This Is An Economic War We Can Win

Incredibly and ironically, although Harlem is world renowned as a Black community, it has never been economically controlled by its Black residential majority. This incongruity can be changed, and we, the Black residents of the Harlem community can change it. The Buy Black Campaign offers us an unprecedented opportunity to be qualitatively victorious in one of the most important wars we are waging; the war for economic control of Harlem.

In far too many battles, we depend upon an enemy’s decision to determine the outcome of our efforts. How then can we question our defeat? But the Buy Black campaign is a war in which we possess all the resources needed to guarantee victory. It does not depend upon the support of anyone outside of ourselves.

Specifically, it does not depend upon an oppressor judge and/or racist jury penalizing their own people for abusing us. It does not depend upon a drug pushing government terminating the drug traffic or a criminal government paying us so-called back wages in money, acres, or mules. It does not require an elusive and enemy electoral process becoming responsive to our multiple needs. It does not rely on a white supremacist school system rescinding their pernicious policy of mis-education, or upon a white supremacist media machine reversing their persistent projection of sick ideas and sterile images. The success of the Buy Black Campaign is based only upon Black people supporting Black people. Consequently, we constitute the exclusive determinant of a comprehensive victory.

We can win it. We can win it without firing a shot or throwing a grenade – without launching a missle or dropping a bomb. We can win it by buying Black. We can win it by supporting each other instead of supporting another.

The Buy Black Campaign is the first economic step in a series of essential steps leading to community rehabilitation and racial revitalization. It is for those who want to see Black adults successfully owning and operating businesses and collectively providing all the goods and services for a productive and prosperous community. It is for those who want to see Black women full of pride as Black men take care of Black business and rebuild Harlem for the financial solvency of the Black family.

It is for those who want to observe Black youth hired by legitimate Black employers instead of being rejected, exploited, or reduced to depravity. It is, finally, for those who want to witness Black children encouraged and energized by positive and visible role models that deepen their racial bonding, broaden their community focus, and heighten their self-esteem.

The Buy Black Campaign requires that we patronize only Black businesses and boycott all non-Black businesses in Harlem. When a Black business cannot provide us with particular goods or specific services, then we should go outside of the community to satisfy our need. To some, this strategy may seem harsh, but it is merely Norman business practice of an ethnic community. Those who have seen Chinatown or Little Italy can certainly testify to this truth.

Fundamentally, the Buy Black Campaign is a war that can be won in three basic stages. The first stage will focus on a three block area on 125^th Street from Fifth Avenue to Frederick Douglass Boulevard. 125^th Street is the primary commercial strip in Harlem, and this targeted three-block area is the most concentrated expanse of economic exploitation on the strip. Thus, the initial phase of the campaign is to destroy the multi-alien nerve center of the Harlem community.

The second stage of the alien removal program extends the initial phase eastward from Fifth Avenue to the East River and westward from Frederick Douglass Boulevard to the Hudson River, thus liberating 125^th Street in its entirety. Furthermore, because Harlem has historically and repeatedly influenced Afrikan world movements and is, therefore, one of the most monitored and manipulated communities on Earth, the taking of 125^th Street will not only be instantly transmitted around the globe, but will immediately ignite a myriad of Afrikan communities into widespread rejoicing and worldwide duplication.

With the success of the second stage, the third stage of the Campaign will easily advance to the southern and northern perimeters of Harlem, thus completing its economic liberation and prefacing the commencement of cooperative independence and community development.

The strategy of the Buy Black Campaign includes a “Build Black” component which will identify prospective owners, teach basic principles, and establish quality stores. Its inevitable success will be characterized by Black proprietors being a comprehensive supply system for Black consumers and Black consumers being a consistent support system for Black proprietors.

Clearly, it is a war we can win. By exercising functional selectivity through freedom of choice and redirecting negative purchasing patterns into natural purchasing power, we can make a decisive difference in our present plight and in the future of our race. Surely, a people who gave non-capitalist commerce to the world and collectively enjoyed the first fruits of non-exploitative enterprise have the ability to effect economic control in their own community.

Economic control begets community pride, and community pride begets community protection. Therefore, not only will the successful conclusion of the Buy Black Campaign underwrite community stability and insure community status, it will also serve as a deterrent to the rise of gentrification, the spread of drugs, and the plague of apathy.

Harlem is under attack, and we must act in our own defense. Victory is calling, but we must answer the call. Pamoja Tutashinda: Together, We Will Win. Buy Black!

Author: GEORGE EDWARD TAIT

Publication Name: NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWS

Publication Date: 12-31-88