Yahweh’s Money®️: The Crossroads of Religion & Money

Steven Waddy: How Faith Shapes Boycotts and Buying Power

• Crusaders for Change, LLC • Season 4 • Episode 85

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In this episode of Yahweh’s Money, I sit down with Steven Waddy, President of the Anne Arundel County NAACP, for a powerful conversation about boycotts, buying power, and how turning purchases into purpose can transform communities.

We dive deep into how consumer choices become spiritual advocacy, why disinvestment after George Floyd’s murder sparked today’s wave of boycotts, and how God calls us to align our wallets with justice, stewardship, and compassion. Steven shares his journey from civic engagement in Atlanta to leading community impact in Maryland, offering wisdom on what it really means to spend with intention.

Together, we unpack the hard truths about Target, Walmart, Amazon, Starbucks, Nike, and beyond while grounding it all in biblical principles that remind us: our money is never just currency, it’s a tool for Kingdom change.

This episode is part testimony, part social commentary, and all conviction.

Here’s what you’ll walk away with:

  • How commodification, capitalism, and identity collide in our spending habits.
  • The concept of economic violence—and why calling it out matters.
  • Why financial resistance requires both conviction and compassion.
  • How legacy organizations like the NAACP provide vital discernment and direction.
  • Why every purchase is a spiritual decision with ripple effects on justice and community.

Featured Scripture:

Proverbs 31:8–9 — “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

Featured in Podcast:

The Black Consumer Advisory

Action Step:

This week, prayerfully review where your money is going. Identify one company or cause you can support more intentionally—and one you may need to reconsider based on your values. Because small changes, multiplied by millions of believers, can make a Kingdom-sized impact.

Connect with Steven Waddy here:

Anne Arundel County NAACP Website

Anne Arundel County NAACP Instagram

Anne Arundel County NAACP LinkedIn 

Send us a text

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Our podcast is proudly sponsored by Crusaders for Change, LLC (C4C) and hosted by our CEO and Founder, Mrs. Shay Cook. At C4C, we provide customized corporate financial wellness programs for businesses, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations. Our services are tailored to create happier, healthier, and more productive work environments. We also empower individuals and couples to overcome debt, improve their credit, boost savings, and more. Ready to learn more about how C4C can impact your life? Contact us today at https://www.crusaders4change.org/!

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Steven Waddy:

Your race or your ethnicity is now attached to what it means to be your wealth and your property.

Shay Cook:

Yeah.

Steven Waddy:

You know what I mean? Yeah, those things are American, they're not just American.

Shay Cook:

Not just. Yeah, they're not just.

Steven Waddy:

American, but they're capitalistic at its base. That's where it's understandable that there's a problem there.

Shay Cook:

Exactly, and I mean really understanding our buying power right and how we collectively can shift this behavior.

Shay Cook:

Ever felt those awkward vibes when religion and money come up? You're not alone. Welcome to Yahweh's Money, the podcast where we tackle the crossroads of faith and finance. I'm Shay Cook, an Accredited Financial Counselor, and CEO and founder of Crusaders for Change, LLC. Join us on our journey as we discuss topics like tithing, saving and conquering debt through religious perspectives. Let's get started.

Shay Cook:

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Yahweh's Money.

Shay Cook:

Today we're going to be talking about boycotts and buying power, turning purchase into purpose, and I'm so excited for our guest. But before I introduce him, I want to start with just saying you know, every dollar we spend can be purposeful, whether we're shaping the world around us, our family, whatever. But recent boycotts have reminded us that our wallets can speak just as loudly as our words. But how do we decide when, where and what to support? I know this has been a question going on for months now and how. Today we're going to be diving into the power of consumer choice, the impact of recent boycotts and how God's word calls us to align our spending with our values. So our main scripture for today is Proverbs 31, 8 through 9, which states Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the all rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly and defend the rights of the poor and needy. This verse reminds us that our influence, whether through words, actions or spending, can be a form of advocacy. Boycotts and intentional buying are ways to speak up for justice and righteousness in the everyday life.

Shay Cook:

Man, this is going to be a great conversation. Everybody. Go deep y'all. We got President Steven Waddy, Anne Arundel County NAACP branch president. He's amazing. He's a father, he is everything, I'm sure, for many people. And, brother, are you a husband too?

Steven Waddy:

Not yet, not yet.

Shay Cook:

Okay.

Steven Waddy:

Long-term partner.

Shay Cook:

We were talking about that on a past episode. How that's super important. But welcome, president Whitey. Steven, I've known him for a few years now and he's just been great in every circle that I've been in, whether it's chamber, economic empowerment and now our president.

Steven Waddy:

Yeah, yeah. Thank you for inviting me. I appreciate it. I love the podcast.

Shay Cook:

Thank you, thank you, I appreciate it. So tell us more about you. I know you're also an attorney, a lawyer right? You're not attorney?

Steven Waddy:

Not an attorney. No, I'm a teacher. Right now I'm teaching middle school, seventh, eighth grade social studies in Baltimore City and I'm from Columbia, maryland, originally. Parents are from Baltimore, my family's from Baltimore for the most part. Like I said, I grew up in Columbia, graduated from Atherton High School, went to Winston-Salem State University where I majored in history, and secondary education was my minor. So I went to school to teach social studies.

Steven Waddy:

I moved to Atlanta after I graduated, went to Ghana my junior year. Then I came back and I did my student teaching. Then, after I finished my student teaching, I moved to Atlanta and I started working down there doing a lot of civic work, whether it's voter registration, a lot of civic engagement, starting with the AUC, the Atlanta University Center with Spelman, morehouse, clark and Morris Brown right before Morris Brown closed down, and then and the Interdenominational Theological Center. And I also worked with Rainbow Push. I was working with the American Foreign Service Committee and another group called Concerned Black Clergy. Oh wow. So it was like four main civil rights organizations in Atlanta that I worked with, and then that was 03.

Steven Waddy:

Katrina happened 05, I got disgusted by the situation that I saw across the South, with all of the greed and craziness that went on following this massive tragedy, and then I decided I want to go to law school. So I came back up here and came to University of Baltimore School of Law and I finished there in 2011. I started working with the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU, and I worked with the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU, and I worked with the Maryland ACLU. Then I worked with the federal lobbyists at the ACLU as well and they're with the LGBTQ lobbyists and the religious liberty lobbyists, and I came and selling real estate with my dad and I joined the NAACP here in Anne Arundel County about 2016. I was a youth advisor. Then I became the political action chair in 2018. Then the first vice president in 2022 or one, and then became president last year.

Shay Cook:

Oh wow, that's a lot. So you've been giving back since forever. It seems like.

Steven Waddy:

Yeah, it's in my DNA it's in your DNA.

Shay Cook:

I love that. Same here. I come from servant. You know whether my dad's in the military both parents are ordained reverends, you know so it's always been. You got to give back to people, god's people, and help them in any way you can.

Steven Waddy:

So much is given.

Shay Cook:

Yes, much is required, so thank you for your service.

Steven Waddy:

Thank you your continued service yeah.

Shay Cook:

Cause you do an amazing job being our president and leader of our branch, so we appreciate all you do. All right, now let's get into our rapid fire questions.

Steven Waddy:

Are you ready?

Shay Cook:

Yeah, when was the first time you realized your money had power beyond just buying something?

Steven Waddy:

When I came back from Ghana. I had seen so much poverty when I was over there and I experienced a change in my worldview around how I should spend money and the level of exploitation that was going on in that country, say on the continent. And I came back and I didn't want to buy any oil, I didn't want to pay for any gasoline, I didn't want to drive anywhere because of the level of exploitation that these oil companies had engaged in, and that was just one form of protest that I wanted to take on. I was so disgusted by my country's multinational corporations taking advantage of the most poor and destitute people in the world and forcing them to pay service on debt that they had been forced to take on during dictatorships. So it was just a series of things that I came to understand in full relief when I was in Ghana that I knew before I went I didn't have a full perspective on how what was going on here affected people globally.

Shay Cook:

Yeah.

Steven Waddy:

Until I went there. Then I came back, and that's when my money made a difference.

Shay Cook:

Yeah, I could see that we lived in Turkey and saw some of that similar things there too. Oh wow, all right. What's one example of a boycott or values-based purchase that stuck with you?

Steven Waddy:

A boycott that stuck with me so far has been this Chick-fil-A boycott.

Shay Cook:

Oh, okay.

Steven Waddy:

Like whenever I think about all these other boycotts going on in this modern time, like the Chick-fil-A boycott around their LGBTQ policies and of the owners. It's not even like the Chick-fil-A's per se, but it's the owners of Chick-fil-A who have such disdain towards the LGBTQ community. I think that that is something that has kind of stuck with me for the past 10 years, 10, 15 years.

Shay Cook:

Wow Okay.

Steven Waddy:

People have been engaging in that.

Shay Cook:

And what change did you see from that? I haven't seen much change.

Steven Waddy:

The change. I did see like relationally was like who is really about that you?

Shay Cook:

know what I mean. That's really what it is.

Steven Waddy:

That's what stuck with me is like some people would say, oh, I'll boycott this For Black people, I'll boycott that, but when it came to LGBTQ and Chick-fil-A and their chicken, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, it was like am I there yet? Yeah, are those my people? Are they in my community? You know what I mean. And so it just it tested the limits of community, especially for Black people.

Shay Cook:

Yeah, we're about to get into that soon. So last question how do you personally decide whether to support or stop supporting a brand or a company?

Steven Waddy:

Oh, definitely has to do with their relationship with the Black community. That's a personal decision that I constantly engage in. And then it's their relationship to my body. You know, whether or not I'm eating something or drinking something that's trying to kill me. Yeah, that's another thing. Like, if I'm thinking about monsanto, I'm thinking about all these different brands that they own, um, and how they affect my health, yeah, the health of other people. So those are my main metrics, like what is the company's relationship to the black community? And then what's the? What's this relationship to me and my own health?

Shay Cook:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's good, that's good. Thank you for sharing. All right, so let's get into the main discussion. So, with the rise of recent boycotts and their real world economic effects, I mean let's talk about that. I know the first thing that came to mind I know a lot of people's mind in my circles is this target with the DEI and all of that. And people have been talking about Amazon and a lot of those things out there, Like what are some of the real world effects that we're seeing from just how these people are treating us not treating us whatever, or just the boycotts? What are you seeing from that?

Steven Waddy:

I think a lot of these, the rise of recent boycotts, when we're talking about since 2020, since this year, are we talking about this year? You would?

Shay Cook:

say, over recent 2020 with George Floyd and all of that, and, yeah, all of the racial tensions. I mean it's been there forever, right? I mean since the start.

Steven Waddy:

I think what you just said about George. Floyd is that the George Floyd backlash was like a defense from boycotting Target, engaged in a campaign for Black suppliers. After George Floyd, all these other companies. They put up their little Black squares and they were engaging in DEI efforts and they were placing funds in the hands of Black businesses and creators and whatnot, and that all has ended and I think that the rise of the recent boycotts is really in response to that. It's not necessarily it's disinvestment.

Shay Cook:

Yeah.

Steven Waddy:

That we're boycotting because you've disinvested in us. That response is very heartbreaking because it feels like we're alone and isolated and we were only tokens for the brief period of time that you decided to support us, exactly Based on our race. You do see race clearly in that there are racial dynamics to black poverty, to poverty in but the wealth gap. You're only willing to sacrifice so much of your own greed and hoarding in order to help provide for people who have built your companies and spent their last at your space. For you, you only have so much that you're willing to give to us, and so there's a lack of trust, there's a lack of reciprocation. When there's a sense of commodification around who you are, then for Black people especially, it's very visceral. Other people may not sense it, but Black people know when they're being treated like property and that property we take that very seriously.

Shay Cook:

We do, and it's very disheartening and disappointing period. You know, I'm just at the point where, you know, I consider myself empathetic and compassionate and my husband might say it but sometimes I, just right now, in this moment, I just don't care about the other, like I'm sorry, like people that are on the other side don't understand what, how this is affecting the black community, is affecting the Black community. Even in the beginning of the year I'm all for Black and Brown, but at one, then some. I mean I was just done with that. I'm like no Black, like you, brown, y'all, a lot of y'all voted for, you know, and all of that you're going to get all into that.

Shay Cook:

It was just very disheartening and I was just like I have no empathy when I see people and like crying about certain things because of who they voted for and now they ain't doing what they want to or because things are changing. It's like we were trying to tell you we were the token, that they were this, that it wasn't going to last, and look at what's happened. It's hard and I know God didn't want us to be like that. I'm sure if Jesus was here right now he'd be like Shay, come on, you got to have. No, I just Lord. It's hard. It's hard to have empathy for the other side with all of this stuff going on.

Steven Waddy:

It's very hard. I totally agree with you, and I think Jesus also said you know or at least I don't know about Jesus, but God, when they're talking about what we're fighting against, paul was saying this you know we're not fighting against, you know flesh and blood yeah. So the fact that you have no empathy for those types of principalities is understandable. You know what I mean. The people are one thing.

Shay Cook:

Yeah.

Steven Waddy:

Because, unfortunately, we've attached the sense of identity to property. Your race or your ethnicity is now attached to what it means to be your wealth and your property.

Shay Cook:

Yeah.

Steven Waddy:

You know what I mean. Those things are American. They're not just American but they're capitalistic at its base. That's where it's understandable that it's problematic.

Shay Cook:

Really understanding our buying power and how we collectively can shift this behavior. I'm just going to use Target throughout this episode. I know for y'all that love Target I used to love Target too but you got to stand on your ground. You got to stand where you believe, your beliefs are and your values and I know that's like a poster child right now. Target but and there's many other companies that were out here, bulk hiding, but with that you know it a struggle. Like people understanding, like you said, they had the black business supplier, diversity suppliers in there and they started cutting doles. There was a lot of bad things going on. And just understanding that collectively we can really change things, you know, but having people really believe that sometimes, especially in this modern day, with my husband will always say people so focused on themselves they don't understand what we can do collectively.

Steven Waddy:

Yeah, where are you on Walmart?

Shay Cook:

I still I don't. I haven't been to Walmart in years. I've never been on Walmart Shepard, really. Why not? Because I was more of that bougie Target girl and I'm OCD and I hated going into Walmart and it was like stuff all over the place and it wasn't just so. I'm like that person. Like instead of going to Ross, I'd rather go to a boutique store. That's just me with my OCD. Honestly, I just like quality and cleanliness and stuff. But I mean, what do you, what do you guys say about Walmart?

Steven Waddy:

People have boycotted Walmart for a very long time.

Steven Waddy:

Yeah, yes, and I think what you just said about your first statement I'm a boozy black girl and then I don't shop at Target. I mean, I shop at Walmart. I think that the people of Walmart they had that meme that used to go around called the people of Walmart and it would invariably be like some overweight person who looked like they were wearing the clothes that didn't fit and they were country. It was just. That was the meme that was going around. It just defined how people saw the shoppers. That's what I mean in terms of identity being associated with your purchasing. Same with Starbucks. People have boycotted Starbucks for various reasons, most lately because of their support of Israelis.

Steven Waddy:

Israelis yep, but before that people were boycotting Target because of their practices with farmers. They weren't paying farmers. I have this book about a woman who was boycotting Starbucks and she kind of describes how her thought process around why she boycotted Starbucks. Starbucks One they kind of took this Italian, the idea of an Italian bistro or Italian coffee shop, and then commercialized it. So now they've commercialized an entire, but you've lost all of the cultural aspects of it and you're only keeping the aesthetics yeah for commercial, yeah, that people will enjoy. And then that's just one layer of Starbucks commodification of culture and cool. And then at the same time, they're also commodifying and exploiting these farmers who are providing some of the best coffee in the world. And you know, you've made billionaires, but these coffee farmers are struggling to be able to provide for themselves. So there's a direct. People can see that. I mean Nike. People are boycotting Nike.

Shay Cook:

Yeah, I know my daughter keeps me up on all of these boycotts, so yeah, she keeps every week there's a new one.

Steven Waddy:

That's what I'm saying, and so, as a consumer society, that's what we are. It defines who we are, and that definition of what we buy as a part of who we are is very difficult for us to break through, as we especially gain more wealth and attach more of ourselves to where we are in life yeah, exactly to what we're where we are in life and what we have.

Shay Cook:

Exactly. That's a good point because, even going into the next point here, biblical principles for consumer choices, really that's I mean, if we focused on that, the stewardship, the justice, the alignment with God's values, that would help us make decisions and, honestly, all the things you're saying I'm like I don't want to shop nowhere, but just small and black. That's it, Small and black, Even though I have an addiction to Amazon. Not too bad, I can let stuff sit. But even when I'm on Amazon I'm looking for small business, you know, because I want to end with women owned or whatever, because I want to support those. But we really got to make sure our consumer choices are aligned with those things. That's what's important to us, that it's not all about capitalism and Kamadovkish, all that.

Steven Waddy:

It's about what really matters, who we're really supporting and keeping the Black dollar in the Black neighborhoods. I mean seriously. The other side of it is that our government has been co-opted by these multinational corporations and by just this idea that, no matter who you are, you can be bought and sold. When you're talking about Amazon, when Amazon's trying to find a shop on Amazon, is what you just mentioned.

Steven Waddy:

And so that's been a major piece of regulation that has been thwarted by Amazon's lobbying lately is that Amazon was actually creating mirror shops and selling the same, undercutting the pricing of the small business owner by creating the same product at a separate shop. Oh God, yeah, that's the level of duplicity that they were engaging in. Wow, because they have such a massive control over the online marketplace, their ownership within that market is like 60%. 60% of the online purchases go through Amazon marketplace, almost a monopoly. Huh, yeah, exactly, you have to go to Amazon marketplace in order to be able to have an online storefront for the most part. That's what they're saying, and the regulation of that, like you said, it, defeats their competitors.

Steven Waddy:

They are allowed to be a monopoly for the most part, or they are so, so powerful that they determine what other online markets are marketplaces look like that's crazy Like Etsy and Depop, shopify, all of those Shopify, yeah, all these other marketplaces are defined by what Amazon does. Their market power and their market strength is something, online especially, needs to be regulated. But Amazon has co-opted the regulators, the FTC, you know, the Federal Trade Commission and so they control how they are and they also own the politicians.

Shay Cook:

They do do that, they do own them, yes, yes.

Steven Waddy:

So where we're looking for, like you said, these principles of justice and stewardship and alignment with God's values, we're instead seeing corruption, Exactly Money, power, all that trying to take over and yeah, yeah.

Steven Waddy:

You know who talks about that. From my perspective, the best pastor to talk about. That led a boycott in Montgomery, alabama, and Dr King's leadership in that boycott and understanding of the economic dynamics of Blackness in America and the economic dynamics of America. He speaks in his drum, major for justice speech. He talks about the sense of belonging that's associated with your purchases and even your attendance at church being. You know, some churches are churches that are for the professionals and everybody at this church got a Cadillac, so I got to have a Cadillac.

Steven Waddy:

And then you know everybody at this church driving some other car, they work in some other place. That adds a level of prestige to who you are. And Dr King was saying that outside of all of that, you have to have a sense of belonging, and the best way to build that sense of belonging is through service. Amen. Dr King talks about everybody can serve and everybody can be a servant, and that's what his leader in Jesus was a servant. And so his commitment to biblical principles, commitment is maintained through his constant, steady focus on the service of Jesus on behalf of those poor and destitute and those who may not even know who they are. Trying to provide a vision for people to find out who they are in times where they're trying to belong through the purchase or the consumption. Like your belonging is through service and not through consumption, not through consumption.

Shay Cook:

Yeah, wow, that's good you know, and having discernment in these boycotts, too, really matters, right, when do we honor God or when do they honor God or when do they might cause unintended harm. I know the biggest thing going back, just going to use it as a model for this conversation. But, like Target, all of them, like you said, walmart, nike, starbucks, all those big brands, like you know, they are some of my franchises and when you start hurting the black owners of these franchises, right that you got to make that discern, have that discernment and trying to make that choice of boycotting.

Steven Waddy:

Well, you got to have information, you know. You got to have information in order to be able to make the proper choices. And if we are separated as a community, where you feel like you're an owner and you're a job creator and you're an entrepreneur and you got ambition, don't nobody else have ambition that you have, you feel like you're separate from the rest of the community, it's going to be very difficult for the rest of us to support you. I think we kind of see that with the Target boycott, when we were listening to one of the people who received some money from Target and she was describing how y'all could do this boycott if you want, but I'm going to be hurt by it, and at the same time, it was like we understood that was a conversation, whereas there's other people who we will never know that they were hurt because they aren't having that conversation with us. With social media, more of us having direct access to consumers and not solely having to advertise through television, there's less barrier to entry.

Shay Cook:

Yeah, it is.

Steven Waddy:

And so a lot of these social media companies are selling us to the-.

Shay Cook:

The brands of the companies.

Steven Waddy:

yeah, yeah they're selling us to the owner, so to the brand, like you said, and so the brands have to communicate back to us what their situations are. One of the issues with us this is a mass, politicized, economic the nonviolent action that's taking place, and it's politicized. It's political and it's mass and it's economic. You have to have organization associated with that. When you're not a part of the Black organizations, then it's harder for you to understand who is going to be impacted. You and I are having this conversation because we've been in the same room many times. You know what I mean. We're part of the same organization, and so if you're not a part of these organizations, like the NAACP, the Urban League, even the National Newspaper Association all of these legacy Black organizations were created during the time of segregation. If we have these spaces, businesses and entrepreneurs need to be a part of them, and so do consumers who want to be able to make informed decisions. That's going to allow us to have better discernment, yeah.

Shay Cook:

I agree with that. Knowledge is power. It always has been to have better discernment. Yeah, I agree with that.

Steven Waddy:

Knowledge is power.

Shay Cook:

It always has been, yeah. And then there's a balance between conviction and compassion, as I was talking about earlier, with the empathy and the compassion when making spending decisions. You know, I want to, not only if I'm on Amazon looking for small and Black-owned, I'm looking. I'm actually going to the websites of the book owner or the author or to the brand that is Black-owned, because it's just better, even though I just read an article recently about how people don't want to go there because you get the free shipping and all of that. On the other side, like I said, they're capitalizing and monopolizing Amazon or all of that. But I was like man, I'll just go ahead and pay the $5 shipping, whatever. I mean that is going towards the business owner. I mean they got to take their time to pack that box to send it to me. I ain't mad at that. Or I'll go to their shop in Baltimore or around this area to go buy something, and that's how we need to support them. But how do we balance that conviction and compassion?

Steven Waddy:

when we're talking about these boycotts. It's difficult because, like I think about the Montgomery bus boycott, like they boycotted for 360 some days but people were going to jail and the stakes were so high because it was violence on the other side of that, and I think that breeds a stronger sense of conviction. Like you said, when you have that empathy and when you can understand the heightened level of violence associated with your compassion and your conviction, then it can increase your willingness to participate, yeah, and make those decisions. So part of what I've tried to do lately is, especially with this big bad bill, the budget bill that they passed is describe it as being violent, that they are engaging in economic violence, they're encouraging starvation, they are encouraging a disinvestment, and disinvestment leads to homelessness, disinvestment leads to all types of backlash.

Shay Cook:

Which crime and all of that goes up with all of that.

Steven Waddy:

Your health care. This is, they're taking away people's health care, so they want people to die and, outside of all of that, I would describe that as a form of policy violence. That as a form of policy violence. I think we need to start speaking about what's happening and what these corporations are doing, with the same level of heightened vocabulary.

Shay Cook:

Yeah, and not only heightened, but plain language, where people put it where they say put it where the goats get it. But people understand and, like you said, a little more dramatic and heightened so they can be like what, what? When you said that to me I was like what Economic violence man, I'm going to be using that for now?

Steven Waddy:

But that's what.

Shay Cook:

Target is engaging in. Yeah, that's good.

Steven Waddy:

Target is engaging in psychological manipulation. They are terrorizing us because they are trying to say it's our fault. Because they are trying to say it's our fault. You know that they are choosing to not support black businesses because we aren't supporting the Republican Party.

Shay Cook:

Yeah, because they want to align with the administration.

Steven Waddy:

Yeah, exactly Exactly, and they're trying to say it's our fault. The same thing that Donald Trump is doing right now in DC is that they just fired 50,000 people that live in the Maryland DC VA area. Maryland has had its highest unemployment rate since the pandemic that just came out. People are having to decide between paying their mortgage or buying food. People are existing in workspaces if they still have their jobs that are hostile. We got a hostile workplace. The manipulation that they're engaging in is totalitarian. It's like you agree with us as the party, or you don't deserve a right to exist, or existence is under threat, and that's the level of violence, like I said, that they're engaging in against us in this very moment, and so I think people have to start to see that in order to be able to have the conviction to say if I have any type of economic privilege, then I'm going to take advantage of that to maintain resistance.

Shay Cook:

You know what I mean.

Steven Waddy:

I'm going to live in a space and I'm going to help other people resist their violence against them.

Shay Cook:

Wow, that's amazing. It's amazing crazy, oh my gosh. It's amazing, y'all, that I'm having this realization during this span, just the economic violence of it all, and how we need to step up and support each other, and we need to. It needs to be a collective action, as I was saying earlier, and we need to come together. Y'all need to attend these NAACP meetings, Anne, arundel County or wherever y'all at, or any other organization you know, like Steven is saying.

Steven Waddy:

We have our Green Book director.

Shay Cook:

Yes, we have our Green Book of Black and Brown Businesses, anne Arundel County. So definitely it's on our website and you need to check that out. Just Google it Anne Arundel Green Book. It's on our NAACP. They want us to say it different, because every A matters. Somebody said recently, which I agree, but I mean you know, you know what it is, so. But I would add you know, 66% of consumers say they're willing to pay more for products from companies whose values align with their own. And you know, some people just are so stuck in their ways and so trying to follow influences or whatever, they don't care about that, they're just going to buy whatever. But we really need to be intentional in our buying because our power we have power in that.

Steven Waddy:

And Costco was sure to.

Shay Cook:

Oh yes, costco has been a supporter. Yeah, oh yes, costco has been a supporter.

Steven Waddy:

Yeah, the NAACP also did release a list of companies that have not ended their DEI and continued their support for diversity. At least I don't know if they're all engaging in equity and inclusion, but you know, equity and inclusion is a much deeper conversation.

Steven Waddy:

It is you know a lot of them just getting caught up on the diversity part of it. You know we're going to maintain our support for Black people or white women and Latinos. When we're talking about employment, it's something that are you hiring more employees or independent contractors? Are the contracts that you're providing to these different businesses, small businesses? Are they exploitative, or are they actually aligned with the needs of the organization? That equity is a whole different situation, a whole different question.

Steven Waddy:

For a lot of organizations, like even if you're talking about Starbucks or Whole Foods, starbucks or Whole Foods, starbucks or Whole Foods are seen as the harbingers of gentrification. If you see them coming into your neighborhood and you're in a poor black city, you know that the white folk are coming and it's going to be money that's going to be coming to take your property and you will be likely, you know, priced out shortly. And how do we navigate those types of conversations when you see that, okay, they might be aligning with one group of like entrepreneurs, but community-wise, they are destroying, you know, black neighborhoods and enclaves with their wealth and their little tokenized decisions?

Shay Cook:

Wow, steven. See, this is why y'all need to join our branch and get all this knowledge from this brother man. He's full of great information. Oh my God, there's so much going on with, so much that each of us can do in our own little circles, in our world. And just remembering you know your money is not just currency. It's a tool God has entrusted to you. Every purchase is an opportunity to advance justice, show compassion and reflect on his kingdom values. So, before I get into the call to action of the week, any final thoughts? President Waddy and Stephen, that was amazing. Thank you for your time. Any final thoughts?

Steven Waddy:

Thank you, shea, for bringing me on, and you know, I know, that the Crusaders for Change is going to be a major part of any change that happens, any boycott, any economic decision making that's going to be made by people who want to have disposable income, who want to be able to identify ways to use their income in godly ways and Christian ways. They're going to need you to be able to guide them on that route, because you have a purpose. That purpose is something that is impactful and is necessary in this movement. I definitely appreciate you bringing me on and letting me talk my ish for a little while.

Shay Cook:

I appreciate it. I love hearing you talk your ish. You got a lot of ish that we need to all be talking about. So thank you for your time and all you do, and thank God for you and your family.

Shay Cook:

And may y'all stay safe. So, guys, this week prayfully review where your money is going. Identify one company or cause you can support more intentionally and one you may need to reconsider supporting based on your values. And remember small changes multiplied by millions of believers can make a kingdom-sized impact. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you soon. A big thank you for listening to this episode. We hope you found today's chat about the intersection of religion and money insightful. We would love to hear your feedback. Hit that subscribe button or follow the podcast, and please feel free to leave us a review. For the latest Yahweh's Money content, visit us at crusaders4changeorg or find us anywhere you listen to podcasts. Until next time, stay financially fit and spiritually inspired and remember it's always better Yahweh's way.

People on this episode

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Shay Cook

Host
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Steven Waddy

Guest