Our Black Year (20 page)

But lots of otherwise sane people simply refused to set aside their anger and listen, even just for a moment. This visceral hostility became increasingly frustrating. Even we weren't naive enough to believe that White folks would “get it” from the start, and we understood that a certain percentage of folks would never get it. But I thought the kind of anger we were seeing
had faded as our country's racial and ethnic mix broadened and the nation became more tolerant. I couldn't comprehend why it was okay for White-owned businesses to tailor ad campaigns to minorities while John and I were being vilified as racists for trying to raise African Americans' awareness to buy from competent, Black-owned businesses.

All of this made me think that, despite all the progress we've made toward racial tolerance in this country, maybe a lot of it is just superficial. Was that why White folks couldn't accept that Black economic empowerment was a healthy thing for everyone? And by the way, we aren't saying that
all
Blacks should spend
all
their money exclusively on Black-owned businesses. Believe me, we know it's impossible. We're simply trying to get
some
African Americans to spend
some
of their money in high-quality Black businesses. Perhaps John and I are dreamers, but we also have a pragmatic understanding of life, rooted in our marketing, business, finance, and law training. Some may even consider that pragmatism conservative, God forbid. (Note to the GOP: Make those checks payable to The Empowerment Experiment Foundation.) Either way, we viewed our project as a moderate, well-reasoned form of self-help economics, something that people across the political spectrum could support. After all, experts of every stripe agree that the problems in America's impoverished neighborhoods—Black, Hispanic, Hmong, or rural White—are fundamentally economic.

So why were we being tagged as racists?

“That's not an unreasonable response from people who are otherwise well-meaning and decent White people,” said Clarence B. Jones, Scholar in Residence at the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University and King's confidant and attorney. “And that's because they haven't taken the time to carefully consider the difference . . . between the general economic conditions of the White community and the Black community.”

“In good faith,” he added, “their judgment is clouded by an illusion . . . that there is a level playing field, that there is no significant economic disparity between the capital assets in the African American community and the capital assets in the White community.”

This is a false assumption, according to Jones. The roots of that disparity date back to 1863, when four million slaves were freed—at least officially—by the Emancipation Proclamation. Two years later the “40 Acres and a Mule” order—giving freed slave families land and a barnyard animal—was established. Historians debate the scope of that specific order, but that dispute doesn't change the overall impact of slavery.

“The principal economic consequence of slavery on the African American community is the failure of them to have any generational transfer of wealth,” Jones said, which reminded me of what Steven Rogers had highlighted regarding the lack of Black retailers. “Having no capital assets to transfer from generation to generation meant that you had successive generations of African Americans who were always economically disadvantaged,” Jones said.

In explaining the factual and historical basis for his position, Jones pointed to President Lyndon Baines Johnson's 1965 commencement address at Howard University, “To Fulfill These Rights.”

I think we would all agree that hasn't happened.

In search of a contemporary perspective, I sought out two people I met in the trenches: Tracye Dee, the African American owner of WineStyles in Chicago's South Loop, and Joslyn Slaughter of Jordan's Closets. I was curious about what they thought was behind the animosity toward our buying-Black effort.

Tracye told me she thought folks are fearful of a unified effort by African Americans, a group that many see—accurately—as deeply divided. “People are so afraid of something different,” she said. “I think they worry that we'd take away from their patrons and their family businesses. I feel like telling them, just give it a chance. You'd find that you may even benefit from it.”

Joslyn Slaughter said much the same thing. “We're not used to seeing something like this from African Americans,” Joslyn said of EE. “But if we had the presence of mind . . . to bring all our talent to bear, we would be a lot further along. We're a minority, yes, but we're a big minority. We could move mountains, and I think that scares some White people.”

Fear can be a powerful force. Why do you think everyone from politicians to insurance sales reps to real estate agents use it? It's effective, easy, and serves their immediate needs, but it also kills progress and opens the door to much worse. Yet the fear endures.

African Americans were brought here centuries ago as slaves, a circumstance that created an assortment of enduring emotional and psychological scars. These have been inflamed, transformed, and passed along from one generation to the next. The media basically continues the fearmongering by portraying us as dumb, loud, shiftless, predatory, and immoral, in stereotypes ranging from the obese welfare mom and the vulgar rapper to the ignorant athlete.

Fear is what prompted the “white flight,” mostly in the 1960s, that occurred in the panicked home selling in Chicago and other cities. As a result, the once “good” Irish, Italian, or Jewish neighborhoods, like on Chicago's West Side, have become almost all Black and all feral.

A half century later those neighborhoods remain lost. Folks who once lived there look back with sorrow and anger at what their communities have become, and just about anybody—Black or White—who has to
drive down those streets does so with the windows raised and the doors locked. Add to that the African American riots on Chicago's West Side and in many urban areas after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, the Black Power movement, and the armed insurrection the Black Panthers advocated, and the fear seems justified. When some folks think about Blacks getting more powerful, they may flash on those images as well as more recent ones and think:
Those jackasses are going to be in charge? We can't let that happen. It'll be anarchy.

There's a logical progression from fear to resentment to hate, which is, of course, much more destructive. Images of the vulgar rapper or the welfare mom quickly become what some White folks, or Asians, or Cuban Americans want—no, love—to see so they can justify and fuel the fear and anger that leads to outrage. These stereotypes become the only images those folks will let in.

The Empowerment Experiment got caught in all that quicksand. As much as John and I tried to extricate the conversation from the mud and refocus it on self-help economics and inclusion, we kept getting stuck. This emotional morass was hindering the movement we were trying to build, and it was poisoning our souls.

Chapter 8

A
FTER THE BRIEF DAYS OF HOPE FOR FARMERS BEST, things again began looking grim, and my mood became prickly. Despite our prodding, friends were doing nothing to support Karriem's store, even though they said they would shop there. They were just telling us what we wanted to hear.

During my frequent trips to Farmers Best there were hardly any cars in the parking lot near Karriem's Ford Excursion. The entire shopping center's lot took up two blocks, and because Farmers Best was by far the largest building in the strip mall, there were about six aisles of double-sided spaces available for his customers. The other stores had no more than half that amount. Keeping my spirits up after pulling into that lot was next to impossible. I knew that empty lot meant that the inside of the store was a dead zone.

Before walking in I'd take a few minutes, clear my head, and push back the tears. Then I'd inhale and force a smile. I knew how humiliating this plight was becoming for Karriem, and I was trying not to make it worse. I'd hop out of the car, grab a shopping cart, and stroll down the empty aisles, all the while sporting a pleasant smile that bordered on the insane. And I'd buy. Then I'd buy some more. I knew my belief that buying a couple extra cans of beans or six-packs of Gatorade was going to make a difference was pathetic.

“Dang, baby,” John said one afternoon when he'd come out to the garage to help me unload groceries. He was laughing. “Did KB have a sale on Gatorade?”

“Stop, John,” I said. “You know exactly why I bought all that. At least I'm not wasting money. I'm only loading up on stuff that can sit for a while and that we're gonna use eventually.”

“Honey, there is no more room in the garage for all this damn cereal and paper towels. You're being ridiculous.”

He was right, of course.

“But John, you haven't been there in a while. You just don't know.”

“I don't know?” he said. “
I
don't know. I've been there. And man, it was bad. So sad.”

“So what am I gonna do? Go in there and buy some bananas and a pack of ground turkey and that's it?”

“Sweetie, you can rent a U-Haul truck and fill it up. Ain't gonna make a difference. You can't fix it because you are not the problem. The problem is not us. You gotta stop blaming yourself.”

“But what about Karriem?” I said.

“Karriem's a grown man. He already appreciates us. He's facing a lot right now. But we're not his problem. The rest of them not bringing their lazy behinds into that store . . . they're his problem.”

John was right—again. And I certainly wasn't fooling Karriem. We both knew that the marketing efforts, parking lot cookouts, and media photo ops weren't working.

By this time I'd gotten into somewhat of a routine. As soon as I dropped the girls at day care in the morning, the doors of The Empowerment Experiment opened. I'd check and send e-mails, tally up recent receipts, and then call KB, whether or not I was making the trek to the store. When he needed to discuss the business with someone who cared and was not too busy with a day job, he'd call. And he needed to discuss the business all the time. Having a chat at around 8:30 in the morning became standard for us.

“Maggie, you are not listening,” he told me one particular morning. “It's not that I couldn't afford the meat—it's that I couldn't afford a price hike. It would've killed us.”

He was talking about a wholesaler who was upset that Karriem's orders had tapered off.

“Okay, so he actually changed the price on you?” I asked. “Can he do that? We might be able to sue.”

“Can he? Can he? He did. What can't he do? Those Italians own the whole strip over there. They have contracts with Certified Grocers. I'm just me. I'm no one. Just Karriem.”

“But I thought they liked you. That's what you said.”

“Maggie, it's not that. It's us. I need more traffic. I agreed on a price with this guy based on my ordering twice a week. I've been ordering twice a month, if that, because I don't have enough customers or money to justify those orders. So now he says he has to up my price. And I still gotta deal with these idiots at the Link office.”

Link machines, the devices in stores that process the state's debit cards for customers receiving food subsidies—what used to be known as food stamps—were notorious for breaking down. Karriem's was as temperamental as the worst.

“Okay, but they're fixing that, right?” I said. “Now what about finding a new supplier? You don't have any friends from Dean's who can help?”

“Magz, let's change the subject.”

I wanted to say, “
Well, what other subject is there?
” But I could tell he was frustrated. Besides, he'd already jabbed me about being an awful listener.

I knew I talked too much, but I was always trying to give him hope, a new solution he might not have considered when sometimes all he wanted was to vent. Karriem's struggles did seem to mirror our own, but at least we'd get a break every now and then—a major piece in print or TV interview, a donation to the foundation, a call from an influential business leader offering support. For some reason he was not getting any of those. I felt responsible for him barely being able to stay afloat.

As the Fourth of July approached, we were hoping for a miracle, or at least enough of a boost to keep Farmers Best open for another couple weeks. There was one reason in particular why we were optimistic: the first of the month—three days before the holiday, in this case—is one of
the monthly occasions when the government refills Link accounts. The sorry fact is that those are always busy days for food stores in poor areas, which often means African American neighborhoods. Add to that the spike in grocery shopping that occurs before the Fourth, and we were fairly confident the store would be buzzing with customers. Karriem flooded the radio with commercials that week. He grilled in the parking lot again. He offered tempting sales and specials.