Shop Black
It's extremely important for us to support local black-owned businesses. There are so many companies that have great products and impeccable services as well as strong moral and business ethics. Last year, I made an effort to solely shop black in order to increase the wealth within my own community. I found it disheartening to learn that I wasn't even able to survive off of the production of my own people. Literally, I was not able to survive. How? How am I not finding businesses owned by black people. The people who slaved and created America? How do we not have a strong stake in the economics of this country in the year 2017? So many unanswered questions that truly mad me extremely concerned about the monopoly on business and economics within the US. Below is a list of the things I wanted to buy within the black community but could not due to the lack of black businesses in my area (Washington, DC).
The point of this post is to put a visual view to what we are lacking and see if anyone knows of services or products that are out there that we need to be more aware of and support! Having economic wealth is powerful and without it one remains powerless. So let's build and support those doing good for our community! For circulating the dollar within our own community is how we build our own banks, markets, clothing, services, and more! You know, like how we did before... "Black Wall Street".
Things I could not find that were black-owned:
Grocery Stores/Food - It was hard to find black-owned grocery stores, food markets, and certain restaurants. There were some restaurants but not many. Some appeared to be black-owned due to selling traditional black dishes but were not actually black-owned.
Beauty Supply Stores- Even though I was able to find a ton of black hairstylist, I could not find one black-owned beauty supply store. They all were owned by individuals of Asian decent. I found that to be quite odd for they are only marketing towards black women not targeting any other ethnicity. Why is that?
Nails Salons- I used to have long acrylic nails but noticed not one salon was black-owned no matter where I was. That began to bother me for I saw black nail technicians (sparingly) but not one black-owned nail salon. Basically my dollars was going from my pocket directly to another community never to circulate back in my community again. Big Issue! I soon became team natural nails after it became clear that there was a monopoly on both the nail and hair industry.
Gas Stations - Did not find one that was black-owned.
Hospital/Urgent Care- Did not find one that was black-owned.
Movie Theatre - Did not find one that was black owned. The Takoma Theatre would have been one I could mention but they closed and were sold around 2013 to a company that was not black-owned.
Hotels/Hospitality- Did not find one that was black-owned.
Airports- Did not find one that was black-owned.
Cell phone service - Did not find one that was black-owned.
Spa - Did not find one that was black-owned.
Shoe stores- Did not find one that was black-owned.
Things I did find that were black-owned:
Banks - It took a while but I found one black-owned bank which has been around for over 80 years! Amazing! I couldn't believe it. Their name is Industrial Bank in the Washington, DC and Maryland area.
Beauty - I know a lot of great makeup artist, skin care companies, and hairstylist. This made buying beauty products, getting my hair and make up done a breeze for all these individuals were black and owned their own business.
Apparel stores- I found local black-owned clothing stores for women and men. It was great to see the diverse styles from basic every day apparel needs to upscale items. We need more of these!
Churches - There are a ton of black owned churches all around. Some doing better than others but plenty around for spiritual growth. No shortage there.
IT services - This one came easy for me for my husband is in IT so any work I needed done for software needs, he was able to fix. I also know a few other contractors that have their own business within the IT field for both software and hardware needs. Thank goodness for that!
Real Estate services- I found several women who were great within residential real estate and their customer service was impeccable. Highly skilled within their field.
Our Mission:
I want to make sure we really focus on the things I could not find for these things are essential to being able to simply survive. How do we live without food? How do we not have our own hospitals when natural healing medicine was created in Africa? I need answers. We all need answers but more importantly we all need to build these things (again), for that's exactly what we use to have with Black Wall Street. Google Black Wall Street to learn more about the elite black community during this time that was bombed by the government due to being deemed a "threat".
Have you ever tried to Shop Black or do you plan to?
Let us know your experience by sharing below!
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