The Power of Black Cooperative Economics with Dr. Jessica Gordon-Nembhard
Black History Year
PushBlack
4.6 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 27 November 2020
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Credit unions, housing co-ops, CSAs... Black folks have been building and benefitting from cooperative economics for decades, particularly in parts of the economy where we’ve been cut out by the major institutions. As Dr. Jessica Gordon-Nembhard points out, we all participate in some form of cooperative economics when we use the informal economy. In this episode, we dig into the power that we could amass if we took cooperative economics to scale. BHY is produced by PushBlack, the nation’s largest non-profit Black media company - hit us up at BlackHistoryYear.com and share this with your people!
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The Black History Year production team includes Tareq Alani, Patrick Sanders, William Anderson, Jareyah Bradley, Brooke Brown, Shonda Buchanan, Eskedar Getahun, Leslie Taylor-Grover, Abeni Jones, Akua Tay, Darren Wallace and our producer, Cydney Smith.
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Useful links:
“Economic Co-Operation Among Negro Americans” by W.E.B. DuBois
The Freedom Georgia Initiative
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Cooperative economics is the economics of membership. |
| 0:07.0 | It's created to satisfy a need rather than to satisfy profit maximization and it's democratically governed which means one |
| 0:17.9 | person one vote rather than one share one vote so it's all about the |
| 0:22.4 | members who are running and owning together, making |
| 0:26.4 | decisions together and cooperative economics is the study of those kinds of enterprises. |
| 0:32.0 | The credit new... of those kinds of enterprises. |
| 0:39.0 | The Credit Union, Housing Co-ops, the CSA. |
| 0:45.9 | Black folks been building and benefiting from cooperative economics for decades, particularly in parts of the economy where we've been cut out by the major |
| 0:50.4 | institutions. But as Dr. Jessica Gordon Nemhart points out, we all |
| 0:55.9 | participate in some form of cooperative economics when we use the informal |
| 1:00.2 | economy. We barter with each other all the time. You help your neighbor by babysitting their |
| 1:06.4 | kids when they need a hand. They give you a ride when your car is in a shop. You might shovel |
| 1:11.3 | their snow. They might bring you a meal. Many of us do that. But what if we did this to scale? What if everyone did this? |
| 1:20.0 | I'm Jay from Push Black and in today's Black History year, Dr. |
| 1:24.5 | Jessica Gordon Nemhart walks us through how cooperative economics can play a major |
| 1:29.2 | role in Black liberation. |
| 1:32.0 | Just as there's been systemic economic disempowerment |
| 1:35.3 | that has divided us and kept us |
| 1:37.4 | from accessing capital and opportunity, |
| 1:40.0 | Dr Gordon Nemhart has a vision |
| 1:42.2 | for the ways systemic cooperative economics can lift us up and help |
| 1:46.7 | us move ahead. |
... |
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