the position of women marginalized and hurt by expressions of Male Privilege in Institutions. We will have more on that later, but it seems that business is the ultimate place to express ones sense of justice, logic, and refined ideas in conjunction with the practicalities of running and building institutions. I personally view business as a creative act. Indeed, it is hard to imagine that someone speaks of activism or even advocacy without a secure business base.

Let the truth be said: if you run the business you can enact all the activism you want under the guise of policy and procedure influenced by the intellectual ability of you and those around you.

Our approach to activism is often like consumerism itself. We imagine ourselves being able to not consume or one person one voice our way into some form of tangible freedom. The truth is our spending power removed from white bank accounts is not as important as having people who run businesses whose consciousness is similar to ours.

Though I understand perfectly why we avoid such approaches. The idea that we will have to build something out of the little or almost nothing we have is frustrating idea. It seems as if that will take forever; but then again if I think of reparations, or the riots, or the restructuring of centuries of oppression-forever seems to be only a measurement of time. Our best course is to argue for, promote, and articulate images of African American economic structures that exist on the micro and macro level as part of our vision of freedom in the country. This promotion, this imagining is the missing link in our activism, protest, and movement forward as a people.

Without a public thrust towards this we are simply dealing with false allegiance and leftovers. Leftovers for the small black businesses, and allegiance towards people we believe in with a certainty that someone else will do the job we have don't have the resources for.