Black America to corporations: if you want our money, support our rights
The CBC and other Black organizations have a message to corporate America
There is a time to negotiate. And there is a time to demand.
Back in January of 2016, this was the press release issued by the White House:
The president, of course, was Barack Obama. And January 2016 was a time to negotiate. Two presidents before him had been badgered by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to not negotiate and instead to go to war with Iran (and Iraq and Syria, too.) But Obama and his advisers, who were normal presidential advisers, understood the folly of that, and chose to negotiate instead. And it would have all worked out had Obama not been Black and followed in the White House by a racist megalomaniac who was certain he could do anything better than the Black guy including withdrawing from the Black guy’s Iran agreement and “negotiating” a better deal by having his demented, fanatically racist, sexist, incompetent and utterly idiotic in-house war criminal and self-styled “war secretary” bomb the living hell out of the ancient Persian empire (starting with the schoolgirls) while the “make a wish kid” president grips his iPad in his tiny fingers and posts insane AI memes of himself like a selfie-obsessed middle school girl.
And because he squandered the time to negotiate, Trump has been left making spurious demands which Iran does not have to accede to. They control the Straight. They are the toll collector. And the toll collector makes the rules.
It’s the arrogance of Trumpism that the core belief of his racist, incomprehensibly stupid maga movement is that nonwhite people have no value, no agency, and no say. You can attack them at will — Blacks, women, LGBTQ people, nonwhite immigrants, the disabled, unhoused and the poor — and do so relentlessly, at zero cost to America. Well as it turns out, attacking and destroying the people maga hates does in fact carry a cost.
Evicting more than 600,000 immigrants (no, dears, it’s not 2 million) is torching the economy, as the businesses whose workers are the most afraid to show up can no longer afford to employ the white American plumbers, site managers, electricians, and other white Christian menfolk that maga views as the only people worthy of making a living in the USA. The estimated cost to the economy, including of our present historic mass negative migration: about $987 billion and a more than 3 percent reduction in our GDP. According to a recent study reported on by The New York Times:
Recent surges in deportations have led to job losses for both immigrant and American-born workers, while wages have stayed flat, according to the study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonpartisan research organization. Construction, which depends heavily on immigrant labor, was impacted more than any other industry studied, with American-born workers losing more jobs as a result of the deportations than the undocumented workers who remained.
Analyzing federal labor data, researchers focused on four industries that rely heavily on undocumented immigrant workers: agriculture, construction, manufacturing and wholesale. Deportations had a chilling effect on each of those industries, disproportionately affecting men, who accounted for more than 90 percent of the immigration arrests. Taken together, the affected industries saw a 5 percent drop in employment for male undocumented workers and a 1.3 percent drop for male American-born workers without a college degree.
The researchers found no evidence that employers increased wages to attract American workers. Instead, work slowed.
In construction — where the researchers estimated 15 percent of the work force is undocumented — American-born workers have paid a price for the deportations, the study found: Employment dropped by 3 percent for male American-born workers without a college degree, and 7.5 percent for undocumented workers. For each arrest, six American-born workers lost a job, and four undocumented workers lost one.
“Construction companies view it as easier to reduce production, reduce the construction of new homes and new buildings in general, rather than try to increase wages for U.S.-born workers,” said Chloe East, an author of the study and an economics professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Previous research has also shown that increased immigration enforcement slows housing construction, drives up home prices and leads to job losses for American-born workers.
Likewise, dumping more than 300,000 Black women from the federal workforce is hammering the economies of states like Maryland and Virginia, where so many federal workers and their families live, and the subsequent reduction in household spending has begun to flood out into the broader economy like the first ocean water seeping into the Titanic. It’s nasty work to spend decades complaining about Black single mother households and then demanding that corporations and the federal government lay off the breadwinners. To say nothing of draining the ranks of future CEOs.
Colleges and universities which should be spending money on groundbreaking research are instead using their funds to dismantle longstanding diversity, equity and inclusion programs and often getting their federal grants yanked anyway. Pretty soon, American colleges will no longer be the global gold standard. And they won’t be bastions of all white male classes either, since ending affirmative action has actually decreased the percentages of white men at elite schools, not increased it. (Turns out, maybe it was the white working class boys who needed DEI the most.)
It stands to reason that suppressing a large percentage of your population’s economic productivity, merely due to the color of their skin is a suboptimal strategy. In fact, it has cost the U.S. economy more than $19 trillion between 2000 and 2020, per a study by Citigroup. And one can only imagine how Trump 2.0 has built on that failure. Meanwhile, the BRICS countries, composed of all the ethnic populations maga hates, are watching their economies grow, presently encompassing about 40 percent of the world’s GDP.
Turns out: Black and brown people buy things.
It’s no surprise it’s all ending this way.
Europeans all but wiped out the indigenous peoples of a land whose ecology they still cannot master. Those same Europeans prospered for centuries off of free Black labor, only to cede that free labor in a war that left more than 700,000 dead, including 40,000 of the formerly enslaved who fought among 180,000 Black men determined to kill their so-called “masters.” The cost of being a recovering slave empire was not just death but discohesion — a systemically broken nation with an economy stunted by forced inequality, particularly in the broke-ass former confederacy which is eternally haunted by the ghosts in the hanging woods.
America’s first, broad economic boom was created artificially by a world war, followed by a spiraling military industrial complex. Subsequent booms were longer, but shallower, and associated with fewer jobs created. And as good as the economy felt to many in the Reagan, Clinton and Obama eras, the 401k, tech and media bubbles lacked the depth of the kind of growth that lifts everyone, together.
And now that Trump has exposed the whole Reagan economics house of cards to be a scam, by conducting an open, federal bank robbery in broad daylight, there’s no hiding the scars — much like the ones on Trump’s decaying hands.
And it’s not just Trump that’s rotting. The whole country is dessicating with him — from the economy to the physical infrastructure of Washington D.C., which Trump is turning into a garish monstrosity. Farmers are going bankrupt, thanks to Trump’s idiotic tariffs. And we don’t even know how many American servicemen have died so far to abet genocidal Israel. What’s a cowardly party to do, with an election coming, and Elon perhaps too busy crying into his Grok algorithm after losing his AI feud suit or planning his move to Mars (please go!) to maybe use his chessboard full of 10,000 lasers to steal another one for the home team. Allegedly.
In short: even when they’ve won, the right is losing. They can’t even get 90s era B listers to show up for Trump birthday concert on the destroyed National Mall to rap their one hit wonders beside the swimming pool blue reflecting pool during the halftime of the $1 million-per-seat UFC gladiator show.
Our self-styled “conservatives” cannot mask the rot no matter how many books they ban, or how many racial equity programs they wipe off the books. The economy is simply weaker with fewer immigrants and with hundreds of thousands of Black and female workers sent home. Ending federally-protected bodily autonomy has resulted in more, not fewer, abortions. Just about everyone hates the Supreme Court, Republicans, ICE, weak moderate Democrats, white Christian nationalism, the corporate media, and Trump. Even immigration is no longer a winning issue for Republicans. And those who demanded pure, unfiltered Trump 2.0 are now wallowing in a dying economy, yet another dumb, seemingly endless war, and and the open theft of their tax money by a predator president who is stealing their money to live his heaven on earth, since even he seem to know that in the end, he is going to Hell.
That leaves the Project 2025 crowd with one last card to play — the same one that’s always conservatives’ go-to — whether they’re calling themselves Democrats, Dixiecrats or Republicans — suppress Black people.
An insurrectionist case for an insurrectionist court
Following the Insurrectionist Calais case, written by the Supreme Court’s meanest insurrectionist, the whispy ghosts of the Old Confederacy have risen from the dead; as Southern Republican governors mimic their Jim Crow forebears by wiping Black representation off the map. So far, several of the states that started the civil war — ironically, excluding the confederate breakaway state, South Carolina, have moved to dismantle Black opportunity districts in an attempt to leave 52 percent of Black Americans relying on Jeff Sessions-meets-Byron Donalds-style congressmen to not sell them back into slavery. (Good luck with that…)
So how should America — and by this I mean all of (decent) America, not just Black America, respond? Well besides calling for young Black athletes and fans to boycott the SEC schools and hopefully send those good ole’ boy neoconfederate colleges into the poor house with their taker states, we should be demanding that the people with whom we spend our money speak up about this latest outrage against democracy.
Or say goodbye to our money.
To that end, The Congressional Black Caucus, which stands to lose up to a third of its membership post-Insurrectionist Calais, issued a letter this week, signed by all 62 current members, calling on U.S. corporations to be vocal, loud and public in support of the voting rights of millions of their customers who, like Obama, happen to be Black, and therefore penalized by the MAGA president. Here’s part of the press release from CBC Chairwoman and New York Congresswoman Yvette Clark:
Five years ago, more than 200 companies and business organizations publicly declared in a letter to Congress that democracy and equal access to the ballot box were fundamental American values. In that letter, businesses across the United States called for strengthening the Voting Rights Act to “prevent voting discrimination” and ensure that “voters of color who remain the targets of voter suppression have equal and unfettered access to the democratic process.”
The Congressional Black Caucus has sent a letter to those companies — and to additional corporate leaders across this country — because silence is not an option at this moment.
In the aftermath of the Callais decision, Republican-led legislatures and governors in states across the South have moved rapidly to redraw congressional maps ahead of the November election in a brazen effort to dilute Black voting strength, weaken Black representation, undermine Black economic power, and reverse decades of hard-fought civil rights progress secured through the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The consequences of this democratic erosion extend far beyond politics. When communities lose meaningful political representation, they also lose equitable access to resources, infrastructure, healthcare, education, environmental protections, economic investment, and public safety. The health and long-term stability of Black communities are directly tied to whether those communities have a meaningful voice in the decisions that shape their daily lives.
Protecting democracy is a shared responsibility. At moments of national consequence, corporations that have benefited from Black consumers, Black talent, and Black communities cannot retreat into silence while Black political power is openly dismantled in plain sight.
In the letter, the CBC urged Corporate America to reaffirm its previously stated commitment to voting rights and equal representation by:
Issuing an individual or joint public statement condemning efforts to dilute Black voting strength and dismantle the protections of the Voting Rights Act;
Reporting on corporate political spending, contributions, and relationships connected to elected officials, organizations, and efforts advancing discriminatory redistricting schemes or attacks on voting rights;
Engaging directly with the Congressional Black Caucus, civil rights organizations, movement leaders, and impacted communities regarding the growing threats to Black political representation and democratic participation; and
Accepting an invitation from the Congressional Black Caucus to participate in a national convening alongside civil rights leaders, advocates, and movement organizations to discuss the urgent defense of voting rights and Black political power in America.
Think of it a four-part toll, to allow your business access to our wallets. Download and read the letter here:
It’s not just the CBC. The call was quickly backed up by the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights (led by the great Maya Wiley) …
“Yesterday marked the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, a painful reminder that the fight for racial justice did not end with statements, donations, or temporary commitments. Across the country, we are witnessing blatant discrimination against Black voters. Black communities and allies who recognize that the project of creating a more perfect union is under direct attack are mobilizing.
And by the African American Mayors Association:
“We are witnessing a targeted, systematic effort to roll back rights and freedoms that our ancestors fought and died to secure,” said AAMA President and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott. “That effort did not begin with this case, and make no mistake, it will not end here. But just as our ancestors did, we have a responsibility to fight back against any attack on our hard-won freedoms. Many times, people wonder what they would have been doing if alive during the civil rights movement. Their action or inaction today is the simple answer.”
AAMA joins a growing chorus of civil rights organizations and the Congressional Black Caucus, which recently issued its own call to corporate America, urging corporate leaders to publicly condemn efforts that weaken Black voting power, disclose political spending and ties to initiatives supporting discriminatory redistricting, and come together for a national convening.
“When the residents we serve lose meaningful representation in Congress and state legislatures, our communities lose far more than a political voice. They lose federal and state partners on affordable housing production, public safety investment, infrastructure modernization, workforce development, maternal health, youth opportunity, and small business growth,” according to the AAMA letter. “The mayors signing this letter understand this connection with particular clarity, because we spend every day translating policy decisions made elsewhere into outcomes on the ground: paving streets, opening clinics, funding violence intervention programs, expanding housing supply, and strengthening the institutions that hold communities together.”
And here is the reality that corporate America needs to reckon with: Black America is angry, and in a mood for vengeance. Unlike the Republican Party, our former allies, who pivoted in twelve years flat from "time for war” to “forgive and forget,” we’re neither forgiving nor forgetting. This is not the time to negotiate.
And The Blacks are not just getting mad and staying mad, The Blacks are taking names.
Here are the 200-plus companies who received the CBC’s demand letter:
The companies have been given a limited time to respond. And respond they should.
A consumer-based economy
When the USA was born, 250 years ago this year, it was a subsistence economy — simply producing whatever it needed to consume. By the 19th century it had morphed into a global, producer-driven economy. There was no “middle class” to speak of. People were either owners or workers (enslaved or free.) The workers acquired their subsistence needs from their bosses, and they had no right or mechanism to complain. The customers were other rich owners, in the U.S. and in Europe; and the owners needed spend no time thinking about the public at large (unless they were rebelling, in which case they’d shoot them.) The robber baron era was the in between time, when the owners were so rich, they could lend the government money; and the workers so poor, they inspired whole literary genres.
The 20th century changed the fundamental nature of the U.S. economy. Mass production created the possibility that the workers could also be the customers — provided that had sufficient wages to buy the things they produced. And that meant that owners both needed to pay attention to workers (especially once there was a thing called unions) and pay them enough to induce them to shop. And while for most of this country’s history, the only shoppers that “mattered” were white shoppers, even during the worst times, somebody was selling and marketing to Black shoppers. And Black shoppers, even during the worst times, tended to set the trends that white shoppers appropriated; from music to style and fashion. You know who benefited most from desegregation? Companies like Woolworth’s, who were finally able to sell their lousy tasting hamburgers to Black people, too. You know who the biggest losers were? Public bus systems.
Fast forward to the present, and even with the ongoing barriers to full participation in the economic life of this self-destructive nation, Black shoppers command nearly 2 trillion dollars in spending power. And when they decide to turn on a brand, things fall apart. Just ask Target.
And perhaps soon, ask the SEC.
The NAACP/DL Hughley-called SED boycott is precisely the kind of proactive fight that a supermajority of Black Americans want to see and participate in.
Ditto, the CBC’s corporate call-out. Black Americans will be taking notes and taking names, so that we can decide who is worth spending our money with, and who to leave by the side of the road with the red circle store. And trust that even if not all of our cousins are in the weeds on the details, those of us who are will be broadcasting to our friends and family who to support and who to shun. So merry Christmas in advance, corporate America.
Signed,
The Toll Collectors.
Thank you for the article, I hurt for African Americans living in Alabama. I feel that SCOTUS has to be corrupt. 250 years ago, my family held slaves in the south. It hurts my soul. Please subscribe to The Joy Reid Show.