The Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter is calling for people to resist “white capitalism” and President Trump by only buying from black businesses during the holiday season.
On Sunday, the allegedly official Black Lives Matter-LA Twitter account posted that they are “dreaming of a #BlackXmas” that involves people withholding their “dollars from White capitalism” and, instead, spending that money in the black community:
We’re dreaming of a #BlackXmas...where folks withhold dollars from White capitalism and use resources to #BuildBlackCommunity. Instead of spending, DONATE to a Black organization as a holiday gift for your loved ones or #BuyBlack. Go to https://t.co/klHABpJaeu for more.
— #BlackLivesMatter-LA (@BLMLA) November 26, 2017
The website for the movement calls for people to “#DIVEST from White corporations” and “#INVEST in Black community.”
According to the BlackXmas website, by choosing to #BUYBLACK, Black Lives Matter supporters are helping stop Trump and “the like.” The site claims, “Donald Trump embodies White capitalism. If you are anti-Trump, you should hold back your resources from him and the like.”
Two Black Lives Matter supporters and California State University, Los Angeles professors discussed their support for the movement.
Newsweek reports pan-African studies professor Melina Abdullah connected “white capitalism” to the alleged systematic killing of black people by police.
“We say ‘white capitalism’ because it’s important that we understand that the economic system and the racial structures are connected,” Abdullah said. “We have to not only disrupt the systems of policing that literally kill our people, but we have to disrupt the white supremacist, capitalistic, patriarchal, heteronormative system that is really the root cause of these police killings.”
Fellow pan-African studies professor Anthony Ratcliff said, “Black Lives Matter and other organizations build a strong critique and understanding of racism and white supremacy and sexism and homophobia, transphobia, but we have to have as much hatred or vitriol against capitalism.”
“Until we start to see capitalism [is] just as nefarious as white supremacy, we will always be struggling,” he added.
In 2015, a “Black Xmas” protest led to airports in Minneapolis and San Francisco being blockaded by activists in order to fight against police brutality.
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