I am watching the CBS Morning Show and they are running a story on a Chicago based effort called the "Empower Experiment".

The project involves encouraging black people ONLY buying products and services from black-owned companies.  One of the ladies on the segment said she drives 16 miles to buy bananas because that is the closest black-owned grocer.

The President of the Empower Experiment sloughs off accusations of racism by caling it an "experiment" and an "academic exercise".

Interestingly, african-american commentator Larry Elder suggested that businesses do better when they sell quality products at the right price

Interesting to see that as the President of the United States is working to tear down the wall, there are plenty of people standing around who are picking up the bricks and rebuilding it.  Segregation dies hard.

It's the dumbest social experiment I've ever heard of.  What is the point of it?

I can understand if she's having to drive 16 miles to buy bananas, PERIOD.  Most of the local grocers around here are damned expensive.  We have a grocery store around the corner, but we drive 10 miles out to Costco and Food 4 Less to shop.  It's cheaper all around to do that, and I don't feel like paying $2.99 for a gallon of milk when it can be had for $1.65 at Costco.  But driving 16 miles to buy bananas from a Black grocer is just effin' ridiculous, especially if you're already on a fixed income or you're barely living paycheck to paycheck.

If you're going to drive 16 miles to buy bananas from a Black grocer, do make sure you fill up at a Black-owned gas station.  However, in the end they're the same damn bananas from Chiquita and it's the same crummy gallon of gas from Exxon-Mobil.  Oh well.
:D

More to the point, I don't really have a problem with this "experiment" beyond its futility.

It isn't racism in the historical sense of institutional racism.  It is exercising consumer choice.  

Institutional racism is:

1. The government forbidding people to own/operate businesses on the basis of race or ethnicity.
2.  Banks and real estate brokers colluding to exclude people loans to purchase property to operate businesses based on the same.
3.  Intimidation/violence against business proprietors and/or their customers or vandalism/destruction of property based on the same.
4.  Federal, state, or local laws dictating whether people are allowed to own, operate, or patronize a business based on the same.

However, merely advocating consumers patronize businesses on the basis of the race or ethnicity of the owners goes to free speech and freedom of choice.  Even if roles were reversed and it was a White power outfit calling on Whites to only do business with Whites, most people would quite rightly find it hateful and obnoxious, but it would still fall out of bounds of institutional racism and be protected by the Bill of Rights.  

It's the dumbest social experiment I've ever heard of.  What is the point of it?

I can understand if she's having to drive 16 miles to buy bananas, PERIOD.  Most of the local grocers around here are damned expensive.  We have a grocery store around the corner, but we drive 10 miles out to Costco and Food 4 Less to shop.  It's cheaper all around to do that, and I don't feel like paying $2.99 for a gallon of milk when it can be had for $1.65 at Costco.  But driving 16 miles to buy bananas from a Black grocer is just effin' ridiculous, especially if you're already on a fixed income or you're barely living paycheck to paycheck.



Jess, you really need to go shopping at the Moo 'n' Oink over on Stony Island Avenue.  They have great prices there and an interesting variety.  Not too far from Hyde Park...  And if you like ribs that's the place to get them and the fixin's.

http://home.moo-oink.com/home.html