What would happen if Black families across America made real commitments to support Black businesses and professionals? How many jobs would be created? How many homes would be saved from foreclosure? How many new role models would our children have? How much would we improve the quality of life of the average American Black family? How much can we do on our own, together, united … without a government program? What if we could prove – again – that this community can defy history and improve the future by just believing we can and believing in one another? And what if the world was watching us do it?
The Ebony Experiment Foundation's focus is research and education concerning economic empowerment in underserved communities. The Foundation's research is based on the Andersons' pledge and experiences finding and supporting Black businesses, professionals and products created by Black manufacturers, as the Black community is a historically underserved community. The Foundation will also study the impacts of a year-long national economic development campaign aimed at promoting and stimulating enhanced entrepreneurship and self-help economics in the underserved Black community. The Foundation will collect data from this campaign to create a new body of knowledge about the power of self-help economics for revitalizing underserved communities. The purpose of the research, the national campaign, and the resultant study is to measure the economic impact of self-help economics and increased entrepreneurship in economically deprived communities.
5 comments:
I think that black people helping the black community like you mention is missing from many parts of America.
But I also think it's a symptom of a larger problem - that the concept what it means to be a part of a community IN GENERAL is lacking in America.
It's weird because I think many people like the idea of community as a concept but struggle to help others in their daily lives.
We are taught not to reach out and not to ask for help. To seem completely on top of it when there are so many Americans that could use each others help and business, especially in economic times like these.
Yes, I agree with you. Cooperative economics is the key for inter-community support and also I think its the bridge that needs to be made in order to preemptively deal with the tensions that are caused when race and economics collide--let's avoid another riot situation, you know?
Both excellent points. It will be interesting to see the study's findings on self-help economics and the resulting economic effects on the Black community. I fear, though, that creating such a unilateral effort to focus on the Black community (ie. Black customers for Black businesses) could create rifts in the societal fabric of the communities being surveyed. Like The Obama Generation suggested above, I think it would prove beneficial to make a more concerted effort in the community as a whole (ie. All customers for Black businesses) and would help to instill values of community support rather than cultural support.
I wouldn't say this about all black businesses, but the main reason why they fail is not because of a lack of support. It has more to do with a lack of financial and business education that would enable them to run a business productively. Prime example - a family owned bakery in my neighborhood went out of business this past year even though it was extremely popular and quite often had long lines of customers waiting for its famous red velvet cake. Why? Because they lost the store due to a lien placed on it by the irs for failure to pay standard taxes that they had no idea they were required to pay. Simple education in business management could go a long way for the African American community.
I think this is a great idea. It reminds me a lot of Greenwood, and the black wall street of the 20th century.
This will be interesting to follow.
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