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Horace Ferguson - Sensi Addict

Ujama

1987

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Ujama: Black Economics, not Black Capitalism

Capitalism is not only bad for the Black community, it is bad for every community. It is an economic system which prioritizes the generation of profit and facilitates the consolidation of capital to a single group. Sure, we could fix the "free market" through government regulation, but then we cannot truly call the resulting economic system capitalism. If the government steps in any time Disney gets too large and dictates that they cannot own ALL the media outlets, then the market is no longer 100% consumer controlled. I say this only to make it clear that the horrible enviornmental and social conditions we are experiencing as a people to day are not a glitch of capitalism, it is a feature. And that same feature would only repeat even in Capitalism under a Black cultural sphere.

This does not mean we cannot or should not support Black businesses. Quite the opposite. Part of understanding how detrimental capitalism is for our communities means first recognizing the pervasive nature of Capitalism in our daily lives and the amount of power that our oppressors have because of it. Black people live under Capitalism no matter how hard we try to fight against it. If we didnt pursue methods to secure and maintain capital for Black communities, we would only be further marginalized and opressed under the systems we currently are. The Black landlord is useful in that through their ownership of our neighborhoods, we are better gaurunteed security in the lands we live in being recognized as our own.

Supporting Black economics is necessary in securing the safety of the Black community. But in so doing we cannot allow ourselves to become Capitalists or be manipulated by them. The answer to Jeff Bezos is NOT Byron Allen (a man that hasn't been Black until Comcast had to remind a nigga where his place is), it is to end the very systems that allow individuals to amass more money than the gods. We must constantly question our motives in supporting a Black business--are we helping keep Black dollars in the Black community, or are we just buying expensive headphones that we don't need?--and we must question the Black business owners that rely on our support--now that the Black landlord has secured the legal ownership of our neighborhood, how do they plan to redistribute control to the people? Or are they just going to become slum lords and bleed us dry?--these questions are complex and have no simple answers. But the moment we get into the habit of asking them reflexively, THEN we know that we're fully practicing Ujama.

We must also keep in mind while we attempt to build and maintain a Black economy that a lot of the systems and techniques that currently exist were not made with our culture, history, and politics in mind. The methods white Westerners used to secure economic power may not work for us. Think about Akon's current plans to bring clean energy and technology to rural African communities. It's a good idea that I sincerely hope succeeds, but one part of his plan, introducing a new cryptocurrency to be used in his communities, is not something I can get behind. Cryptocurrencies are new, untested for longterm use, and are reinforced by nothing. To ask an entire city to put it's faith in crypto is a tall order, one that ignores how credit systems already discriminate and marginalize against Black individuals, businesses, and communities. We cannot simply copy what white people do to get rich, because even in the extremely rare meritocratic stories, their wealth comes from an entirely different lived experience from even the wealthier Black people.

In the coming year, we all must seriously sit down with ourselves and think about the state of the global Black economy. We must realize as our Black anti-Capitalists before us that our economic liberation cannot come from copying systems used to marginalize and oppress us. We must be careful in what we consume and support, and we must be mindful of which Black business leaders are trying to help us, and which ones are only interested in lining their own pockets. To truly practice Ujama means to be nuanced and thoughtful in our every action, it does not mean investing your entire 401k in Yeezy stock.

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