And the color of money is still the same?
Maggie and John Anderson of Chicago vowed four months ago that for one year, they would try to patronize only black-owned businesses. The “Empowerment Experiment” is the reason John had to suffer for hours with a stomach ache and Maggie no longer gets that brand-name lather when she washes her hair. A grocery trip is a 14-mile odyssey.
“We kind of enjoy the sacrifice because we get to make the point … but I am going without stuff and I am frustrated on a daily basis,” Maggie Anderson said. “It’s like, my people have been here 400 years and we don’t even have a Walgreens to show for it.”
OK. Well, they’re free citizens just like I am and they are free to plunk their dollars down with the merchants of their choice just like me. I have to wonder, however, what their response would have been if I had announced, a few weeks before they got their brainstorm, that I was only going to shop at white man-owned establishments as an “Empowerment Exercise.” I gotta tell you, I’m thinking the word “racist” and/or “bigot” would have been flying out of their mouths fast, loud, and continuously. I can even imagine there’s a few readers of this blog who are already narrowing their eyes in indignation that I’ve even brought this up. But racism is racism, folks, and it doesn’t matter what color is doing the discriminating. And if people want to be treated equally and just the same as any other citizen, they should drop the “my people” commentary outside of references to Americans as a whole.
Good luck with your shopping for the remainder of the year, Anderson family. I hope you find what you’re looking for.
