Our Black Year: One Family's Quest to Buy Black in America's Racially Divided Economy [Hardcover]

Maggie Anderson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 14, 2012

Maggie and John Anderson were successful African American professionals raising two daughters in a tony suburb of Chicago. But they felt uneasy over their good fortune. Most African Americans live in economically starved neighborhoods. Black wealth is about one tenth of white wealth, and black businesses lag behind businesses of all other racial groups in every measure of success. One problem is that black consumers--unlike consumers of other ethnicities-- choose not to support black-owned businesses. At the same time, most of the businesses in their communities are owned by outsiders.

On January 1, 2009 the Andersons embarked on a year-long public pledge to "buy black." They thought that by taking a stand, the black community would be mobilized to exert its economic might. They thought that by exposing the issues, Americans of all races would see that economically empowering black neighborhoods benefits society as a whole. Instead, blacks refused to support their own, and others condemned their experiment. Drawing on economic research and social history as well as her personal story, Maggie Anderson shows why the black economy continues to suffer and issues a call to action to all of us to do our part to reverse this trend.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Alfred Edmond Jr., Senior Vice President/Multimedia Editor-at-Large, Black Enterprise and host of the syndicated radio feature Money Matters on American Urban Radio Networks
“Both heart-wrenching reality check and urgent call to action, Our Black Year: One Family's Quest to Buy Black in America's Racially Divided Economy is an inspiring and often mind-bending case study of what it takes to make self-help economics a reality of day-to-day living for African Americans. The economic odyssey of the Anderson family is nothing short of heroic. If you care at all about making the American Dream a reality for ALL Americans, you must read this book, and apply the lessons and learnings of The Empowerment Experiment that inspired it, to your own life and spending choices. Besides that, it is simply a fantastic read!" 

Cathy Hughes, Founder/Chairperson, Radio/TV One, Inc.
"Thank God for this level of commitment to our Black Community. I observed that year with great interest and pride and am so grateful to the Anderson's for this incredible documentation of what we all could do, if we just made up our minds to do it. Big, big, big Kudos have been earned by Maggie and her family!"

Marc Morial, President and CEO, National Urban League
“Any serious attempt to close the racial wealth gap and build Black American wealth, must better leverage the trillion dollars of buying power controlled by the Black American consumer. In Our Black Year, Maggie Anderson offers a clear, cogent and intensely personal view of one family’s journey to do just this. An important book that provides a path for others to follow.”

Publishers Weekly, November 14, 2011
“Dynamite subject…an effective probe into how African-Americans spend so much money that flows so overwhelmingly out of their community”

Library Journal
“Anderson’s book successfully illuminates the roadblocks faced by black business owners and the racial divide that continues to persist in the U.S. economy.”

BookPage

“Our Black Year is a blistering, honest journal of the Andersons’ efforts to buy black, and those efforts can only be described as Herculean… A brisk call to action, offering clear-eyed perspective on how African Americans got to where they are today and what they can do to support black business owners. In Maggie Anderson’s eyes, it’s a moral imperative.”

 

Huntington News
"Our Black Year is an eye-opening book that should be read by anyone interested in the nation's racial and economic divide.”

Dave Ross, daily commentator for the CBS Radio Network and former Democratic nominee for Congress
"Berezow and Campbell provide a convenient retelling of progressive excesses, reminding us that the real enemy of progress is the refusal even to entertain a sincerely-held opposing view. But with fundraising the lifeblood of all political groups, each side must manufacture an enemy, and lock themselves in a lucrative (but dysfunctional) embrace. The book concludes with practical compromises, and an appeal for all sides to embrace the scientific method, even when it challenges their orthodoxy."

About the Author

As CEO and cofounder of The Empowerment Experiment Foundation, Maggie Anderson has become the leader of a self-help economics movement that supports quality black businesses and urges consumers, especially other middle and upper class African Americans, to proactively and publicly support them. She has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and CBS Morning News, among many other national television and radio shows. She received her BA from Emory University and her JD and MBA from the University of Chicago. She lives in Oak Park, Illinois, with her husband, John, and their two daughters. Ted Gregory is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Chicago Tribune.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: PublicAffairs (February 14, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1610390245
• ISBN-13: 978-1610390248
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.1 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #402,790 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Mixed views of the book March 4, 2012

By Shamontiel L. Vaughn

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

While reading this book, I kept trying to remember WHY I knew about this project before the book released. I don't know where I heard it, but it wasn't in "The Chicago Tribune." I do know that I heard about Farmers Best during my time of employment with "Chicago Defender" because the president there encouraged us to shop in the store, especially when the "Defender" moved back to Bronzeville. (Unfortunately I was one of those people who never stepped foot inside mainly because I was going to Quench! so much for lunch during work and live on the north side, so driving there was enough of a hassle for work but even more when I just wanted to grocery shop. In retrospect, I wish I'd have just done my grocery shopping AFTER work. Makes sense now but it's spilled milk.) I thought the idea for it was admirable so I was pleased to find out a few weeks back (courtesy of "The Chicago Tribune" this time around) that a book was released about the experiment.

Before I go into my cons, I want to emphasize that I read this book from the library and after 100 pages or so, I decided I wanted to keep this in my permanent library so I bought a copy. But I definitely do have some cons that made me have second thoughts about buying the book.

1) There was this condescending tone when talking about the West Side. I was born and raised on the south side and currently live on the north side. I've been to the West Side twice. Once on a motorcycle ride and another time when I was a teen for an Aaliyah concert. So, I can only take her word for how the businesses look. I will admit that the areas I was in looked pretty rundown. But there are rundown areas in plenty of cities.... However, the way she criticized these places made it seem like it was the lowest of the low and I could feel her turning up her nose to them. She was mad that the owner of one store was borderline rude to her over the phone and then pouting because the owner was much more pleasant and proper with her in person, not treating her like "one of her own." (I have the feeling if the owner would've talked to her with a "homegirl" vibe, she'd have had a problem with that and thought the lady was being unprofessional.) It seemed like some folks couldn't win with the author. She talked about how people in the areas need to be hired and to be able to have a better life but criticized the folks hanging around the stores and looking at her inside. Could it be that they gave off a negative vibe because she gave them the SAME vibe? Thugs smile, too. Just saying. And referring to them as "punks" makes me think they got a cold vibe so they threw it right back to her. At one point she compared a playground out West to playgrounds in Oak Park. You don't have to be Easy Rawlins to know that the two just don't look the same.

2) She complained about a meat store not being open although the owners said it would be. She had no idea why they weren't there but she and Karriem (the owner of Farmers' Best) complained about the store's lack of professionalism for closing early. I can understand their frustration. But I found it ironic that at the end of the book when the author's mother passed, she admitted she ignored e-mails and calls for the Ebony Experiment because she was dealing with family issues. It didn't seem to occur to her that maybe the owners of the store she wanted to go to could ALSO have issues going on. I have no idea if that was the case, but she seemed unforgiving when a store didn't do exactly what she wanted them to do and never returned to it.

3) Even when she found stores she liked, then we heard complaints about the clothes not looking as mature as she wanted them to look or the meat not tasting how she wanted it to taste. So even when she found a place, if it wasn't to her liking she stopped going. But then she would go into hysterical laughter on radio shows (she mentioned this) about other consumers who stopped frequenting black-owned stores or working with black-owned companies for similar reasons. A little hypocritical, no?

4) The "I'm right, you're wrong" aspect was blowing me. At one point in the book, she laid into a woman about how it was her fault that black-owned companies/stores were going out of business because black people don't come there more often. I think Karriem finally got her to face the reality that not everybody is going to think like she does and that the experiment was NOT supposed to be easy. What I kept waiting to be explored in the book was the idea that some companies employ a diverse staff. So while black people may not be owning more companies, there are black folks who are putting themselves through college, grad school, renting apartments, owning homes, going on vacations and passing on savings to their children from non-black owned companies. (I'm saying this from the perspective of a middle-class woman in a middle-class family who just watched my 100-year-old great great aunt celebrate her birthday and my 88-year-old grandfather come out to celebrate it with her. Not ALL black families are hurting, including her OWN family.) The idea of supporting a black business in the same manner that others support businesses by people of the same culture (I think the Asian community and Mexican community are doing this most successfully nowadays) is important. But the idea that black people can't take care of their offspring because we don't own the businesses isn't always true. I'm living proof of that. Would we be better off if we owned our own businesses? Some may, some may not. But that's a grand assumption that the family business would be passed on. What if the offspring of the owner decided to go in a different direction?

5) There is an assumption in the book that no one wants their neighborhood to look the way it does. I'd encourage the author to check out "There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in The Other America" and read about how some tenants (and trespassers) would purposely make a neighborhood look rundown (ex. busting light bulbs, urinating in stairwells) to avoid bringing attention to it. It's a noble thought that everybody in poor neighborhoods that have suddenly been fixed up wants to work there, but another side of me (and I'm saying this from first-hand experience with folks who you couldn't HAND a job, too, on a platinum platter) wanted her to explore the other side of gentrification. She sympathized with an incredibly rude guy who was complaining inside of a story about Arabs taking over but never explored the other side, the crew that DOES hang outside and why THEY may hurt black businesses from standing around, all the while supporting other minority-owned businesses. She made sure to dodge the rough guys she criticized and made jokes about with her husband but didn't seem to have any interest in talking directly to these guys.

And now for the pros:

1) I must commend them for going so hard on accomplishing this. I'd have given in with the daughter going to the formal gathering in a sundress but they stuck it out. I totally sympathized with her when she couldn't find simple things like girls' clothes for awhile or basic home appliances and cosmetics. (Strange that she had such a hard time finding cosmetics. Every time I go to an outdoor festival, there are tents lined up with every single skin, hair or hygiene product that's black-owned. Then again, many of these businesses are still fighting against basic web sites and rely on e-mail so I understand why it's difficult to find them.) They dedicated 100% of their time to this experiment and I applaud them.

2) I was fascinated with finding out just how much they spent and saved frequenting black-owned businesses. Considering the flack they caught for doing it (I don't see a thing racist about it), to be confident enough in your experiment that you would walk out of a store because it's not black-owned and ignore the snide comments of saying "it's a silly question" to someone who wanted to know the staff basics can break a person. It did NOT break her. And when I looked at the financial side of how the experiment went, it seemed like they saved a lot of money on junk by getting what they really needed instead of what they wanted.

3) I thought it was cool that they bonded as a family, including two small girls who may have not fully understood the weight and bravery of an experiment like this. Marriages are fragile these days so I was grinning every time I saw the couple unite on tough decisions, especially at social gatherings.

4) I'd never thought about buying gift cards from black-owned establishments and just using them elsewhere. I wondered how that worked for the store though. Does the store get credit, too? They technically "sold" the items to them, but the gift cards were a safe way around the economic spending habits.

5) It's a great reference tool for watching what black businesses need. The chapter about why more black businesses are mobile instead of buying real estate to keep a store in one place was intriguing. Ironically it used to be much easier for me to shop at black-owned stores when I was a kid. There were a bunch of black-owned bookstores (what I miss the most!) when I was a kid that I was ALWAYS inside of. The presence of technology and not just lack of consumers also hurt bookstores (I know of one of my favorite bookstores that is online only and sells stuff on sites like Amazon, so it's a little more difficult to support black businesses if the seller name doesn't make that immediately obvious).

6) Karriem's opinion about the downside of emphasizing that a business is black owned is important. I've always been one to dig up black businesses when I can but never gone 100% with it. I am far less likely to support a business if I don't see a diverse staff though. I definitely observe the staff. Always have. But I saw where he was going with the emphasis may be a crutch, something I observed from working with black-owned publications after college and in previous jobs.

Overall, I thought it was a great book. I could've gone without the complaining, accusations and the haughtiness but I'd still highly recommend the book for information purposes. The research in itself is five stars. The only thing that made me bump it a couple stars was the attitude of the author. Read more ›

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Not in love with the title February 26, 2012

By Read-A-Lot

Format:Kindle Edition

Our Black Year; that title makes it sound like some kind of curiosity experiment. The first thought that comes to mind for me is how can Black people have a black year? Isn't your whole life black, all of your years filled with the wonderful sights, tastes and sounds of black culture. Ok, just had to get that out there. Now, having said that, it is a great thing that Ms. Anderson has undertaken. Basically, Ms. Anderson with support of her husband made a conscious effort to spend as much of their disposable income as possible with Black businesses. They made it a point to go out of their way to patronize their own in hopes that support will help turn around struggling businesses and impact the communities they serve. This book is in essence a journal/report of their efforts.

The book makes for good reading and she skillfully weaves history and personal family issues into the narrative. That keeps the book moving and adds depth and perspective for the reader. Readers will get a sense of some of the hurdles black businesses face and the structural barriers, however I don't think the book has the power to transform behavior, because it never shakes the feeling of being an experiment. She is often condescending in her writing when describing certain neighborhoods and the people she encounters in those 'hoods. This was very disappointing for me, and speaks to the Anderson's obvious haughtiness, and distracts from the good prose. I wish the editor would have advised her to remove some of those painful-to-read passages, perhaps they're included to make it resonate and relevant with like minded class conscious people....

The effort to support Black business is clearly noble and necessary, and it should be second nature for all African-Americans, but what we are suffering from is a crisis of consciousness. We really don't see each other as extended family and all our actions stem from this disconnect, so support of black business becomes an experiment, a project, rather than expected and everyday empowerment behavior. For those of us who grew up with a sense of this responsibility, this book will just reinforce and buttress our current behaviors. And for others, for whom this is all new they might get a lot from this text. Maggie Anderson has laid the blueprint for the bourgeois set to help spread around some of their disposable income, but without a shift in consciousness, for many it will remain an experiment and something to talk about at the latest cocktail party.

I wish I could go 4 stars, but the demeaning passages are too much to bear. The writing and the purpose will keep it from going lower than a 3. Read more ›

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring and yet tragic February 21, 2012

By Bookbin

Format:Hardcover

This book really opened my eyes to self-empowerment economics and the challenges that are not only inherent within the black community but in any community with a cause as well. While so many are willing to buy green or to vote with their dollars, it's striking how difficult it is to build support within other segments of the population. This isn't just an example for the Af-Am struggle but a story that can be used in other contexts as well.

The Andersons' story is inspiring - two upper middle class professionals looking to make a difference - and yet it highlights how much farther we have to go in America to combat the inequalities related to race. Lay readers will enjoy the personal struggle of Maggie, and sociology and economics enthusiasts will find plenty to discuss here as well.

Gregory does a bang up job making the book an engaging read.

Highly recommended.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars an eye-opener February 24, 2012

By BookLuver

Format:Hardcover

An incredibly important read, everyone who cracks open this book will learn something new.As someone who is highly involved in the local food movement, I was shocked how little I knew. Before reading this book I had never considered that though I may be supporting local businesses on a daily basis, I have never noticed specifically who I was buying from.

The prose is engaging, and flows with ease--I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. But perhaps most importantly, OUR BLACK YEAR is accessible to young adult readers, I would love to see this book land on a highschool or college reading list.

A must-read for anyone alarmed by the racial wealth gap.