Fifty-five years ago this month, the Eminent Prophet Omowale Malcolm X made the ultimate sacrifice being gunned down in a shower of assassins bullets while preparing to outline the programme of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), the latest phase of his evolving revolutionary trajectory.  But physical death has been unable to extinguish his capacity to inspire generations of activists since, which isn’t to say that there hasn’t attempts to confine his legacy into some ideological straight-jacket such as spiritual Muslim or all-embracing leftist internationalist. (1)

More recently, academic Manning Marable (who interestingly died before the official publication date) added to the slurry of confusion with his Pulitzer prize-winning (no less) biography, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. So egregious was this attempt to assail the indomitable legacy that it sparked international protest, perhaps most cogently captured in A Lie Of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable’s Malcolm X a collection of essays edited by Jared Ball and Todd Steven Burroughs:

“Marable’s “definitive masterpiece” was to us a mere tombstone: a 600-page eulogy that laid to permanent rest the Malcolm X that we knew and revered. Indeed, it buried the very ideas that produced Malcolm X and those he made his own, our own. The book attacked the very ideas that made Malcolm X and all Black people then, and now, dangerous… the continuity of the state’s need to marginalize the “real” Malcolm X requires that mainstream accounts of the man appear exactly as they do in Marable’s book. Marable’s need to reconcile today with a living, breathing Malcolm X forces him to draw impossible conclusions rather than to note, more accurately, that there could be no today as it is without first destroying Malcolm the man and subsequently destroying, in perpetuity, both the ideas that made the man and those which he transformed into the governing ideas of the most radical elements in this society. So powerful were Malcolm X’s contributions to the radical movements that emerged after his assassination that many of that movement’s adherents had to be themselves assassinated, imprisoned, or exiled to this very day.” (2)

But it was the case that at the end of his physical Omowale Malcolm X regarded himself as a “Black Nationalist freedom fighter.” (3)  In fact, he originally named the OAAU the Afro-American Freedom Fighters, before being encouraged to adopt a less militant sounding title, even though they maintained links to the underground militant organisation Revolutionary Action Movement. (4)

The programme of the OAAU advocated nothing less than a “cultural revolution” founded on the principles of “self-determination national unity, restoration (of communications with Africa), Reorientation, education, economic security and Self-defense”:

“Upon this establishment, the Afro-American people will launch a cultural revolution which will provide the means for restoring our identity that we might rejoin our brothers and sisters on the African continent, culturally, psychologically, economically, and share with them the sweet fruits of freedom from oppression and independence of racist governments.

1. The Organization of Afro-American Unity welcomes all persons of African origin to come together and dedicate their ideas, skills, and lives to free our people from oppression.

2. Branches of the Organization of Afro-American Unity may be established by people of African descent wherever they may be and whatever their ideology — as long as they be descendants of Africa and dedicated to our one goal: freedom from oppression.

3. The basic program of the Organization of Afro-American Unity which is now being presented can and will be modified by the membership, taking into consideration national, regional, and local conditions that require flexible treatment.

4. The Organization of Afro-American Unity encourages active participation of each member since we feel that each and every Afro-American has something to contribute to our freedom. Thus each member will be encouraged to participate in the committee of his or her choice.

5. Understanding the differences that have been created amongst us by our oppressors in order to keep us divided, the Organization of Afro-American Unity strives to ignore or submerge these artificial divisions by focusing our activities and our loyalties upon our one goal: freedom from oppression.” (5)

Omowale Malcolm X famously articulated his political and economic approach to Black Nationalism in his legendary “Ballot or the Bullet” message in April 1964:

“The political philosophy of black nationalism only means that the black man should control the politics and the politicians in his own community. The time when white people can come in our community and get us to vote for them so that they can be our political leaders and tell us what to do and what not to do is long gone… The economic philosophy of black nationalism only means that we should own and operate and control the economy of our community. You would never have found—you can’t open up a black store in a white community. White man won’t even patronize you. And he’s not wrong. He got sense enough to look out for himself. It’s you who don’t have sense enough to look out for yourself.” (6)

It’s an approach, itself rooted in the Garvey movement carried on by Carlos Cooks’ African Nationalist Pioneer Movement that, to a greater or lesser degree, has resonated with activists ever since.  It could be encapsulated in the slogan “Buy Black.” (7)

Today, the issue is cast in terms of establishing an economic base, setting up (and supporting) businesses within the community.  UK-based entrepreneur Daniel Lister summarises the challenges:

“The Black community spend 95% of its money outside of our community, and 3% of what we do spend within it, we spend with non-Black owned businesses, leaving us with only 2% of our income; and nobody can live off of 2% of their income. As a result we live in the worst conditions in the UK. Other communities keep their money circulating by buying and selling to their own locking the wealth in their community. White money bounces from hand to hand 8 – 12 times before leaving their community, Asian and Arab money bounces 12 – 14 times, and Jewish money bounces up to 18 times, but Black money bounces a grand total of zero times. My Black Market will allow you to get any product or service from a Black owned business, and we will network that business so that your money stays in your community and benefits you.” (8)

The situation is said to be similar in the USA where it is estimated that “3% of the current black buying power is spent in black-owned enterprises and if black America were to redirect just about 10% of total black spending to black-owned enterprises, that could translate into the creation of about 1 million jobs centered around communities of color.” (9)

A report by Nielsen and the National News Publishers Association has been interpreted by some as indicating that the financial muscle of Afrikans in America is equivalent to some of the biggest economies in the world:

“The purchasing power of African Americans has experienced exponential growth despite a severe economic recession, which continues to rejuvenate the U.S. consumer marketplace. The State of the African-American Consumer Report found that black buying power is projected to reach $1.1 trillion by 2015, The Louisiana Weekly reports.

“If we just start supporting our own, my people might have the economic foundation we need to solve our problems,” says Maggie Anderson, who makes sure that she practices what she preaches. (The Network Journal, 2009)

A report released by Nielsen and the National News Publishers Association highlighted that the Black Buying Power of African Americans is “Still Vital, Still Growing,” which also identified African American consumers as potentially underserved by marketers.

The report found other notable findings, which include:

With a buying power of nearly $1 trillion annually, if Blacks were a country, they would be the 16th largest country in the world.” (10)

For it’s part, the spending power of Afrikans in the UK is said to be in the region of £300 billion from a population of just under two million. (11)

However, the idea of Black spending as a driver of wealth is coming under increasing scrutiny.  Speaking about the American context, in addition to asserting “The greatest misconception is that ‘buying power’ means Black people collectively actually have this kind of wealth or economic strength when, in fact, Black people are economically no better off in relationship to the broader economy than was the case shortly after enslavement proper was ended in 1865,” Dr Jared Ball, Professor of Communication Studies at Morgan State University (USA) highlights (12):

“Buying power is a confused phrase in that it, again, says nothing of a wealth Black people have little of but also suggests that this “power” is or can be for community uplift.  The fact, again, that this is target marketing material means that by “power” they mean the ability to generate money for corporations to whom this spending will be geared.  It does not mean that Black America has some un-tapped economic strength that can be marshaled to buy that which increases wealth (land, stocks, etc.) and speaks to the basics of colonial exploitation.  That is, that the colonized are left only to purchase trifling gadgets and trinkets “footwear” and “clothes,” as opposed to land, stock and other capital most of which is sequestered among the tiniest elite minority.” (13)

This seriously questions the whole premise of “Buying Black” as a means of wealth creation, perhaps based on a misunderstanding of what wealth actually is. The upshot, of this perspective is that in spite of the entrenched colonial exploitation, including blocked access to sources of wealth, our poverty (and indeed our way out of it) is largely a result of our spending choices:

“The underlying perniciousness of the claim then, specific in its application to Black America, is that poverty or inequality at all is the result of bad decision-making among the poor. With the least powerful then blamed for their own poverty, little attention need be paid to the more difficult struggles around public policy which are truly what determines the financial success of any community or group…. if policies were developed to better redistribute the GDP of the United States, which annually is now more than $20 trillion, there would likely be no poverty requiring mythological claims of buying power to overcome and no need to point at other communities as having anything to do with Black poverty.” (14)

When giving consideration to what effective collective wealth building activities we should be involved in, Prof. Ball is stark in his prognosis:

“There are none and can be none.  This is part of the myth.  Chasing wealth in a capitalist economy simply means further creation of more poverty and inequality for everyone else.

More of us should be involved in radical economic study, social and political movement organization building and the development of ways to redistribute wealth, goods and services to make sure no one goes without.

There is no economic solution to poverty and inequality.  Economics is political.  We need better politics and organization not fantasies about wealth creation.” (15)

If wealth in European societies is essentially prohibited for Afrikans, the only option must be to, as Marcus Garvey exhorted “look to Afrika!”  In similar vein Baba John Henrik Clarke warned that it is “Pan-Africanism or Perish” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlFvaH7B3OY). Bringing it back to Omowale Malcolm X, if we continue to engage with Euro-America, he offered a solution in light of us not getting “everything that’s due…” (16)

(1) See Zameer Baber (10/05/96) From Malcolm X To El Hajj Malik El Shabazz – The Transformation of Malcolm X. https://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~moritz/Archive/malcolmx/zameerbabermalcolmx.txt;  Sukant Chandan (2007) Sons of Malcolm. https://web.archive.org/web/20161229221101/http://sonsofmalcolm.blogspot.co.uk/p/what-is-sons-of-malcolm.html

(2) Jared Ball (2012) An introduction to a lie in Jared Ball and Todd Steven Burroughs (Eds) A Lie Of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable’s Malcolm X. Black Classic Press. p. 11. https://imixwhatilike.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/alieintropdf.pdf

(3) Omowale Malcolm X (12/04/64) The Ballot or the Bullet. http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/blackspeech/mx.html

(4) Ball (2012) Op. cit.

(5) newafrikan77 (28/06/16) Program of The Organization of Afro-American Unity. https://newafrikan77.wordpress.com/2016/06/28/program-of-the-organization-of-afro-american-unity/

(6) Omowale Malcolm X. Op. cit.

(7) Nab Eddie Bobo (1995) Carlos Cooks: African Nationalism’s Missing Link in Klytus Smith and Abiola Sinclair (Eds) The Harlem Cultural/Political Movements 1960-1970: From Malcolm X to “Black is Beautiful” Gumbs & Thomas Publishers Inc. p. 23-4

(8) Sonia Brown (15/08/14) Daniel Lister on Why the Black Pound Still Matters!  http://nbwn.org/?p=1546

(9) John Tucker (31/11/17) The Road To $1.5 Trillion In Black Buying Power and Dispelling A Common Myth. https://www.blackenterprise.com/the-road-to-1-5-trillion-in-black-buying-power/

(10) rtmkharris (31/01/13) Black Buying Power Reaches $1.1 Trillion by 2015. https://michiganchronicle.com/2013/01/30/black-buying-power-reaches-11-trillion-by-2015/

(11) Kay Akinwunmi (17/09/15) Data Reveals 5 Key Areas Black Businesses in London Need to Improve Significantly.   http://limconcepts.com/blog/five-areas-black-businesses-london-need-to-improve/

(12) ShoppeBlack (07/06/18) Is The Trillion Dollar Black Buying Power a Myth or Reality? https://shoppeblack.us/2018/06/black-buying-power-myth-reality/

(13) Jared Ball (25/08/09) The Myth of Black “Buying Power”  https://www.blackagendareport.com/content/myth-black-“buying-power

(14)  Jared A. Ball (2020) The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power.https://imixwhatilike.org/2020/01/28/mobp-preview/

(15) ShoppeBlack. Op. cit.

(16) Malcolm X  Op, cit.

We ask the question:

Buying Black – Does it make a difference?

1) Do we have a clear understanding of the legacy of Omowale Malcolm X”?

2) What’s the best to resist misrepresentation of his legacy?

3) Have we confused wealth with “buying power”?

4) Is there any better use we can make of our spending capacity than we do currently?

5) What does “better politics and organization” look like?

Our Special Guest:

Dr Jared A. Ball: is a father and husband. After that, he is Professor of Communication Studies at the Historically Black College, Morgan State University in Baltimore.  He is the curator of imixwhatilike.org, an online hub of multimedia dedicated to the philosophies of emancipatory journalism and revolutionary beat reporting.  Prof. Ball has contributed numerous chapters to a range of publications and co-edited with Todd S. Burroughs, A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable’s Malcolm X.  He is the author of the forthcoming book The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power.