Looking Beyond Labels

In the current climate of people vocalising injustices carried out against melinated kings and queens, this has spurred a significant portion of the community to come together and create a black economic structure. Which can start as simply as buying black, what does buying black mean I hear you ask? In laymen's terms, it can be defined as purchasing from and or working with companies, product and service providers that are unarguably black. The importance of that definition is paramount in the creation of a sustainable all-black financial structure, as many products are labelled "black" when no one from the community is apart of the creation process or benefits from any profits generated. Case and point is the hair industry as many of their products are misleading the people, as a large number of them will often have labels referencing the Continent or giving the impression that has come from the Caribbean which is often a lie. A few who are guilty of this are listed below.

So as you can see there numerous large companies, who will have prominently black clientele but not have any black leaders in charge of said organisations. Although just as a name may appear on the left-hand side it does not necessarily entitle them to your automatic support as 'Shea moisture' faced heavy scrutiny after a 2017 advertising campaign which was dubbed 'hair hate' set black Twitter ablaze as it depicted one woman of colour with loose curls and three other white women with their straight hair vocalising their "hair hate" and insecurities that they've had to face, due to said hate. But many black queens were not happy with there portrayal as they felt that it was overlooking the women who had initially supported the brand, in favour of a quote on quote 'all hair matters' movement. So this leads us to the point of whenever you choose to buy black sometimes you will still have to do your due diligence before committing to one specific brand, but I say to those of you who stuck around to the end was this just a bad marketing decision or did they purposely wish to drop their core audience for what they might have deemed as a better demographic?

The fight continues #BLM