First, the story:

It’s been two months since 2-year-old Cori pulled the gold stud from her left earlobe, and the piercing is threatening to close as her mother, Maggie Anderson, hunts for a replacement.

It’s not that the earring was all that rare—but finding the right store has become a quest of Quixotic proportions.

Maggie and John Anderson of Chicago vowed four months ago that for one year, they would try to patronize only black-owned businesses. The “Empowerment Experiment” is the reason John had to suffer for hours with a stomach ache and Maggie no longer gets that brand-name lather when she washes her hair. A grocery trip is a 14-mile odyssey.

…So far, the Andersons have spent hundreds of dollars with black businesses from grocery stores to dry cleaners. But the couple still hasn’t found a mortgage lender, home security system vendor or toy store. Nonetheless, they’re hoping to expand the endeavor beyond their Chicago home. Plans are under way to track spending among supporters nationwide and build a national database of quality black businesses. The first affiliate chapter has been launched in Atlanta, and the couple has established a foundation to raise funds for black businesses and an annual convention.

There are two aspects of this story that are worth discussing.  The first is a question I’ve seen raised about the behavior of this couple.  Specifically, whether or not their plan is racist.  I believe it is.

Discrimination on the basis of race is a definition of racism.   While discrimination is often used synonymously with only its negative forms, its meaning is much broader. Discrimination is a part of every day life. In fact, we could not function without it. When choosing which store to shop at, one is discriminating based on a range of (mostly economic) criteria. How good is their product compared to other stores? How much does it cost? How close is their store to me? But if the answer to the question, “what race is the owner,” is a determinant of your decision, you are now discriminating on the basis of race, which meets the aforementioned criteria for racism.

Whether or not the intention is to do harm to other races is irrelevant in this case; the process itself is racist.  It’s important to keep in mind that not all racism is created equal.  I am in no way making an equivalence between their choosing to patron only stores owned by blacks and other forms of racism seen over the years.  Their racism is not born out of hatred, but misplaced good intention.  This brings me to my second point: parts of their plan are economically foolish and will do little to help blacks, though other parts are much better.

Shopping at only black owned stores does significant economic damage to themselves and no real good for the black community as a whole.  They are helping neither themselves nor their community. Ethnic protectionism makes no more economic sense than national protectionism.

They are willfully lowering their purchasing power and standard of living, and by making decisions based on non-economic criteria, they make it more likely that their local economy, and the larger economy as a whole, will be less productive and/or efficient. If every ethnic group followed this idea, it would have drastic negative economic consequences for themselves and even those outside their group. It makes no sense for small minorities to try and reinvent the wheel in every industry. It makes no sense for any group to do it, but it’s more harmful the smaller a group is, as it means comparatively less for them to make use of.

Choosing to patron only black-owned stores is a bad idea both socially and economically, and it does nothing to address the root problems in the black community.