by Rev. Dorothy Boulware
Pastors are leading the call for a halt in holiday shopping to show that Black America won’t invest in businesses that don’t invest in us. Community and faith leaders across the country have banded together to extend the economic blackout. Black people and people who love justice are asked to withhold their dollars to allow the economy to feel the power citizens wield with their dollars.
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“We Ain’t Buying It,” originally announced on Nov. 11, is circulating on social media to encourage people to hold onto their money for seven days. “No Target, no Home Depot, and no Amazon due to their support of harmful policies,” organizers suggest. Instead, the movement encourages deleting shopping apps, donating to mutual aid, and supporting small businesses; it also offers a QR code that leads to a toolkit, petitions, and resources.
Having had an impact on Target with the ongoing boycott that began in the Spring, people are encouraged to keep it going with the hope that Target might revert back and keep its original commitment of $2 billion to Black businesses.
Redirecting Our Dollars
At the inception of the Target Fast in April, Dr. Jamal Bryant, senior pastor of New Birth Baptist Church in Atlanta and a fast initiator, declared, “We will not finance our own betrayal,” calling the action a redirect rather than a boycott.
“We’re asking people to spend specifically with Black businesses; not to not buy but to buy with Black businesses…I hope that Black companies in America will recognize the $2 trillion worth of spending power that Black people have. What is the impact when we unify our own ecosystem?”
‘No Black Friday This Year, Unless it’s Truly Black’
In his Nov. 22 Five Minutes delivered to his Trinity Chicago congregation, Senior Pastor Dr. Otis Moss III said, “We are calling our village to be deliberate with your dollars. As a community, we have over $1.7 trillion of spending power. As a village, we are calling on you, as a member of this community, to not only place your dollars in Black-owned, Latino-owned, locally-owned businesses.” Instead, he encouraged people to shop at locally owned markets.
And Moss was adamant: “No Black Friday this year, unless it’s truly Black. Do not shop at Target, Walmart, or any major corporate chain.”
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Moss pointed out that his congregation should “Think through where you are going to eat ahead of time, and where you can purchase and utilize your dollars appropriately. A 5% reduction is enough for corporate stakeholders and investors to raise questions with leadership, about their direction and their vision. Ask the question, is this company supporting my community? Does this company support DEI? Let this be a week where we create new habits, liberation habits.”
‘Our Dollars Are Our Democracy’
LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, told Forbes that boycotters are “united in a powerful message: our dollars are our democracy too. This is a multicultural, multigenerational economic action where everyday people are reclaiming our power as consumers and investors. We will no longer invest in companies that invest against us.”
Brown also told Yahoo News, “We ain’t buying that the wealthiest country in the world will punish the poor during the holiday season by withholding SNAP benefits. We ain’t buying that families can be torn apart and people kidnapped off the streets by masked ICE agents. We ain’t buying that DEI and racial justice commitments can be tossed aside at the whims of political convenience. And we ain’t buying that corporations are powerless in all of this.”
