Kwanzaa: Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics)
Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics)
To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.
This one is easy, but it may take more explanation.
Conservative pundits correctly state the way to building wealth is creating businesses. They also point out the comparative low rate of business owners in the Black community, although the rate of Black business creation is outpacing other groups.
So, what is wrong about Blacks creating businesses? Nothing.
The "problem" some have is the idea of Blacks "profiting together" from those businesses.
In The End of Racism, D'Nish D'Souza criticized Blacks for the lack of recycling a dollar in the Black community before it leaves. He compared the Black rate of recycling to that of Jewish people and stated Blacks needed to be more like Jewish people, meaning they need to seek out and spend more money with Black businesses.
Lately, some conservative pundits have focused on immigrant groups banding together to create micro-lending "institutions" within their community. The basic premise is a group of people of the same immigrant ethnicity form a group. They all contribute money to the group. At intervals, the money is given to members of the group to create, support, and/or enhance a business started by a member of the group. These people are helping themselves by working in a cooperative manner. The pundits have praised these people for doing this, as do I. But, economic cooperation by Blacks is somehow a bad idea?
How can that be?
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