Whenever you go to your local bank, you’re usually greeted by a teller. Because of a growing need to cut costs, the ATM of the future will be updated to perform even more functions. This is also part of a trend Trend Hunter magazine calls “unservice,” or getting customers to serve themselves. You’ll have the ability not only to pay bills and cash checks but to call for customer assistance from the touch screen and receive money in any denomination. There will also be no need to carry your ATM card, since access to one’s account will be based on biometric technology—which has already been rolled out in Australia, using voice authentication for telephone banking, and Japan and Poland, where ATMs can scan the veins in your finger.

With the increasing focus on security (and also privacy and fairness), comes reform. Forty years ago, the U.S. Congress began regulating the credit card industry, starting with the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970. We’ve certainly come a long way since then. One change resulting from the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009 is that those under 21 need a cosigner or proof of an independent source of income to open a credit card account. I predict that there will be even more credit card reforms and, increasingly, debit card reforms as card companies seek to make up their losses there.

As the way we pay for things changes, so will the way we buy things. One thing I detest about shopping for clothing: If something doesn’t fit, I have to change back into my clothes and walk back to the rack to get another size. I predict the adoption of automated dressing rooms. All you’ll have to do is use a touch screen in the dressing room to enter the item you want, and it will be delivered to you. Over the past few years, technology has been tested that can turn your fitting room mirror into a source of additional product information, a virtual stylist, and a link to your social network.

In 40 years, “the customer is always right” will be more than a catchphrase. Businesses will truly listen and cater to the needs of the consumer. Our world will be driven by convenience, customer service, and customization.

Is there a dangerous product in this cart?

Have you ever  learned that a product that you or someone close to you uses regularly had been recalled weeks or months after the recall? Unfortunately, not all product recalls make the news. It’s just too risky to find out about a recall by chance, especially if it involves food or products for young children. Remaining unaware of recalled items could put your health and the health of your family at risk. But how can you possibly stay abreast of the hundreds of new items that are removed from store shelves each day? Here are three ways you can keep on top of recalls.

Online

Recalls.gov is a one-stop-shop for recalls on everything from children’s toys to medicine. Information is culled from six federal agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency. When you visit this site, you can also report a dangerous product to a specific agency. For example, if you had an incident involving a consumer product, you can contact the Consumer Product Safety Commission at 800-638-2772, send an e-mail to info@cpsc.gov, or fill out a consumer product incident report online.

E-mail

If you don’t have time to check the recalls.gov Website for updates, you can sign up for the mailing list for the agency of your choice and have recall information sent directly to your inbox.

RSS Feed

You can also subscribe to the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed for a particular agency. Feeds and podcasts are broken down by area of interest, but you can also visit the Consumer Product Safety Commission Website and subscribe to an RSS feed that lists all major recalls and news for all six agencies. This is another way for you to avoid constantly checking the site for updates.

In addition to staying current on the latest recall news, you should also go a step further and be aware of the products in your home. One way to stay out of harm’s way is to use caution whenever buying or receiving a used product. Many recalled items get passed on this way. If you recently purchased a used item and want to know if it might have been recalled, you can visit the Consumer Product Safety Commission Website and review the product recalls database. The database, which allows you to search products by month and year, product type, product description, and company, goes back as far as 1973.

For more information on a specific type of recall, visit the following sites:

Consumer Product Safety Commission (consumer products)

Environmental Protection Agency (environmental products)

Food and Drug Administration (medicine, cosmetics)

Food Safety.gov (food)

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (motor vehicles and related equipment)

United States Coast Guard (recreational boats and related equipment)

Sheiresa Ngo is the consumer affairs editor at Black Enterprise.

Photo by Darin Hercules.

The Andersons in front of the now-defunct Farmer’s Best Market.

When you walk into a store you’re often preoccupied with whatever product you want to buy. Most times, the last person on your mind is the store owner. But for the past year, Maggie and John Anderson were not only concerned with the store owner, but with whether or not he or she was of African descent.

Their project, the Empowerment Experiment –formerly the Ebony Experiment — grew from their desire to spread awareness about black businesses that provided high quality, economical merchandise and to dispel the myth held in black communities that black products and services are inferior to those sold by other ethnicities.

You see, the Andersons made a public choice to spend all of their money with black business owners and professionals or black manufactured products throughout the entire year of 2009. They estimate that they spent about 70% of their income or about $70,000 on black businesses last year. They got the idea from similar projects like the “No Impact” family, who lived a year without electricity to reduce their carbon footprint.

They also wanted to draw a parallel between the lack of black businesses and the high rates of unemployment, recidivism, and chronic illness in black communities, says John Anderson, 38, a financial consultant with AXA Advisors, and president of In Sight Financial Management, his own consultancy firm.

Though the experiment is over, their cause is unfinished. The goal of EE was never to connect to the mainstream, but to encourage black people to support black-owned businesses, says Maggie, also 38 and a stay-at-home mother of two with a law degree and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

They plan to re-launch their Web site to include a directory of black businesses nationwide, a ticker that will track the money spent at black companies, and allow users to rate the products and services listed on their site. Researchers at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management will release a study on the experiment this spring. Finally, by June the Andersons hope to publish a book chronicling their experience and the findings of the study.

Here, the Andersons discuss the successes that kept them empowered, the struggles that challenged them, and why they won’t be continuing the experiment.

BlackEnterprise.com: Do you consider the experiment successful?

Maggie Anderson: We do feel that we made history. Nothing like this has ever been done before and we actually did it. I think we were very successful in finding those diamond in the rough businesses like my alarm company, Foscett’s Communications & Alarm Co, and some of the products I encountered that are sold in mass retailers, like Reggio’s Pizza and my new toothpaste, Sudantha, an herbal toothpaste produced by Link Natural Products.

If spreading awareness was a measure of success, I think we were widely successful. My daughters’ pediatrician and her book club have all decided they are going to commit to spend 75% of their income with black businesses because of the Empowerment Experiment. I have at least 100 other instances like that of folks who are going to totally change their lives just because of our story.

What was the biggest disappointment?

John Anderson: One of the biggest disappointments…[was] the failure of one of the businesses that we supported quite a bit — our grocery store, Farmer’s Best Market. There was no reason for it to fail. That was really disheartening. We really took that failure to bed with us at night.

Why do you think the store closed?

Maggie: Every time I was in that store—and I was in that store all the time–it was empty. It was a big, full-scale grocery store. There was nothing wrong with it. All those people who came to the Empowerment Experiment meetings and who called in to the radio shows didn’t take the extra step to actually try and go into Farmer’s Best and support the owner.

Five blocks up the street there was a Greek-owned food and liquor store. It was dirty, the produce was rotten, and the meat smelled–the kind of place that wouldn’t survive a day in [a white community]. The parking lot was packed with black people. I really do believe that we suffer badly from this psychosis that our stuff is not as good as everyone else’s.

What is your response to the critics who say black businesses aren’t thriving because they have bad business principles and race has nothing to do with it?

John: We saw a lot of quality businesses that were doing the right things that just weren’t getting the level of support that we would have liked seen. If you analyze the failures of businesses across all ethnic groups that would be one factor, but it stands to reason why in our community the failure rates are significantly higher and average receipts are significantly lower. All of that can not be ascribed to poor service.

Do you plan to continue your experiment in 2010?

Maggie: It is painful not doing the experiment anymore. After we lost Farmer’s Best Market we did guerrilla-style grocery shopping. We’ve been living on convenience store and gas station food since August. As much as we want to [continue] we can’t keep living like that on an extended basis, especially with our daughters [Cara, 4, and Cori, 3]. But at least 50% of our spending will be with black businesses this year.

John: The bottom line is our lives are changed forever. The businesses that we supported throughout the year that are quality businesses in line with our mission, we want to see succeed and grow. We will continue to support them even if it is not geographically desirable to do so.

Note: Karriem Beyah, the former owner of Farmer’s Best Market plans to re-launch the store at a new Chicago location in February.

"How will my business make money if no one wants to pay?"

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Richard, a black comedian calls his white friend: “Hey, Chad. Just wanted to let you know: I’ll be in town next week to do a show. Hope you can make it.”

Chad: “Really? That’s great! What night is it? I’ll call all of my friends and we’ll pack the house! It’ll be a blast!”

“Thanks, Chad!,” says Richard. “It’s on Thursday night. I’ll see you then!”

Richard hangs up, excited about the prospect of a big night at the comedy club, which means more gigs. He then he calls his boy, Lamont. (What? You know he’s black. How many white, Asian or Latino guys named Lamont do you know? Try to keep up, okay? Anyway…)

Richard: “Monty-Mont! Whassup? It’s ya boy, Richy-Rich! Just hollerin’ atcha to let you know that I got a gig in town next Thursday. You coming, right?”

Lamont: “Hell, yes, I’m coming! You funny as a mug! Shoot, I’ll bring my girl, and tell her to bring her girls, and I’ll get Antonio and Big Rob and Lisa to come and get the word out to their peeps, too!”

“Cool!,” says Richard. He holds his breath. He knows it’s coming.

“You gonna hook us all up, right?,” says Lamont.

One of the biggest drags on black entrepreneurial growth and profitability is the “hookup”: black people expecting other black people to provide them with free goods and services just because they’re black. We need to stop it. Today. NOW.

No, she can’t hook you up with a few press releases and some public relations for your event.

No, he can’t hook you up with a few signed copies of his book.

No, he can’t hook you up with a quick shape-up so you can look fly at the club tonight.

No, she can’t hook you and your momma and aunties up with free tickets to the fashion show.

No, she can’t hook up a business plan for you real quick.

No, she can’t deliver the dinner keynote without an honorarium, in return for two tickets at the head table for food she won’t get to eat. Because she’ll be speaking during the dinner.

No, they can’t wash your car, pull your teeth, do your hair, fix your computer, edit your manuscript, paint your house, build your Website, etc. for free! Discount? Maybe. Complimentary services for referring new—paying—customers? Okay. An occasional freebie for long-time, loyal customers who always pay? Sure. Barter my goods or services for yours? We might be able to work something out. But, FREE? NO!

Hello? The point of being in business is to make money! How can entrepreneurs, and black business owners in particular, make money, if they’re expected to give their products and services—which costs them money to create, develop, market and deliver—away for free? If you don’t spend money with them, they can’t spend their money with you. If you won’t pay for your haircut, your barber can’t pay to eat at your restaurant. If Leslie the auto dealer won’t pay a competitive rate for wedding planning, Lisa the wedding planner can’t afford to buy a car from Leslie. Money has to circulate in order for economic empowerment to happen and for black entrepreneurs to have a chance to compete and thrive. You don’t support black entrepreneurs by showing up for the hook-up. You support black business by paying up.

When I find a black entrepreneur or professional who provides goods and services I like, I pay for those goods and services—period. I know that there are costs associated with providing a service and making a product, a cost they can only recoup by selling at a profit. I don’t want them to hook me up with free stuff. I want to hook them up with my spending, because then they can really hook me up, by creating jobs, growing the local tax base, supporting community organizations, doing business with other black entrepreneurs and professionals—or just having enough money and a predisposition to reciprocate, to buy goods and services (like subscriptions to Black Enterprise) from me and mine. I want black enterpreneurs to make money. I want them to succeed. I want them to get more than rich. I want to see as many wealthy black entrepreneurs, families and communities as possible. So if I like what they’re selling, I’m more than happy—I’m thrilled—to pay for it, and to tell all of my family, friends and associates how great they are.

Do you really want to support black entrepreneurs and black professionals? Stop hitting them up for freebies. If you believe in their products and services, pay for them, as you would for the products and services of any other business. If what they’re selling doesn’t merit that, why are you patronizing them in the first place? Do you really think you’re doing them—or yourself—a favor?

Alfred Edmond Jr.

Yesterday, Black Enterprise Managing Editor Alisa Gumbs forwarded a press release to our entire content team announcing retail chain Sears’ promotion of online layaway at barbershops to potential shoppers, so that they could experience the service firsthand. The release was accompanied by a photo of Ronald Larry, a regular patron of De’ Bon’s Barber Shop in Chicago, test driving Sears’ new online layaway program for the first time.

“Now that Sears has layaway online, not only is it easy on my wallet,” Larry is quoted as saying in the release, “it’s easy on my time. I can even get that new flat-screen TV I want, and have it in time for Christmas.”

Gumbs response to this expression of shopping glee is a refrain that echoes often around the offices of Black Enterprise: “This is a hot mess.”

I was confused by her response. I couldn’t see why making layaway more available and accessible as a shopping option, especially given the current economic environment, couldn’t be a good thing. When I pressed her on this point, she responded, “You don’t find anything funny about Sears going into barbershops to try to get black people to use modern technology to buy high-end electronics that they can’t afford—on layaway?”

The truth is, I found it both funny and ironic. However, without layaway and online technology, these same people were still buying high-end electronics that they couldn’t afford, only they were doing it using high-interest credit cards.

With credit cards, they were paying in installments after the purchase and being charged compounded interest to boot. With layaway, they pay the installments in advance, only buying the merchandise after they’ve reached their “savings” goal, and without incurring the interest charges and other fees that are the vast majority of burgeoning credit card balances. With layaway, you have to budget for the purchase, and you have to really want it, since you have to pay nonrefundable fees to participate and failing to keep up with the payments could mean losing all or part of your deposits, depending on the policy of the retailer. Layaway eliminates impulse buying and forces delayed gratification, even if it’s for an item you shouldn’t be buying in the first place.

Back in the day, up until the 1980s or so, layaway was a very prominent option for low- and middle-income shoppers. Then more Americans began to gain access to credit cards, until we finally reached a point where just about anyone (including unemployed college students) could get them—even if they did come with sky-high interest rates and a myriad of fees and penalties in the small print. Layaway faded away as a shopping option, although it never really disappeared.

The buy-now, pay-later mentality of credit cards has been a major factor in reckless and irresponsible consumer behavior. Replacing layaway plans with easy access to high-interest credit has had devastating consequences for lower- and middle-income families, and black people in particular. The public embarrassment of buying goods on layaway (an admission that you were too poor to just buy what you wanted outright), has been replaced by the private shame of crushing credit card debt. I’d rather see people use layaway to save toward buying that flat-screen TV outright, than watch them use credit cards to borrow the money to buy it now, only to pay several times it’s retail price in interest and fees for months and even years after the purchase.

But now, with Americans struggling with high unemployment, job insecurity and a difficult economy, and retailers desperate to lure shoppers back into stores, layaway is making a major comeback. Now retailers including Sears, K-Mart and Toys-R-Us are trumpeting installment payments as a time-saving, cost-effective option for those looking for the ways to reduce pressure on limited household budgets. There are even online layaway service providers, such as eLayaway, allowing shoppers access to a variety of participating retailers. I think that’s a good thing, and Gumbs agreed with me. There’s just this one little thing:

“My issue with Sears targeting blacks in barbershops for online layaway is: How do you think they’re making online payments for their layaway?,” says Gumbs. “I’m betting it’s with those same high-interest credit cards (the accepted online payments are Sears Card, Sears MasterCard, Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, Sears Gift Card, PayPal).”

Ruh Roh! She had me there. Using credit cards to make installment payments on that giant flat-screen cancels out the primary benefits of layaway plans, at least in terms of encouraging financial discipline and the save-for-what-you-want mentality we need to embrace if we are to avoid excessive debt, maintain a positive household net worth and ultimately build wealth for life.

I still applaud the comeback of layaway. But if you’re going to choose this option, do it the old-fashioned way. Make installment payments with the money you actually have in your pocket. (Or in the bank, if you can use your debit card. But you’ll have to monitor your bank account like a hawk to make sure you keep balances high enough to avoid overdraft fees if there’s not enough in the account to cover your layaway payments). Please, please don’t use credit cards to borrow money to make layaway payments.

Alfred Edmond Jr. is the editor-in-chief of BlackEnterprise.com

Maggie Anderson

The Empowerment Experiment has progressed from the website and the media to the streets and suites, from the computer and TV screens to a growing following in the churches, conferences, wine-tastings, networking receptions, dinner parties, and university halls.  Now that we have taken this turn—now that we are talking to more and more of you directly, learning and sharing with you face-to-face—we are really starting to feel, for the first time ever, what a movement feels like.  Strangers are hugging and crying, some remembering the ’50s and ’60s, some hurting about the present-day, and others hopeful about future.

We started EE because we knew there are so many more out there like us.  Folks who care and want to do more.  We felt like our generation has fallen short of our duty, like we’ve recklessly, lazily dismissed our purpose, our place in the ongoing battle for economic opportunity and social justice.  We are corrupting the legacy of our ancestors and the dynamism of our heritage.  EE is a chance to make up for that.  Through EE, we want to do something unprecedented and inspire something outdated.  We want to inspire that now near obsolete feeling of empowerment, hope, and solidarity that we had in the Civil Rights Movement.

But how do you do that?  Are we doing enough?  And are we doing it right?

Some of you know that after college, I began my career as a speechwriter.  And as a progressive, I often use quotes from famous civil rights leaders like President Kennedy, W.E.B. DuBois, and Dr. King.

So as I write these speeches about making a movement, I try to find the good ole Rev. Dr. King quotes to help me poetically and poignantly communicate that point.  But maybe a quote isn’t good enough this time.  I mean, if EE is the beginning of an economic empowerment revolution… If we are going to pull this off… If we are to truly make a difference… If more of my people will start thinking about how important it is for us to support one another… If Black people are going to gain control over their own fate and start proving, everyday, our magnificence to the world, instead of just reminiscing about it every once in a while… If we are going to transition into a movement manifested by actual results… then a Dr. King quote is not enough to make it all happen.  His very spirit needs to consume me, my husband John and EE.

So I talk to him everyday.  Dr. King tells me that even though he and Rosa Parks and all the other heroes did so much, I don’t have the luxury of giving up, or giving in.   I no longer have the right to live the empty and easy life.  I can not choose between Living his Dream and Fighting for his Dream anymore.

King says EE needs to be much more than a call for increased awareness and pride.  What we need now is something that goes beyond a call for more optimism, consciousness, and hope.

Dr. King says that patience and optimism alone will not get us to The Promised Land.  He taught us to temper that patience with a little passion. Back those prayers up with some planning. Justify that optimism with some industriousness and results.  Activate and hasten all those awesome hopes with some vigilance.

If Dr. King were here, I believe he’d want us to perfect our possibility by ensuring it and capturing it—owning it.  He’d want us to just own what’s ours.

Dr. King says to me, “We either seize it or let it slip away.”

Dr. King asks me, “When have we ever answered injustice, exploitation and despair with ‘It’s too hard.  I don’t know where to begin.  I am just one person?’ Or ‘The success of a few is good enough.’?”

And now I ask all of you:  Is this what you want?  Is this really enough? Is this the plan?  Is this what our ancestors and elders wanted for us? For this country?

Did they want us to fight for the vote, for equal rights, but then let poverty, crime and drugs, barred up businesses and boarded up homes become the new hallmarks of the black neighborhood?

Are we supposed to accept and overlook that we still have only one-tenth the transferable wealth of our white counterparts—a condition that has not changed since Reconstruction?  Should we pay no heed to the fact that our businesses, in 1980, shortly after we became fully integrated into American society, lead the pack in terms of revenue growth and success rates, but now, 20-something years later our businesses are a very distant third behind Asians and Hispanics, and our community’s economic health continues to worsen at an even more accelerated rate.

Must we close our eyes to our reality (while the rest of the world depicts it) that, according to every measure of social and economic progress—incarceration rates, unemployment rates, graduation rates, incomes, home ownership, whatever—our numbers are the highest or lowest, whichever’s worse?

Now before y’all even start, no way am I comparing myself to Dr. King or any of those legends to whom I owe everything.  But they all inspire me.  Without him and all those who struggled with him, there is no EE.  We are not them and can never be them.  However, everyday we do this—stick to our pledge, go without things we like and need, drive for miles and miles, take the flack, avoid the pain, feel the love—we do it with them in our hearts and minds.  Every day in The Empowerment Experiment we recall another time in our history when our people came together because one black woman decided to take a stand.

No, no.  I am not Rosa Parks.  And I won’t and wouldn’t insult her legacy my comparing my sacrifice to hers.  But I will certainly dishonor it, if I don’t learn from her and her sacrifice.  And we insult her—we all do—when we give up on her fight.

So I do this in her honor.  And just like her, I seek and listen to Dr. King, and hope to make him proud.

Maggie Anderson, a business consultant, and her husband, John, a financial advisor, have been buying black made-products and services for all of 2009.  They call their pledge The Empowerment Experiment (EE).  Their experiment will serve as the foundation for a landmark study on self-help economics in the Black community.  They live in Oak Park, Illinois, with their two daughters; Cori, age 2, and Cara, 4.

The Andersons and Tag Team Marketing's Wilson de Brianos

When we created The Empowerment Experiment, we knew things would be different.  We knew we were going to miss certain businesses, services and products that we had grown so accustomed to using.  What we could not predict or begin to prepare myself for is how absolutely fulfilling the shopping and the small sacrifices would be.

We’ve met some extraordinary entrepreneurs.  We’ve discovered some of the best businesses in the world.  We’ve made so many new friends who are genuinely committed to facilitating positive change in America, and bringing much needed vitality and economic development to struggling black communities. We go to bed every night knowing we’ve helped a black entrepreneur realize his or her dream; and helped create a new role model for black youth.

What an amazing way to live!  That’s our powerful life.

Jordan's Closet

So thank you Joslyn, owner of Jordan’s Closets on 51st street in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago.  Thank you for enabling this great life.  Thank you for never giving up, as you bring your beautiful one-year old son to work with you everyday… even when your store was broken into three times in one month… where you provide our community with the most adorable children’s clothing and a wonderful role model for girls and moms alike.

Thank you Selena Cuffe, owner of Heritage Link Brands (a 2009 Black Enterprise Small Business Awards winner), for enabling me to live my new great life, my powerful life.  Thank you for giving up your executive position in corporate America five years ago to now become the largest importer of African wines and distributor of wines from black wineries.

Heritage Link Brands

Thank you Debbie and Delxino Wilson de Briano, for my great life.  Thank you for devoting all your talent and time to uplifting our community through self-help economics.  Thank you for launching the Black Business Network this week and building the successful TagTeam Marketing enterprise—the largest black-owned network marketing organization committed to introducing, marketing and selling black-made and distributed goods and services.  Thank you for using your millions to manifest your belief that black products, services and talent are some of the best in the world.   Thank you for believing that and sharing that belief with the world in such an honest, eloquent, brilliant and momentous way.

Health Conscious Coffees

And thanks so much Kerry Vine, owner of Health Conscious Coffees, for creating a delicious and healthy product and taking the time to introduce me to it in such a classy fashion.  I salute you for finally deciding to identify yourself as a Black business, at the risk of losing some of your market or alienating potential customers, including those who claim they never pay attention to race when they shop but somehow spend no money with black-owned businesses.  EE thanks you for committing to building community centers in under-served black neighborhoods to ensure that our at-risk kids have positive, nurturing environments and outlets to play and grow in.  I send you love and thanks for helping me infuse sheer power and sincere purpose into my life.

Sensual Steps Shoe Salon

Thanks so much Nicole Jones, owner of Sensual Steps Shoe Salon, for being such an awesome inspiration and role model for our girls and our entrepreneurs.  You’ve been around for four years because your store is clean, beautiful, and a pillar in the community.  You insist on using your success to promote other black businesses in the neglected Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago’s South Side while teaching young women to be entrepreneurs too!

Thank you, we thank all of you, the outstanding entrepreneurs and professionals who step out on faith even though the odds are against you.  We know our future is dependent on your success.  The growing EE nation honors you and pledges to support you.

Other Empowerment Experiment blogs by Maggie Anderson:

Our Choice: To Empower

Maggie Anderson, a business consultant, and her husband, John, a financial advisor, have been buying black made-products and services for all of 2009.  They call their pledge The Empowerment Experiment (EE).  Their experiment will serve as the foundation for a landmark study on self-help economics in the Black community.  They live in Oak Park, Illinois, with their two daughters; Cori 2, and Cara, who is 4.

Sounds good…right?

Many people have violently criticized our pledge, our project (called The Empowerment Experiment or EE) and our overall mission.   Through hate-email, blogs, Facebook, letters to our home, we have been called racists and Nazis, and demeaning, malicious attacks have been lodged against us and our people.

There are those dismayed by EE’s call for blacks to leverage and engender collective consumerism as a solution to our problems… threatened by EE’s blatant refusal to continue to wait and rely on the largesse of others or well-meaning government programs to trickle down… confused by our public and proud choice to support our own genius and products.  Those people have been feeling that way about any call to ‘buy black’ for a long time.

But they’re more fired up now because what really burns them about EE is us.

John, Maggie, Cara and Cori—the Anderson family of Oak Park, ‘Apple Pie’ USA.  We scare and appall them.

 

Maggie Anderson

That people like us could dream up something like this is what’s new and inspirational about our movement.  And sadly, this is precisely what bothers so many about it. We aren’t poor and disenfranchised.  We aren’t ex-offenders reformed in prison.  We are not militant radicals.  My Ivy League husband and I earned six-figure salaries working in corporate America.  We went to white universities and studied with and about good white people.

We don’t fit the black activist profile.

How dare I, a manifestation of the great American Dream, the product of many races and nationalities, preach self-help economics for Black people?

How dare John?  John came from a ‘good’ home in a ‘good’ neighborhood.  John’s father paid for his Harvard education. John even has white friends!

So we aren’t supposed to be offended and distressed.  We shouldn’t be starting movements.  They say we should be humble and grateful, doing everything we can to repay our country for the victory of our lives—not trying to improve America so that there can be more families like ours living that American Dream too.

We’re supposed to do what everyone else does.  You know, shop with the big names and designers instead of with our conscience. Drive over and around the struggling black parts of town. Ignore the plight of their people, the rights of their people, the power of their people—all in exchange for the welcome and cozy embrace of American middle-class life.

We are pretty confident that our girls will get good educations, wonderful opportunities, and grow up to be law-abiding, productive members of society.  This is all that should matter to us.

“What else could they want?” They say.  “Why are they trying to change things???!!!!”

Yes, we do have a wonderful life.  But it’s not enough.  And we’ll throw it all away if it means we could not keep fighting for what’s right.

You know what we really want?  We want to live that wonderful life in a society where our beautiful people are not relegated to the bottom anymore.  So we fight for that.  That’s our fight.  That’s our journey.  That’s our movement and it’s just beginning.

Maggie Anderson, a business consultant, and her husband, John, a financial advisor, have been buying black made-products and services for all of 2009.  They call their pledge The Empowerment Experiment (EE).  Their experiment will serve as the foundation for a landmark study on self-help economics in the Black community.  They live in Oak Park, Illinois, with their two daughters; Cori 2, and Cara, who is 4.