Black Lives Matter activists continued to reveal their true colors, even as the mainstream media persists in trying to paint the movement as a peaceful campaign for equality. Activists are now advocating for Americans, especially black Americans, to abstain from spending money on non-black-owned businesses.
Initially, Black Lives Matter called for all black Americans to abstain from shopping on July 7 as a show of solidarity with the movement. They dubbed it Blackout Day.
The idea behind Blackout Day originated with a man named Calvin Martyr, who took to YouTube with his idea in a lengthy rant about “oppression” in the United States. Martyr was inspired by the Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama that served as the catalyst for bus integration and from which Martin Luther King, Jr., emerged as a prominent civil rights leader.
“I guarantee you, if for one day, if for one day in America, not one black person spent a dollar, not online, not on Amazon, no fast food places no restaurants no stores, if for one day, July 7, 2020 … If we could do it for one day, it would shut the whole system down,” Martyr said.
Martyr asserts the only way to end the alleged systemic oppression of black Americans is by causing white Americans to fear economic harm.
Martyr’s idea found steam, and a website was created to garner support for the campaign.
“This is a call to action,” Blackoutday.org explained. “We need one day of solidarity in America where not one black person in America spends a dollar.”
However, the website notes that the campaign is intended to be ongoing.
“This is only the beginning of a lifelong pursuit of economic empowerment as a reality for ALL BLACK PEOPLE. United, we are an unstoppable force,” the website reads. “We are a nation of people within this nation that at any time can demand our liberation by withholding our dollars. If we can do it for a day, we can do it for a week, a month, a quarter, a year … and one day we will look up and it will be a way of life.
“Black people alone account for an estimated 1.2 trillion dollars or more of spending in the economy annually,” Blackoutday.org elaborated. “Together [people of color] have 3.9 trillion dollars in economic spending power.”
“We will systematically and strategically black out until the system is broken and we have risen to power as a people,” the website claims.
The group also added that it welcomes non-blacks to participate in Blackout Day, but made no qualms about the fact that the movement did not need participation from non-blacks.
“While we welcome allies who choose to stand with us, we make absolutely no apology for the fact this movement is FOR US & BY US,” the website reads.
The site also listed a number of “asks,” including an “ask” not to be “shot down in the streets,” for “racist legislation to be purged from the books,” and for the “cancerous ideology” upon which this country has purportedly been built to be “rooted out.” Another “ask” was for some vague “you” to “stop murdering our leaders when they attempt to unite us as a people.” Sadly, not one “ask” included the senseless murder of innocent black youth in crime-riddled cities such as Chicago and Baltimore.
It also appears that one of the “asks” was for a type of modern segregation: “Our ASK is that we are allowed to build our own communities and industries and be left alone.”
And despite the original motivation behind Blackout Day, it quickly morphed from a day in which black Americans abstained from spending to a day in which they refused to spend money at non-black owned businesses.
CNBC writes, “Blackout Day is a movement that urges Black consumers, and others, not to spend even a dollar at a non-Black-owned business or brand on Tuesday.”
BLM supporters took to Twitter to encourage black business owners to make themselves known so that black Americans would know where to spend their money.
And predictably, several companies have jumped onboard the campaign in an effort to prove they are “woke,” even if it cuts into their profits.
According to The Blaze, Vans shoes asked July 7 visitors to their website to spend money at black-owned businesses before purchasing shoes with their company. The group’s site read, “A new pair of Vans can wait. Today is Blackout Day, so before you spend money on our site, we ask that you consider shopping with your favorite Black-owned businesses or donating to organizations such as the NAACP, GSA Network, and Color of Change.”
The site also directed customers to learn more about what it has been doing to “support Black Lives Matter and racial equality” by clicking another link.
The makeup company Sephora participated in Blackout Day by closing its stores from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., CNBC reports, to provide training and allow for discussions of racial profiling and the company’s recently commissioned racial bias study.
Image: screenshot from blackoutday.org
Raven Clabough acquired her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English at the University of Albany in upstate New York. She currently lives in Pennsylvania and has been a writer for The New American since 2010.
