Usually when I decide to shop with someone I look for a few things. Is it convenient? Do they have great customer service? Are their products reliable? Did I feel welcomed when I walked through the door? I am so used to stores I shop with being owned by the majority I don’t even think twice about where the money I spent was actually going. Rarely do I see a store owned and operated by people who look like me. As consumers, we usually shop with these conglomerate stores that could care less how we feel unless it affects their bottom line.

Did you know that the black community buying power is $1.3 trillion? Yes, a whopping $1.3 trillion dollars. Crazy, right? I know. We as a minority make the least in income but spend the most annually. These corporations know this and target the black consumer because of this. The problem arises when these trillions of dollars don’t actually circulate back into the African-American community the way they do with other minority communities. So where does this money go? Not to us and not with us. Imagine what could happen to African-American wealth if even a portion of those trillions was spent back into our own communities.

Social entrepreneur Dr. Dionne Mahaffey has created an app that allows you to literally buy black.

The WhereU Came From app is harnessing the $1.3 trillion in African-American buying power by merging technology with the need to handle poverty, crime and other social ills in the black community.

Dr. Mahaffey says, “The fact is that there are 2.6 millions black-owned businesses in the country and while growth is encouraging there is still a lot of work to do to increase profit of black businesses.”

Dr. Dionne Mahaffey and her company the CPAI Group created this app to help circulate the dollar longer in black communities and this could generate one million jobs for African Americans. Currently, a dollar circulates in Asian communities for 30 days, in Jewish communities approximately 20 days, white communities 17 days, but, in contrast, a dollar circulates in the black community for only six hours.

“Just 2 cents of every dollar an African American spends in this country goes to black-owned businesses. If higher income Black consumers spent at least $1 out of every $10 on black-owned businesses it would generate one million jobs for African Americans, according to researchers,” said Mahaffey.

“It will take all of us across all socioeconomic statuses to build black wealth. We’ve got to invest in our own community. When we start to embrace the diaspora-view that our community is wherever we find our people, then we will be more inclined to support one another, even if it means taking a long drive,” Mahaffey stated.

The WhereU app is here to help make buying black as simple as possible, from everything such as house cleaning, plumbing, catering, lawyers, doctors, graphic designers, restaurants, beauty salons and more, the app’s referral and location-based system helps you start your search among the most trusted black professionals and businesses.

Their development team has added several thousand businesses for the app launch. Business profiles can be submitted from the website or within the actual WhereU Came From app. The app can also help majority, non-black corporations meet their diversity objectives by finding minority businesses to support.

Some of the app’s unique features include access to the top 10 most referred pros and businesses under a category even without Internet connection, ability to find the pro nearest you through geo-location technology, reliable listings with verified contact numbers and the ability to easily refer trusted pros to friends and family through the referral function.

If you’re like me and want to shop within your own community but don’t know where to buy from, now the WhereU app makes a click away to spend your hard-earned money with the people in your own community, versus spending it with someone who doesn’t care if your neighborhood is prospering. Let’s support our brothers and sisters and shop black!

Starling Thomas wants to live in a world where the food is not genetically modified, the government tells the truth and where the police actually protect us. Go figure. When she is not fiercely typing away at her computer you can find her on set behind a camera being bossy or cuddled up next to her hubby on Youtube watching conspiracy videos for hours. Her work can be seen in various magazines and she has been spotlighted as a powerful writer by the NABFEME Atlanta organization. According to her, studying Maya Angelou and Zora Neale Hurston is what taught her how to write. Step into her world @starling_thomas

Starling Thomas

Writing since May 2016 · 1 story contributed