Black Business’ Role in Breaking the Cycle of Racist Brutality, Outrage and Inadequate Reform

by Thinq Tanq

July 16, 2020 / 6320 AFK

This spring and summer have seen the crises of racism and capitalism reach a not-so-new plateau. Black casualties of police brutality and racist health disparity have manifested in another round of protests against systemic injustice. Understandably, the diversity and inclusion sector of corporate America and some people in political advocacy are repeating - but more loudly now - the typical proposals to challenge racism, but not capitalism. They ask for greater diversity and inclusion in corporate America. They want a greater effort among consumers and corporations to buy black. They want to reform police departments’ budgets and use-of-force policies. However, there is too little public discourse about the underlying economic system of capitalism that has always required police violence against black, working class people.

As a result, the cycle of racist brutality, outrage, inadequate reform, repeat seems to be endless. This cycle is perpetuated, in part, by the fantasy that apolitical, black capitalism can spontaneously reverse the downward trend of black household wealth and economically empower us to destroy the systems of injustice that have plagued Africans in America for centuries. The problem with this fantasy is that, we’ve been trying black capitalism since at least 1865 and the results are in. Despite producing the occasional CJ Walker, Oprah or Jay-Z, black America is still on track to zero net wealth by 2053. The unsubstantiated dream of liberation through black capitalism is thoroughly disproven and we must wake up from it.

Black entrepreneurs who want to see an end to systemic racism and widespread, black poverty must take some time to learn what capitalism is, how capitalism originated and about capitalism's relationship to African people throughout history. Black entrepreneurs have to consider the collective, economic stagnation and regression of black America since the 1960s. Then, we need to make a politically educated decision about whether or not the business practices of capitalism, George Washington, Jefferson Davis, Wall Street, Henry Ford, the Walton family and Amazon have anything to do with black liberation from systems of oppression.

And why should our entrepreneurs replicate American capitalism anyway? Haven't large numbers of white Americans always been economically marginalized? Isn't the proportion of white people who struggle to meet their basic needs growing? Capitalism requires workers to risk their lives during a pandemic because it doesn’t know how to put lives before profit. Even during a pandemic, capitalism would rather turn a profit instead of recognize the fact that every human body is worthy of medical attention. Forcing people to choose between getting medicine or seeing the doctor and paying rent, paying a mortgage or buying groceries is part of the everyday violence of healthcare capitalism. Capitalism’s need for infinite growth and natural resource extraction cannot coexist with nature. Economic survival, health and global ecology are all necessary casualties of capitalism. Very little of this is worthy of our emulation.

Nor is there a foreseeable end to police brutality under capitalism. Capitalism requires policing, as will be discussed. Policing requires the systematic application of violence. The systematic application of violence will be flawed and will necessarily result in some degree of systematic "error" and injustice. The crux of the issue is, who has the greatest legitimacy to deploy violence justly or unjustly? If anyone, it is they who should exercise power over policing. Fred Hampton once said, "We say All Power to the People—Black Power to Black People and Brown Power to Brown People, Red Power to Red People and Yellow Power to Yellow People. We say White Power to White People EVEN." One might add that power over poor people's lives belongs to poor people. Hampton's words are meaningful because poor power, black power and people power does not actually belong to poor people, black people or all the people, despite the electoral veneer of democracy. For this reason, policing power is arguably illegitimate. Police brutality should be expected under such conditions and it should be protested, but it should not be confused with the underlying problem. Breaking the cycle of racist brutality, outrage, inadequate reform, repeat requires moving political power itself onto a more legitimate foundation.

Police officers don't necessarily "stop" crime. They mostly respond to and react to crime after the fact. Arguably, the police and the criminal justice system provide some level of deterrent against anti-social behavior. Try as they might, police are not incredibly great at stopping theft, relationship violence, child abuse, harm to consumers' health and "crime". Why would any one institution be able to police or prevent such pervasive, terrible behavior anyway?

No economic system or idea is perfect, but even on paper, capitalism requires class division between owners and expendable labor. Modern policing in the United States was established to protect the interests of the property-owning class, not the interest of enslaved workers and working class people. But US law enforcement agencies have one area in which they really excel. Whenever ordinary people manage to organize ourselves and demand justice for black people, justice for native people, dignity for poor people, an end to war or an end to pollution, there the police will be, waiting (or not waiting) to suppress and invariably shut down such movements so that business as usual can resume before any meaningful changes are made. Police and the FBI are very, very good at this because this is the original and primary purpose of policing under capitalism. They are the thin blue line protecting the "law and order" of proto-fascist oligarchy from the presumed chaos of working class democracy. The class consciousness of said oligarchic institutions, trade associations, political action committees, fraternal orders and companies is strong. They understand that divorcing the majority of people from both power over their lives and from the ability to consistently meet their essential human needs is tinder for revolution. This is why capitalism requires policing.

Black entrepreneurs can avoid this delusion by learning about the origins of American policing, about the relationship between the worker class and the police. The moral truth that “black lives matter” will continue to fall on deaf ears as long as capitalism’s police departments, prisons and military are structurally compelled to protect the property of the society's wealthiest institutions before they protect Breonna Taylor’s, or any ordinary person's, human rights. Without organizing our entrepreneurship in a fundamentally different way we simply replicate capitalism. Then, as black capitalism develops to a higher stage, it will also become structurally dependent upon policing. A similar cycle repeats, but in shades of black and brown - internalized racist brutality, classist brutality, outrage, inadequate (black-led) reform, repeat.

Of course, not all of us with brown skin hold the same allegiances. Just as capitalism requires class division, black capitalism requires class division between black people, which is the antithesis of black liberation and anyone’s liberation. Not all black entrepreneurs care about something as wishy washy as black liberation and human liberation from systems of oppression. But at least black entrepreneurs who have a critical understanding of African history, capitalism, class and policing are able to make politically educated decisions about where power lies and how we aspire to develop our businesses.

There is an overwhelming asymmetry of business education information that over-represents the ideological superiority of capitalism. So, it is important to know that commerce does exist outside of the narrow, uninspiring confines of capitalism. Capitalism doesn’t deserve exclusive credit for markets, exchange, lending, work, progress, wealth, development or health. The standard advice from MBA programs, entrepreneurship schools, business coaches, the Small Business Administration, SCORE, banks and captains of industry is not all-encompassing. In fact, much of that training has its roots in an economic practice that would not have survived this long without being "subsidized" by the stolen wealth of genocides and slavery. Caitlin Rosenthal's book, Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management explains some connections between mass violence and the origins of scientific management that dominate business schools and corporate America today. The idea that all "serious" or "real" black entrepreneurs must uphold this particular scientific tradition of commerce is false and racist.

Black history is full of examples of our ancestors establishing all manner of economic arrangements, not least of which are cooperative economic arrangements. Economist and author, Dr. Jessica Gordon-Nembhard has demonstrated that black entrepreneurs in America have successfully engaged in people-centered, collective commerce for centuries. That tradition continues today. This must continue and accelerate with the deliberate intention of democratizing political power, economic power and "policing" power so deeply than corporate oligarchy cannot survive as a system.

In conclusion, doubling down on politically neutral, black entrepreneurship, "buying black" or black capitalism has never brought us enough economic or political power to protect black lives, health or wealth. Nearly sixty years after the Civil Rights Acts, our declining, collective wealth makes it clear that there is no black power in capitalism or in black capitalism. A small group of powerful capitalists has a profit motive behind mass incarceration, policing (and the brutality that comes with it) and perpetual war. A small group of powerful capitalists has a profit motive for keeping black workers' wages and all workers' wages as low as possible, even when that means widespread poverty. A small group of powerful capitalists has a profit motive to continue industrial pollution which is an existential threat to the planet’s natural balance. Adding a few, black faces to the small, powerful group in the name of "diversity and inclusion" doesn't remove the structural need for racist, classist policing or racist, classist, public policy. At its best, black capitalism elevates a small group of exceptionally privileged or exceptionally talented individuals who's economic and political interests are not aligned with the interests of most black people or people of any color. The time for anything but root-level, structural change in how we organize our entrepreneurship is over. We have viable alternatives.

With political education that is centered on African self-determination, cooperative education, skilled financial management services and patient financing, black entrepreneurs can develop cooperative enterprises. This would be a concrete step toward realizing a potentially revolutionary economic paradigm that deepens democracy, devolves power and, at least, ceases to replicate capitalism's zombie-like cycle of racist brutality, outrage, inadequate reform and repeat.