An Economy That Loves Black People: Our Legacy as Future Ancestors
Credit: Megan Totah Design
Black History Month can be a complicated and nuanced time. Every February, we are often guided to reflect on the resilience of Black people–on our ancestors’ (and our own) experiences being on the short end of this nation’s obsession with having power, domination, and control over Black bodies. And, while there have been short bursts of temporal progress with Black people at the helm to address systemic inequities, the weapons of injustice are still cocked and loaded.
It is critical to honor and celebrate the power, triumph, innovation, resilience, joy, and fight of the Black experience in this country and to recognize our role as future ancestors in the ongoing work of building a more equitable world where Black people are truly loved.
What could it mean for us as a nation if we were to come to a shared definition of love?
Credit: Megan Totah Design
Bell Hooks often cites Dr. Martin Luther King as one of her teachers and references his book A Strength to Love. She celebrates the idea that the word 'strength' is in the title, which counters the Western notion of love as easy. It actually takes courage, action, and strength to love. One of the key themes in the book is the idea that love is the antidote to domination, whether that domination takes the form of racism, homophobia, class elitism, or other forms of oppression. In her own enduring classic All About Love, Bell Hooks shares:
“Definitions are vital starting points for the imagination. What we cannot imagine cannot come into being. A good definition marks our starting point and lets us know where we want to end up. As we move toward our desired destination, we chart the journey, creating a map.”
At RUNWAY, we’ve been at this for a while–letting our imagination run wild, asking questions to start charting a path forward like “What matters to us as a nation?” And “What would it look like if the financial system loved Black people?”
Credit: Swann Galleries
Leading with curiosity and questioning the possibilities allows us to innovate.
We also draw upon ancestral bodies of work by leaders like Dr. King and his role in the Poor People’s Campaign, a national effort to address poverty and economic injustice in the United States. He recognized that the civil rights movement had made important strides in securing legal rights and protections for Black Americans, but that there was still much work to be done to ensure economic opportunity and security for all people, regardless of race.
Then there was the National Black Economic Development Conference, a historic event that took place in Detroit in 1969. The conference was organized by Black business leaders and activists in response to the economic inequality and lack of economic opportunities faced by Black Americans. It brought together more than 10,000 participants from across the country including Black business owners, investors, educators, and community leaders, with the goal of promoting entrepreneurship and economic self-sufficiency. The conference was a pivotal moment in the history of Black economic empowerment, inspiring a new generation of Black entrepreneurs and leaders who are committed to building wealth and economic opportunity in their communities. And yet, as Dr. King felt then – now, over 60 years later – there is still so much work to be done.
How, then, can we turn these “pivotal moments'' into sustainable movements–to the point where the movement’s mission begins to feel like the default way of life. We are heavily guided by the principles of just transition in thinking about our role as financial culture shapers and shifters. We must exercise the processes and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy. We must redress past harms and create new relationships of power for the future through reparations. We look at Black history through the lens of healing, justice, and liberation to shape the future of the Black experience. As future ancestors who are carrying the torch with this work, we have a responsibility to the next generation to reimagine economic infrastructure, systems, and ways of being that center Black liberation, wellness, and prosperity. We not only build off of the movement work our ancestors have led or the political and economic progress they’ve helped make. We also draw inspiration from their writings, their curiosity, their art. We recognize the brilliance and transformative power that Black creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship can spark in building an economy that truly loves and celebrates Black people.
