The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation is calling for a "Black Xmas" this year, urging supporters not to buy from "white companies" and "buy exclusively from Black-owned businesses" this holiday season.
In an announcement last week, the organization said that "at every turn, white-supremacist-capitalism is telling us to spend our money on things that we don't need, to reap profits for corporations," and notes that "As BLMLA organizer, Jan Williams, reminds us, 'Capitalism doesn't love Black people.'"
The blog post adds that "white-supremacist-capitalism invented policing, initially as chattel-slavery-era 'paddy rollers,' in order to protect its interests and put targets on the backs of Black people. Under modern-day policing, those targets have been affixed to the backs of Black people," including multiple Black customers who were killed by police in stores like Walmart and 24-Hour-Fitness locations.
"Beginning in 2014, in response to John Crawford's murder by police in Beavercreek, Ohio, Black Lives Matter has been challenging people to 'dream of a #BlackXmas,' to intentionally use our economic resources to disrupt white-supremacist-capitalism and build Black community" by investing in organizations that are led by Black members and serve the African-American community, buying from Black-owned businesses "exclusively," and moving money out of "white corporate banks (that finance gentrification, prisons, and environmental degredation) to Black-owned ones."
The blog post concludes that "#BlackXmas challenges us to shake off the chains of consumerism and step fully into our own collective power, to build new traditions, and run an offense as well as a defense. Let's harness our economic power to disrupt white-supremacist-capitalism and build Black community. #BlackXmas is about being self-determined and dismantling existing structures by building new, and more viable, beneficial ones…in the names of our mightiest and most righteous warrior Ancestors, in the names of all those stolen by police violence, in honor of our community, and as a commitment to the generations to come."