how to respond to socdems/libs advocating "asian owned" small business etc?

the whole "support black owned biz" or "support your local small biz" stuff?

when i say "then you’re just supporting a small group of exploiters within that minority group" then they just tell me "but it gets more money in their communities" and "it’s the best we can do"

(i am poc myself, so this is not a cracker opinion)

  • SolidaritySplodarity [they/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Small business doesn't mean much, semantically. It applies to very different businesses with different extremities of exploitation and class conflict. It groups a small-time business with no employees, like a partnership at a food stall or salon with a corporation with 50 employees where the owners get rich just from owning the means of production. I think that should factor into how you appreciate the role that BIPOC businesses play in the community.

    A black landlord can be just as big a piece of shit fucking up the community as a white one and their role is, intrinsically, extremely exploitative if they're making money off of tenants. They might call themselves a local investor or some shit and will probably have a company to shield them from liability. They might even have employees like property managers, people they exploit to exploit tenants.

    On the other hand, someone who just wants to start their own restaurant, pays their employees well, has good working conditions, etc... I mean, it's still capitalism and fundamentally exploitative, but having POC-friendly spaces owned by POCs is better than someone from outside the community owning the same space and doing their usual crap. I'm not going to organize around it, but I'm also not going to go out of my way to crap on it, and if there is a choice between patronizing a shop like that vs. one that's more typically exploitative, I'll go to the former.

    Though to be clear, this is extremely minor compared to building actual community resiliency. Housing security, food security, good schools, freedom from incarceration, getting rid of organized crime (read: ending the drug war) are all far more beneficial struggles. If you want to add enterprise, co-ops are always an option that is less exploitative as well - there's no need to laud a BIPOC "entrepreneur".