Black buying blackout - Christmas 2005

Throughout the nation, Dec. 17 and 24, Christmas Eve, will be the days on which people who support reparations for slavery will move their Christmas shopping dollars from mainstream stores and venues to buy from Black businesses, according to attorney Barbara Ratliff. The nationwide Black Buying Blackout was launched Christmas 2004 to demonstrate support for the struggle for reparations and to create pressure on the political-economic system by demonstrating the impact of Blacks’ $700 billion-a-year buying power. For Christmas 2006, the BlackOut will shift to a Boycott from Nov. 24 to Dec. 24.

Ratliff, a Yale Law School graduate, represents Chester Hurdle, the son of an African American slave in his lawsuit against various corporations who benefited from slavery. The Hurdle case is one of eight reparations cases from around the country that were organized by Deadria Farmer-Paellmann and have been consolidated on appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago.

“Reparations are for neglect after Emancipation in 1865 and for legal segregation until 1965,” says Ratliff. She claims, “Slavery affects institutions today. Blacks and whites suffer from the habit of racism, practiced for 400 years, or the “Battered Race Syndrome: The Habit of Racism” (the title of her forthcoming book), so that the racism that confronts Blacks today is not so much from white individuals as it is from America’s institutions – employment, business, housing, education, criminal justice and health/ environment where Blacks trail in every instance. Often, racism is unconscious and unintentional.”

Black buyers are being urged not to spend money on two Saturdays, Dec. 17 and 24, in stores, restaurants, movies, gas stations etc. unless they are owned by Black people. In each community, people will encourage their relatives, friends, beauty salons, barbershops, churches and supportive whites to support the BlackOut and spread the word by Internet, flyers, radio and TV.

The BlackOut is supported by lawyers Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, Malik Shabazz, J. Otis Cochran and Kwaku Duren. Other supporters include Bennett J. Johnson of the National Black Political Convention, Dr. David Horne, professor at Cal State Northridge, the NDABA Movement, Great Sit Down and many more.

Email Barbara Ratliff at bratliff8 [at] aol.com.

http://www.sfbayview.com/121405/blackout121405.shtml