Shut them Down. Activists Call for a "Black Friday" Boycott in Ferguson to Neutralize White Supremacy/Racism
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"No Justice, No Profit": Stop Supporting White Supremacy. It is simple cause and effect. White supremacy/racism causes problems such as police brutality, unequal administration of justice, poverty, over incarceration, drug addiction, unemployment, crime, chronic welfare dependency, disease, homelessness, servant education and more. How can we neutralize this vast unequal power?
From [HERE] A coalition of organizers involved in the Ferguson protests are calling for a boycott on shopping on Black Friday. The "No Justice, No Profit" boycott, which is being organized by the Justice for Michael Brown Leadership Coalition and religious leaders, calls for people to show support for Michael Brown by not shopping over the Thanksgiving weekend at white owned businesses. The coalition is encouraging Black Friday shopping at black-owned local businesses.
The boycott will start Thanksgiving Day and last through Sunday, Nov. 30, organizers said, and will take place whether or not a grand jury votes to indict Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who shot Brown on Aug. 9.
Dacia Polk, of the New Black Panther Party, said the coalition wants the whole region to participate in the boycott. “We are asking you to withdraw your participation the entire weekend,” she said. “There will not be business as usual in America while our people are being killed.” [MORE]
An effective boycott or work stoppage might specifically target the Walmart in Ferguson and Emerson Electric, a $24 billion Fortune 500 company based in Ferguson with 132,000 employees spread across the globe. In fact, it is located less than a mile from the QuikTrip gas station that was looted and burned in the first days of strife. [MORE]. In addition to Emerson, there are nine Fortune 500 companies in the greater St. Louis area, including Express Scripts. Thousands of people work just outside Ferguson at Express Scripts, the pharmacy benefits manager with $100 billion in annual revenues that is based in the St. Louis area. [MORE]
Amos Wilson offers the following about "the Power of Refusal" in his book "Black Power."
"Social Power is more effect than cause. It is generated by social relationships — the habitual ways in which human beings relate to and align themselves with one another. Power is based on the manner in which persons and groups interact with one another.
The powerful rule with the consent of the subordinate, consent created by ideological sleight-of-hand. Ultimately, the legitimacy and exercise of power by the powerful require the cooperation and active support of the subordinate, both behavioral orientations also skillfully manipulated by the powerful to begin with. If certain types of social relationships among the subordinate themselves and between the subordinate and the powerful are required to generate the power exercised by the powerful, then the self-determined changes of relationships among the subordinate and between the subordinate and powerful will lead to commensurate changes in the quantity and quality of power exercised by the powerful. If the cooperation and consent of the subordinate with and to the demands of the powerful are required to generate the power expropriated and exercised by the powerful, then a refusal of cooperation and consent on the part of the subordinate will lead to the disempowerment of the powerful. Successful non-cooperation, open disobedience, militant opposition, passive resistance, the withdrawal or refusal of consent and cooperation on the part of the subordinate not only lead to a reduction, neutralization or destruction of the power exercised by the powerful but more importantly, generate increased power which can be exercised by the subordinate themselves to achieve their own self-defined goals.
For, example, an economic boycott organized by the subordinate, that is, where members of the subordinate participate in refusing to have certain commercial dealings with the powerful, substantially demonstrates how the subordinate may empower themselves and simultaneously disempower the powerful and change the relations and structure of social power." [MORE]
