Ujamaa Kwanzaa Expo at the Maryam Mosque & Buying Black

This past Tuesday, I had the opportunity to attend the Ujamaa Expo at the Maryam Mosque in celebration of the fourth day of Kwanzaa, called "Ujamaa". Ujamaa is significant of "cooperative economics", which means that the participants of the holiday engage in creating their own businesses, supporting each other's businesses, and keeping their money circulating within the community in order to build and maintain facilities for community progression.

This event featured many vendors, speakers, and performers of the local Chicago area in celebration of "buying Black". Recently, there has been many discussions on social media about the importance of group economics regarding the almost constant executions of Black women, men, and children by police across the nation. The issues of police brutality are not only exclusive to the United States. They're even occurring internationally to Black people in places like the United Kingdom as well.

Discussed at the 10.10.15, "Million Man March" 20th Anniversary event, Minister Louis Farrakhan's "Justice or Else" movement advised the Black community to "Boycott Christmas". Seeing that Black Americans have an estimated $1.1 trillion buying power in the U.S., this has been suggested in order to gain justice from the murders of Black people by the police. The plan is to relieve economic support from mainstream companies like Walmart in order to "gain attention from those who have contributed to our oppression." (via Justice or Else)