Inside the mind of a kind of quirky, pretty stubborn, way too opinionated, twenty-something, heteroflexible Black female newly employed up-and-moved-to-DC Princeton GRADUATE who's just trying to sort out her life. An uninhibited celebration of all that is me, this blog is an exercise in self-discovery and live-with-your-heart-wide-open-ness. Though I make respect a habit, I will not always be politically correct, and I believe in the power of making audiences uncomfortable to inspire change.
Ujamaa is the fourth day of Kwanzaa, and it's probably the day I'm the least enthused about every year. Ujamaa means "cooperative economics," and this day was originally dedicated to "building and maintaining our own stores, shops, and other businesses, and to profit from them together." And...I can see how that was a great strategy in 1966, but in modern times, that's just a little too separatist for me to really rally behind. I do like to support small (and often black-owned) businesses, usually just because their products are unique or more holistic than those of large chains, and I love shopping at farmer's markets and craft fairs when I'm in cities that support awesomeness like that, so I guess I could play that up to celebrate Ujamaa.
But that doesn't make for much of a blog post, so I thought about it some more. I even did a little bit of research on contemporary understandings of the term "cooperative economics," and was delighted with what I found:
"Cooperative economics offers everyone a fair and equal chance to work
and enjoy life through relationships and the goods of this world. It is
recommended to stop governmental and private corruption, unnecessary
plunder, community pollution and resource depletion." (Source)
I can't believe I didn't realize this earlier. Ujamaa has #OCCUPY written all over it. "The 99%" as a concept is about as "cooperative" as you can get, and people from all walks of life coming together to fight for the "little guy," trying to make this country's economic system work for the masses, rather than against us, protesting corporate personhood and other evils of capitalism...this is OUR economic fight. It's about demanding fair wages, fair lending practices, corporate responsibility, fair tax policies, balancing the budget without screwing over the people on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, and most importantly, EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY. It's about not letting ourselves be stepped on/over on other people's way to the top. And it's a worldwide movement, just like the Diaspora has made us worldwide peoples.
And people of color ARE involved in the Occupy movement, even if the mainstream media isn't really perpetuating that idea:
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