Our Black Year

by Maggie Anderson

  As we considered the people on our list, deciding what to buy for the men was easy: Sean John. We could have held a Sean John fashion show with what we bought that year, and finding it was relatively easy because a store in a mall near us had a wide selection of his apparel. For teenage girls on our list, we sought out clothes from Kimora Lee Simmons, the model and TV star who also had a chic clothing line, Baby Phat. For other kids in our extended family we gave gift certificates purchased at a Black-owned McDonald’s.

  For Cara and Cori, shopping was a little tricky. We could find no Black-owned toy manufacturers, and our only African American–owned retailer, God First God Last God Always, had a selection limited to stocking stuffers like water guns and packs of cards. I did find Black dolls, but I was hoping for something like a Black Barbie knockoff. These plastic ladies looked like streetwalkers. We found a Black Monopoly game, but the girls were too young for that. So no toys. We bought books at Afriware, where we also found cool ethnic jewelry made for little girls. We loaded up on clothes at Jordan’s Closets because, as a resale boutique, the prices were unbelievably low. We didn’t put any restrictions on what other people could buy for our kids.

  Even with its limitations, Christmas shopping the EE way was manageable. Mima’s downward spiral, of course, was much more challenging.

  We opened presents on Christmas Eve and a few more on Christmas morning at home to give the girls some semblance of a normal holiday. Later on Christmas day we hopped a flight to Atlanta and I moved into my parents’ house, where my mom was on hospice. My dad, my brother Eduardo, and I took care of Mima around the clock. We changed her tubes, fed her, gave her medicine, and cleaned her. John and the girls were staying at Uncle Eduardo and Auntie Deidrea’s house, so the kids could have a less fraught experience, go to the park, and play with their cousins. But I wanted the girls to spend time with Mima while they still could.

  It was really hard. Cori and Cara saw their once-vivacious grandmother edging closer to death, and it scared them. All of the sadness and confusion swirling around Mima ruined the holiday for them. I don’t think they even thought about the kinds of gifts they did or didn’t receive. If they remember anything from that point in their young lives, it will be that their mother was so sad and their grandmother was extremely sick.

  As hard as being in Atlanta was, leaving Mima on New Year’s Eve, knowing that this time she was not going to spring back, was wrenching. We’d run out of miracles. Now all we could do was wait. I remember arriving home exhausted, the four of us just relieved to collapse in our house.

  As 2009 became 2010, John and I spent some time reflecting on what The Empowerment Experiment had been like for us. We seemed to have made an impact or, at the least, planted a seed in peoples’ minds. Millions had been exposed to our message through the media, our speeches, or the conferences we attended. In twelve short months we built an influential network of supporters who believed we were going to last. Although those connections might be hard to quantify, the possibilities are infinite.

  But we also recognized how naive we’d been when beginning our odyssey, which may have been a helpful thing. Had we known what we were getting into and how hard it would be, well . . . perhaps that’s better left alone. Let’s just say we’d have done a few things differently.

  On New Year’s Eve we were not contemplating all the things we could get in a few hours now that our year of buying Black was over. We were too busy. Our attention was focused on Mima and the practicalities of getting the girls ready for their return to preschool. Besides, we were different people now. This wasn’t like some diet where I’d lost twenty pounds and was planning to gorge myself on a banana split and chili cheese dogs to celebrate. This was a paradigm shift, as they like to say in the business world. Our hardwiring had been reengineered. We couldn’t go out on January 1 and do something ludicrous like drop $300 at Wal-Mart; doing that would make us feel sick. And for this we were glad: Heightened awareness and the wisdom of experience are healthy things.

  We felt liberated too, but perhaps not in the way folks would think. Knowing we could buy Black without the scrutiny and pressure was a relief. We were so knowledgeable now; we could do it with a laserlike focus. And we could enjoy it. Buying Black would be fun and fulfilling—not so much an obligation. That was what we were looking forward to.

  Groceries, however, were a different story.

  We did not feel guilty; in fact, we were ecstatic about buying what we needed at the nearest grocery store. As a mom, I was thrilled to be able finally to get my girls the food I wanted for them, to spoil them a little for enduring their parents’ zealous mission. I did feel a pang for all those moms who don’t have that luxury. But to be honest, the joy and anticipation washed that sentiment right out of me. We talked about what a fresh piece of salmon would taste like as well as spinach, feta cheese, whole-grain bagels and cereal, olive oil, and skim milk. It made me grateful for those things, which was an unexpected benefit of EE.

  So I went back to my neighborhood Jewel, a mere six or seven blocks from our house. Before The Empowerment Experiment, I’d be there two or three times a week. Those shelves were almost as familiar to me as my own pantry. I had figured out which cashiers were friendly and which weren’t, which were fast and which dawdled. I even knew when produce arrived and when the deli was least crowded. I was so psyched about going that I caught myself humming.

  This was not where I figured I’d be in early January 2010. I was meant to be shopping at Karriem’s store—or maybe at a second store of his—or at another bustling Black-owned grocery store I’d discovered the next town over from us. A strange mix of emotions—sorrow, failure, and remorse—rose in me when I walked in the store.

  And then something clicked in my head: my EE training. I started hunting for the products that were Black-made. I remembered that Real Men Cook, the charitable organization that hosted the annual picnic Karriem had sponsored, published a cookbook of “Real Men’s” recipes, which mentioned a couple of their products. I took a few extra minutes to locate the Real Men Cook sweet-potato pound cake mix and dropped it in my cart. I knew where to find the Heritage Link Brands they stocked. The owner, Selena Cuffe, had sent me a note telling me I could find it in my local Jewel. She even told me what aisle and shelf. I seized a couple bottles of the Seven Sisters Bukettraube. Then I looked in the freezer case and found Reggio’s Pizza, owned by local entrepreneur, activist, and former US Department of Commerce Minority Business Owner of the Year John M. Clark Jr. In another freezer case I found Baldwin’s Ice Cream, owned by Eric Johnson, a fellow University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business alum. I tried to find ComfortCake, whose founder and CEO, Amy Hilliard, is a Harvard Business School graduate and entrepreneur extraordinaire. Maybe, I thought, I’ll ask the manager to stock it.

  I bought a lot—and I mean a lot—of food, about $220 worth. Doing the best I could to support Black food producers made me feel a little better. Until I pulled up at home, got out of the car, and, holding a few of those grocery bags, saw John coming out to help me. Something in his expression had the whole year in it—all the hard work, the disappointment, the stress, the nasty e-mails, the encouragement, the survival, and the heart. I fell into his arms, weeping.

  “I know, baby, I know,” he whispered over my whimpering, his big hands rubbing my back. “Let’s just get this stuff in the house.”

  It seems so foolish now, to be crying over a mundane event like a trip to the grocery store—unless you poured your heart into something the way we did and understood how powerful a simple run to the grocery store could be. Then it makes complete sense.

  Just like when I came home from my first trip to Fair Share, when we walked in the door with the bags from Jewel, the girls went nuts. They tore through the paper, squealing when they got to the Starburst and Pop-Tarts and juice boxes and brand-name chips they love. My little babies were cheering for applesauce, jumping up and down for yogurt. If you were a fly on the wall, you would h
ave seen John shaking his head, the girls squealing every time they pulled another item out of the bags, and me blubbering. It was one authentic, uniquely rich, Anderson-family EE moment, and it is forever stored in my memory.

  Over the next few days John and I examined our spreadsheets—we’d logged everything over the course of the year—did some number crunching, and found our unofficial tally: We’d spent about 70 percent of our after-tax income, or about $70,000, with Black-owned businesses. Then we took a look at how our spending had trended pre- and post-EE. In general, we spent less in nearly every category except gas, which isn’t surprising considering all the driving we did.

  About three-quarters of that percentage was spent on child care, automotive needs, restaurants, and food. Fortunately, we had started with our child-care provider a year before the experiment. We chose it, from about four local centers, because it was a quality institution, we liked the teachers, and it had a high proportion of Black children. We had no idea who the actual owner was. When we checked, for purposes of the experiment, we were happy to learn that it was a Black woman from the Austin neighborhood.

  As for the rest of our spending, here are some of the highlights:

  Groceries. Overall, they accounted for 5 percent of our spending in 2009; a year earlier it was 10 percent. When Farmers Best was open, though, we spent as much on groceries as we had the year before. After it closed and we struggled to find decent, Black-owned food stores, our spending dropped significantly. And the kind of food available changed too. We couldn’t buy ground turkey, frozen bagels, fish, whole-grain bread, yogurt, fresh deli meats, bleu cheese, healthy snacks, or olive oil. But we could find cereal, pizza, beans, soda, sugar, chips, Chef Boyardee canned pasta, condiments, and lots of junk. Recall the research linking food deserts and poor health, mentioned in chapter 1? Imagine how much health care costs would drop if a few quality, Black-owned grocery stores could establish themselves in predominantly Black neighborhoods.

  Fast food. In 2008 we might have let the girls eat a fast-food dinner twice a month. In 2009 they ate fast food three times a week. We found a bunch of Black-owned McDonald’s and Burger Kings, a few Popeye’s chicken restaurants and Subways, and, of course, Quiznos sandwich places. The fast-food binge began after Farmers Best closed and we were pressed to find anything decent to eat. For John, who works in a virtually all-White suburb, no Black-owned restaurants existed. He used gift cards from Black-owned fast-food restaurants to purchase his fast-food meals at franchises near his office, a big change from the year before, when he’d rarely eat a fast-food lunch. It was pretty much the same for me. A year earlier, while working for the business strategy consulting firm, I’d come to the downtown office for weekly meetings and then I’d stop at a Panera Bread, Chipotle, or Cosi’s, or maybe the Bennigan’s or Friday’s on the concourse level of the office building. In 2009, when I was working on EE from home, I would usually eat lunch there or grab a fast-food meal on the go. Overall, casual and fine dining dropped to 7.5 percent of our spending in 2009, compared to 20 percent a year earlier.

  Clothing. In 2008 I bought our clothes at the mall or online. In 2009 we did not find a Black-owned clothing outlet until late spring. We had Sean John and Agriculture Crop of Style, but the prices were much higher there than what we normally spent. I bought very little clothing for myself that year. Spending on clothing for the girls went up after I found Jordan’s Closets, but it was my only choice and required a long drive to get there. In 2009 our outlay for adult clothing accounted for 7.5 percent of our overall expenditures, down from 10 percent the previous year. We spent more on children’s clothing—20 percent in 2009—compared to 10 percent in 2008, but I think that was because John and I spent so much less on ourselves.

  Toiletries. We found no Black-owned drugstores and no Black-owned drug or personal hygiene company, like Dove, Suave, or Oil of Olay. We were able to find some no-name brands at our dollar store, God First God Last God Always, but those products were lower quality than what I normally buy. We did find small containers of brand-name, over-the-counter drugs at gas stations. Later in the year we found a couple of Black-owned “bath and body” companies—Soul Purpose and Carol’s Daughter—but their products cost much more than what I would typically pay. Again, we spent less overall. Toiletries, cosmetics, and over-the-counter drugs totaled 2 percent of our spending that year, down from 5 percent in 2008.

  Here’s the rest of our spending comparisons:In 2009 gas totaled 25 percent of our spending; 2008: 10 percent

  In 2009 housewares were 2 percent; 2008: 10 percent

  In 2009 toys, books, children’s gear totaled 2 percent; 2008: 5 percent

  In 2009 entertainment/nightlife totaled 5 percent; 2008: 10 percent

  In 2009 children’s entertainment totaled 2 percent; 2008: 5 percent

  Crunching the numbers and seeing how the experiment influenced our spending habits was illuminating, to say the least.

  Today, our new consciousness about buying Black extends to other areas of our lives. When we need work done on the car, instead of dropping it off at the local Firestone shop, which is owned by a skilled, conscientious White man, we drive the forty-five minutes to Advantage Chevrolet because the proprietor, Desmond Roberts, is a strong African American role model and supporter of worthy causes in the Black community—and equally skilled and conscientious. Yes, it’s a nuisance to travel that far for an oil change, but it’s become second nature to us now. Some people might protest that we are taking business away from a local establishment, but the need is great, our purpose is worthy, and our consciences are clear. Besides, what do you think most Hispanics, Polish-, or Asian-Americans would do?

  We buy John’s clothes from Sean John, and he recently purchased a suit from Steve Harvey’s new clothing line, the Steve Harvey Collection. We have a friend who is an independent reseller of J. Hilburn custom shirts, and she stops by John’s home office. He doesn’t even have to leave the house. We found a Black-owned shoe store with a selection for the whole family in Hyde Park, right down the street from Kimbark Liquors, which we still frequent when we need to restock our liquor cabinet.

  Afriware Books moved to a less expensive location, but Nzingha is still around, and so is her Afro. This has been another benefit of The Empowerment Experiment: When we shop at Afriware, my daughters get to see another positive Black role model. That’s no small thing.

  Our home security company remains Black-owned Foscett’s Communication and Alarm Co. of Chicago, and we still use Covenant Bank, an African American–owned institution a mere five miles away on the West Side. Twice a week we drive five miles in the opposite direction to Black-owned Evans Cleaners in Maywood. We still buy the gas cards and the McDonald’s, Burger King, and Quiznos cards from Black-owned franchisees. For the rare times we go out for a nice romantic dinner, we stick to Park 52 and Market, both Black-owned. But a couple other options have turned up, including Fleming’s in downtown Chicago and the five-star C-House, owned by Ethiopian celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson, known for his philanthropic work and social justice activism in his homeland and for funding food justice and mentoring programs for urban youth in America.

  And we keep our eyes open for other opportunities to do what Maria Stewart, Booker T. Washington, those resourceful heroes from the Black Wall Streets, and so many others before us have done. We’re carrying on as best we can.

  Couldn’t do it any other way even if we wanted to. We’re walking up this path now, forever.

  Epilogue

  MIMA DIED AT HOME ON FEBRUARY 13, 2010, AT 2:46 p.m., while I begged her to live. She’d started a steep descent in mid-December, and by January I felt as if I was spending all my time on the phone, yelling at somebody—the doctors, the nurses, the hospice coordinator. It was my way of protecting Mima, and I was going to do so even if it killed me or anyone who crossed me.

  E-mails, phone calls, messages, and invitations for The Empowerment Experiment were piling up since we completed our historic yea
r. I ignored all of them during Mima’s final weeks while I focused on managing her illness and shuttled between Chicago and Atlanta. My life and my family’s life felt very frayed.

  At this point the disease so ravaged Mima and she was so heavily sedated that I don’t know what registered for her. But of this much I am sure: She hung in there until we had completed the year of EE. Although I did everything I could to help her, the overall lackluster outcome of our Black year made me wonder whether my time would have been better spent just being with her. It still weighs on me. The only consolation I have is that Mima survived with pancreatic cancer for nearly two years, a miraculous length of time.

  In the first few months after her passing I kept thinking about the authenticity of her life, something I’d grown to appreciate after The Empowerment Experiment ran its course. During that year I could have filled a house with all the pretension, deceit, and artificiality I encountered. The thought of her living with such purpose and unwavering love yields profound admiration in me. It always will.

  Impervious to heartache, time passes. We buried Mima on February 17. The next day John and I returned home to the girls, to the harshest month of Chicago weather, and to whatever was next in the life of The Empowerment Experiment.

  What followed—after making and fielding phone calls about Mima, responding to the condolences, and excavating the mountain of e-mails, phone messages, and other business for EE—was the report from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, twenty-nine pages that analyzed our adventure and offered a broader perspective. An uplifting compilation for the most part, it made us feel that we’d contributed by providing data for some academic gravitas that was, at the same time, anchored in the real world. The complete report can be found in the appendix, but here are a few of the highlights.