Some Americans looking to send a message with their holiday-shopping dollars are heeding a call that has resurged in popularity since the summer: Buy Black.
Companies including Facebook Inc., and celebrities such as rapper and entrepreneur Sean “Diddy” Combs are urging shoppers to spend at Black-owned businesses. Oprah Winfrey’s powerful “Favorite Things” list, which has earned a reputation for boosting the sales of featured products, included mostly Black-owned or Black-led brands for the first time this year.
Yet consumer-driven efforts can only do so much when it comes to leveling the playing field for Black-owned small businesses or addressing economic inequality, economists and business owners say.
“Me spending money is critical,” said Raegan Mathis, a Washington, D.C.-based project manager and artist who recently bought a T-shirt from Harriett’s Bookshop, a Black-owned merchant in Philadelphia. “But being able to make a business sustainable and being able to help enough people do that to where you can build an economy, that is the key.”
The Buy-Black movement, which originated before the Civil War, have gotten wide attention this year amid a national conversation about racial inequities following George Floyd’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police and the coronavirus pandemic’s disproportionate toll on Black communities.
