Do You Care Who Bakes Your Bread?

In a recent FB re-post, I congratulated an African American sister on her commercial milestone with her Winery.

I added, "I hope she completes the loop and deposits some of that net revenue at a "Black" bank...", to which a non-Black person replied to my post, "...Pathetic! Do you care who bakes your bread?"

Relevant to today's (12/29) Kwanzaa principle of Ujamaa, Cooperative Economics, this is exactly why it is imperative that African Americans intentionally bank at least 5% or more of  our $1.8 Trillion+ collective income with our culture FIRST, before it matriculates back into the current "dominion" economy.

This person's viscerally resentful response to my comment reveals the persistent paternalistic pathology that remains embedded in the psyche of many (not all) self-identified Euro-American people, in the present age. 

"You don't ask who bakes the bread to feed your poor souls, so why should you care about depositing your money in historically "white" owned banks!" 

It has never occurred to him, nor has he ever questioned that he deposits his money 365 days a year,  to banks owned by people who look like him, who then churn his dollars with others who look like him, to build bakeries, office buildings, and generational wealth! 

Nor has it occurred to him that...

• Jewish people bank Jewish
• Chinese people bank Chinese
• Cherokees bank Cherokee 
• Arabs bank Arab
• ...and so on.

And yet, this person, of European ethnicity, is obviously appalled at the idea of African Americans doing the same with our money.

Bless his heart.

It's day 4 of Kwanzaa. Ujamaa, which translates to "Cooperative Economics." We are to build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.  Banking facilitates and makes possible these activities. 

An inconvenient truth....It is predicted that, by 2053,  African Americans will experience zero median family wealth.  One of the many reasons for this trajectory is that we have deposited our income, within hours, to banking institutions since 1877,  that re-invest very little back into the possession of African American commerce for growth and development. In effect our dollars have hemorrhaged away from our control since Emancipation, with a brief respite of economic progress during the Reconstruction years 1863-1877.

The most peacefully aggressive economic gesture we can make in 2025 is to BANK OUR CULTURE, in order to avert Prediction 2053.  Imagine! If as little as 10% of 32 million African American adults began an exodus of just 5% or more of their deposits to our banks it would potentially ignite a critical mass of self-sustaining economic potential.  

It is one's culturally owned banking institutions that are uniquely responsive to a culture's history and financial challenges.  It is their core mission to provide the loans and other financial products, by which we grow and accumulate individual and generational wealth.  

Our oldest institutions, such as Mechanics & Farmers Bank,  have survived The Great Depression, The Recession, COVID and are still standing. They have proven  their prudent financial stewardship and deserve our trust, and deposits.  Like any other bank, hold our banks accountable for good customer service.  

I have been banking at Mechanics & Farmers, NC for a decade... and will do so for the duration. 

Our deposits facilitate growth of the collective. 

We will then be able to prepare, plan and build our spaces and places where our families are nourished, where our children can flourish, and where we choose to bake, sell, and buy our own brand of dough!  - Pam Kelly, Founder, WePrepare.Us 

Once we know, we can't unknow.

(edited 12/29/2024 4:30 pm) 

Resource Links:
A Map of All U.S. Black-Owned Banks

1.8 Trillion Spending power in 2023 - Harnessing the Economic Power of the Black Community - Word In Black

Report: The Road to Zero Wealth - Inequality.org