I made a personal pledge a few years ago to spend more money with black-owned businesses. As I’ve traveled along this road, I’ve created a pretty cool subscription company and discovered several new brands to which I feel a genuine connection (I love this card game!).
One question that has annoyed me on this journey is deciphering what counts as “buying black.”
Let’s go ahead and account for the obvious. When you purchase a product or service from a company owned by a singular black person or group of black people (e.g., a family), I think everyone would agree that this is “buying black.”
Where it begins to get tricky for me, is when there are several owners and one (or more) of them is black (e.g., KK&Jay). I’ve come across a significant number of quality businesses with partnership ownership structures where one of the owners was black, but does this count?
If you answered yes to this, consider the following: wealthy blacks (read: celebrities) who invest in companies are technically part owners in the companies they fund. (Think Kobe Bryant and Body Armor or Kevin Hart and Tommy John.) Is it fair to call purchasing these goods as “buying black?”
Continuing this line of thinking, several black people are technically “owners” of many companies because of their investments into public companies on the stock exchange. Does it count to call buying from these publicly-owned companies, “buying black?”
Let’s not forget one of the primary reasons “buy black” became an economic rallying cry. White-owned companies weren’t serving or employing black people for a long time.
Things have changed somewhat since then. Black people are a significant market segment for several brands (e.g., Black and Mild of Altria) and a useful recruitment pool among numerous mainstream firms. Is it appropriate to call it “buying black” when we purchase from companies that serve and employ black people?
Have you found yourself thinking about these things? What counts as buying black for you?
If you’re not black, what causes are you inclined to support with your purchases? What is the rubric that you use to determine whether a company actually meets your criteria?