Just when you thought it couldn’t get no blacker … BLAOW! Turns out that royalty is in more than our DNA; it’s in our ATMs, too.
OneUnited, the nation’s largest black-owned bank, recently announced its latest Royalty campaign to celebrate the power of melanated money. An official OneUnited statement on the Queen card reads:
[F]rom 2007 to 2018, the number of businesses owned by black women grew by a stunning 164%. According to Forbes, in 2018 there were 2.4 million Black women-owned businesses. In almost every sector, Black women reign!
According to Fortune, a 2018 Nielsen report found that the collective buying power of black America is a whopping $1.2 trillion annually, an amount we could get really ingenious with if we stay in formation and support companies that, in return, benefit black issues.
“We agree with Maya Angelou,” said OneUnited President and COO Teri Williams in the statement. “If you’re always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be. We encourage the black community to celebrate the amazing past, present and future Queens in our community.”
The Visa card, available in both king and queen versions, was created by famed Miami muralist Addonis Parker.
“Art to me is a form of extreme communion with God,” Parker writes on his website. “Respectfully and with pride, I am a student of creativity and expression.”
You can watch their blackity-black ass commercial for it below:
Correction: Sept. 22, 2019, 4:23 p.m. ET: This story has been edited to add fuller sourcing.