The Black community is resilient as hell. For generations, Black people in this country have resisted and risen up against unjust systems engineered to keep them down. Our ancestors marched, fought, and, when they could, voted to bring about an end to their oppression.
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But as we all know, the oppression has not ended — it has simply evolved. Today, we each find ourselves arm-wrestling against the world to hold onto whatever power – and peace – we have labored to achieve. Even before President Donald Trump won a second term, we fought against a widening racial wealth gap, deepening racial disparities in health and educational outcomes, and expanding efforts to suppress our votes and our voices.
Still…it feels like none of that could have prepared us for the last nine months.
Since returning to power, the Trump administration has unleashed a frontal assault against the Black community. The newly released Blackout Report from Black-owned nonprofit research firm Onyx Impact paints a clear picture of what’s happening. Onyx estimates that the administration and its friends have inflicted at least 15,723 distinct attacks on Black progress since January.
What counts as an attack? As the report details, the Trump administration has canceled grant programs to ensure predominantly Black communities have clean air and water. It has eliminated funding to help little Black kids grow up without asthma. It has even canceled federal funding for sickle-cell disease research.
Do you or a family member own a business…? Bad news: The Trump administration has gutted the agency in charge of supporting minority businesses. Whether our health or our wealth, they are targeting whatever they can to bring our community to its knees.
If we were to stick to historical precedent, our solution would be to protest these actions and elect Democrats to get us out of this mess. I’ll still knock on doors for progressive candidates when the time comes, but I wonder if we should reconsider our strategy. We should continue seeking investment from the government considering the racial wealth gap exists because of racist laws leading to government-sanctioned wealth transfers out of Black America.
But what if, when the Trump administration announces its next funding cut targeting our community, we could dip into an internal network of Black capital to ensure continuity? What if our universities didn’t need to rely more than predominantly white institutions on the government to keep the lights on? What if we owned our own libraries, where future generations could read the works of Black authors until the end of time, and our own research laboratories, where scientists could search for a cure to sickle cell regardless of federal funding?
I think all of this is possible. To achieve it will require unprecedented levels of capital creation, collaboration, and coordination within our community. In other words, we need to build and leverage our wealth together. It’s an aspirational goal, but we can work towards it starting today. If you own a business, you can support and collaborate with other Black-owned businesses. If you don’t own a business, you can build one – or support or invest in one.
Whether for your own personal banking or for your company’s, answer Dr. Martin Luther King’s call by opening an account with a Black-owned bank. These are the kinds of moves that will help us build economic power. Once we execute on this economic agenda, our political agenda becomes clear: use our capital as leverage to ensure candidates keep their promises.
Of course, this is exactly what the Trump administration is fighting to prevent. They are stripping our schools and businesses of resources to make it harder for us to build power. But the same resilience that helped us overcome the oppression of the past will help us overcome the oppression of the present. We just need to update our playbook.
We can adapt the tools that have helped us with political organizing and use them for economic organizing. Just ask any one of the Black entrepreneurs – like Ryan Wilson in my hometown of Atlanta – already doing it.
Conservatives tell Black people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Perhaps more would if they had boots. It’s like Dr. King said: “It’s alright to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.” Sadly, nobody is coming to return the boots stolen from our community. I’m just wondering if it’s time that we build our own.
Gevin Reynolds served as a speechwriter to Vice President Kamala Harris.
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