“I want to say to you as I move to my conclusion, as we talk about "Where
do we go from here?" that we must honestly face the fact that the movement must
address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society.
There are forty million poor people here, and one day we must ask the question,
"Why are there forty million poor people in America?" And when you begin to ask
that question, you are raising a question about the economic system, about a
broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to
question the capitalistic economy. And I'm simply saying that more and more,
we've got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon
to help the discouraged beggars in life's marketplace. But one day we must come
to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring” - Dr. Martin
Luther King
Dr. King began to question the economic systems; he began to do a P&L (Profit & Loss) Statement to analyze our situation. Now I want to call attention to the photo I have attached to this post. What very few people realize is that those four brave souls who did the sit-in in Greensboro, N.C. were sitting in at a Woolworth’s (retail chain store). Woolworth was the Wal-Mart of its day, then in the 1980’s it lost tremendous market share due to competition from stores like K-Mart, Target and Wal-Mart. In 2001 Woolworth changed its name to Footlocker as it realized that sports apparel and athletic shoes was its most lucrative holding in its portfolio of stores. Footlocker today is the world’s largest Athletic Apparel Company with nearly 6 Billion dollars in revenue in 2007. Who do you think Footlocker’s primary customer is? Who actually rescued Woolworth from financial ruin? Drum roll please, it was African Americans and their insatiable appetite for sneakers and all things Jordan. My point in all this is, yes we gained “access” by doing sit-ins in stores like Woolworth but what was the economic pay-off? If we look at this scenario from a business perspective we basically begged somebody to take our money; we demanded that stores like Woolworth give us service like anybody else or any other paying customer. We literally died to give stores like Woolworth our business, asking NOTHING in return but the opportunity to take our money. Now let us consider the economic ramifications of the sit-in’s and desegregation:
“A profit and loss statement, also called an income statement, is a financial
document that shows managers, investors, and other interested parties the
financial state of a business. A profit and loss statement can cover any period
of time, from one day to ten years, but profit and loss statements are most
frequently issued every quarter and every fiscal year. Potential investors use
profit and loss statements to gauge the financial health of a potential
investment, and current investors can see what kind of return they are getting
on their shares.“
“The purpose of the income statement is to show managers
and investors whether the company made or lost money during the period being
reported”. – Wikipedia
First and foremost we must show all due respect and gratitude to those from the Civil Rights Era, who stepped out on faith to fight an uphill battle, to get us access to certain facets of the American Capitalist System. We have all heard if we intend to go forward and progress that we must learn and know our history. Today in Black America we have grown weary of “talk”, so much talk about our problems and the post slavery hang-over. Yet in many scenarios it appears that economics (the lack of) appears to be the root of the problems that the Black Community is experiencing. Our collective neglect of the economic factor as a whole and how to leverage community wealth seems to be lost in the conversation. We as Black people have got to start looking at ourselves as a whole and as a collective business. The reality is, actual reason we got shipped over, packaged and distributed throughout this country as slaves in the 1600s is because the world’s capitalists saw us as a people as “a business proposition”, to be bought and sold. Slavery was business, it was not personal. We have got to begin the process of accessing our own value as a whole and no longer leave it others to put a valuation on. Dr. Martin Luther King, one of the leaders of the Civil Rights era began to embark on a monetary forensic analysis of the state of blacks and poor in America.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
GDP. The total market value of all final goods
and services produced in a country in a given year, equal to total consumer,
investment and government spending, plus the value of exports, minus the value
of imports.
Every country in the world is measured and assessed based on their GDP basically asking "how are they handling their business". African Americans have got to start looking at their buying power estimated at $723 Billion Dollars and is forecasted to be $1.1 Trillion dollars in 2012. African Americans may not see themselves as a group but the world of business does, Woolworth aka Footlocker does and exploits our lack of business savvy and ignorance. We when look at the Business, it makes all the race card playing, ambulance chasing leading blacks/black leaders in this country look like frauds. There is not any good reason why African Americans cannot create industries of trade with $1.1 Trillion dollars and contribute to the world economy as PRODUCERS. The Tea Party nor is the KKK preventing African Americans from investing and creating business channels. When do we understand the truth like Jay-Z put it when talking about himself, “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business man”. We got to see ourselves as more than descendants of slaves and martyrs of slavery but as a business. Even Jesus understood that you must be productive when HE said:
Luke 19:13 “'Engage in business until I come.'
Now Woolworth, who despised even serving African Americans realized, Black money was still GREEN and they could STAY in business and EXPAND their business off of our infusion of capital. Unfortunately we don’t own Footlocker, but we support them like our life depended on it. Is it just me, but I wonder what we could have done if we decided to invest in African American businesses this fiercely? We could buy our “Jordan’s” and “Air-Force 1’s” from ourselves, instead we just empowered the people who refused to serve us and we buy “our” Jordan’s from them. Better yet create yet just create your own shoe brands. I am by no means downplaying or begrudging what was accomplished by the Civil Rights Era but we need to consider the economic ramifications in any decision we make, if we as a people are ever going to get over to the “Promised Land”. Look at the Irony of this situation, we made Woolworth accept our money, we protested hoping to hurt their business but in the end we gave them more business than they could ever imagine. We need to start doing an economic forensic analysis of everything we did in the Civil Rights Era to see what worked and what did not work to our advantage economically, so that we can apply those strategies that worked going forward. We have got to stop endorsing policies or movements without asking the question about, “THE MONEY”. We have got to stop following preachers and black leaders acting as liaisons on our behalf going before pharaoh without asking them about, “THE MONEY”.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”
- Albert Einstein
How can you decide to March and boycott against any business enterprise without considering the business enterprise? Meaning if I am gone to boycott riding the bus like they did during the Montgomery Bus Boycotts then would I not consider redirecting that money to an alternative transportation system that your community owns? We have got to start analyzing what we did, to see what we need to do, in order to go where we need be. We should celebrate the victories that were achieved during the Civil Rights Era yet simultaneously we need to do a P&L Statement of the Civil Rights Era to truly quantify where we now stand as a people. Maybe the real reason Corporate America does not invest in Black America is because they can look over the last 50 years and see that there is nothing profitable in the Black Community to invest in. Maybe they can see that the Investments that were made did not pay any return on investment. Now here comes the harsh reality check, why invest in Black America when they see from our past that they can get our money without investment just like in the case of Woolworth/Footlocker. Why are African Americans so eager to patronize any business they don’t own? Why do African Americans want money to buy but refuse to invest and sell? I think it lies in the fact that we “wanna be like” instead of BE. We strive for an American Dream with thought of what an African American Dream would look like. Based on the P&L statement it appears many have died in vain because looking at it from a business standpoint, the Civil Rights Movement may have made common sense but it did not consider Dollar Sense.
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