Black Dollar and Black Equity

What is a dollar or currency? Simply put, it is a culturally agreed-upon set value of money. I want to focus on "culturally agreed upon" because it validates value based on perception and subjectivity. As the black culture, we must collectively agree upon the Black Dollar's importance and value and then set protocols and systems to protect it. When we set a higher value to our own money, we will be reluctant to trade or purchase goods or services that don't build upon our families and culture.

A great example is the United States Dollar and the organizational incentives and mindset behind keeping jobs in America, buying American products, and pretexting American institutions. America's institutions and people are the driving force behind the value of a dollar and its potential. There are not gold or hard assets that back up the value of the dollar. With that being said, the money supply circulating within a given community becomes more valuable the longer it stays within said community. Conversely, a currency's value can lose value if it leaves the community with no plan or incentive to build value or trade for equal service. How can we build equity if we consistently purchase products or services of less importance to our culture than the Black Dollar we traded for them?

Equity is the ownership of an asset of value. We have already established that value is subjective, so what does that Black culture value? Black Equity is ownership in assets of value, determined explicitly by the Black community. Once we establish higher importance to the Black Dollar and increase the money supply within our community, we must use the dollar as a tool to create and build upon predetermined assets that are valuable to our families and culture.

What is important to you? What is valuable to you? Usually, the answer is very different from what is perceived by our actions. If money is important to us, then it should only be traded for things of equal or higher value. However, instead of establishing what is valuable to our culture, we are subconsciously letting corporations and organizations that do not have our best interest at heart determine our values through advertisements, social media, and governmental policy. If we spend with intention, we can create value and increase interest in ourselves, strengthening Black equity and American socioeconomic structure.

There is a passage from The Souls of Black Folks written by W. E. B. Dubois that I repeatedly refer to when I think about the duality of being Black in America. I have shared the passage below:

"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging, he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He does not wish to Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He wouldn't bleach his Negro blood in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face."