Free Our Black Year by Maggie Anderson Page B

universities that studied leakage but none that focused on neighborhoods with an abundance of minorities. I also found two articles—the most poignant was almost thirty years old—about how many businesses were owned by outsiders in the Black community. Entitled “From Other Shores—Recent Wave of Asian, Latin American and Caribbean Immigrants Is Stirring Fears of Displacement in the Black Community,” Black Enterprise published the article in 1983.

    I had always ascribed that 5 percent—such a low number—to our own psychosis, our negative perceptions about Black entrepreneurs, goods, and services. John and I believed that the inclination to prove our worth by shopping at “White” stores was both a heavily promoted sign of our advancement as well as a reaction to the lower-quality Black businesses. We didn’t think that practice had anything to do with the shockingly low number of Black-owned businesses.
    But what I found—what The Ebony Experiment taught us—is that leakage is even more insidious than that. A big part of what’s going on is that immigrant groups and corporate America took advantage of the situation. A more jaded individual might even say they exploited it.
    Most discouraging was our realization that even when a West Sider “buys local,” he or she is contributing to leakage. And this led to another, more ominous conclusion: Things may never change for areas like the West Side. Leakage is perpetual there and in all places like it in America. The social epidemics accompanying this corrupted economy were likely immovable. The “outsiders” had established strongholds, and the local Blacks could not compete. Meanwhile, Whites were not going to relocate to places like the West Side, bringing mainstream retailers, grocers, and banks with them.
    All this was depressing and perplexing. John and I started wondering who or what we were fighting for. How can we admonish Black people for not supporting Black businesses when hardly any Black businesses exist? How could we tell our people we have so much to be proud of when we are the only group failing to harness the American Dream? Should I join the militant groups who hate the Koreans for taking over the Black beauty supply industry, or join the marches on stores owned by outsiders who are openly racist, refuse to employ from the community, and overcharge their customers? How are we ever going to turn around these suffering communities?
    And where does that leave folks on the West Side? Are they supposed to keep relying on government generosity and corporate munificence? Are they going to continue the generations of hopeless dependency?
Seeing the situation any other way was difficult. Cynicism and pessimism were spreading in me. The Ebony Experiment was starting to feel more like pushing a boulder uphill than leading a charge on horseback.

    Despite J’s Fresh Meats, Mario’s Butcher Shop, and the other examples of commercial decay we saw in our travels through Black neighborhoods, that the Black community has economic might is undeniable. Here are a few statistics that might change the way folks think about Black consumers:
    â€”African American buying power rose 166 percent in seventeen years, from $318 billion in 1990 to $845 billion in 2007.
    â€”In 2002 advertisers spent $457.9 million to market to African Americans, including cable TV, Internet sites, and magazines. Four years later that spending jumped by nearly 73 percent to $791 million.
    â€”US Census Bureau data show that the Black population of about forty million is growing 34 percent faster than the population as a whole and that the number of Black households making at least $75,000 has increased 47 percent since 2005. Those statistics suggest that not only is our population growth robust but a Black middle class is expanding as well.
    Although we might be a consumer group to reckon with, we still haven’t figured