Is Entrepreneurship the Ultimate
Expression of Black Empowerment?
By Careers Desk
Thursday, December 17, 2017.
The next time you step out to do your
Christmas shopping, take a look around you. As you stroll down the high street
of any major metropolitan city you’ll see huge monolithic representations of
the corporate giants. You’ll see icons of branding that are so entrenched
they’re part of our cultural psyche. And you’ll notice that a lot of the
corporate mascots are of the Caucasian persuasion.
Just look at
the Starbucks mermaid looking positively pallid against her backdrop of green.
You’ll see Colonel Sanders’ visage rendered in negative space against a
background of pure brilliant white and you’ll see… Whatever the heck Ronald
McDonald is under all that makeup. Meanwhile the black community has… Aunt
Jemima. And she’s pretty problematic!
Whatever
efforts have been made to restore the balance of social and economic equality
around the world there can be no denying that the face of big business is a
resoundingly white one. With this in mind, could the rise of black and minority
owned businesses be the ultimate expression of empowerment in a capitalist
culture? There are certainly some compelling arguments:
Black owned
businesses can help build communities
It’s only
fairly recently that the corporate giants have begun to put their ethics at the
forefront of their
business practices and one could argue that this is predominantly because a
spotlight has been shone on them in the digital age where there is greater
transparency and consumers have a much better idea of what’s going on behind
the scenes.
Black owned businesses are ideally placed to benefit their local communities.
Aside from the local community advantages that are inherently offered by small
businesses smaller black owned businesses can hire within their own community,
directly addressing the social inequalities caused by disproportionate
unemployment within the black community.
They can
help to balance wealth disparity
Smaller
businesses benefit the economy in a number of different ways but every time
aspiring black entrepreneurs take out business loans they can potentially tip the scales a step further towards balance. A
study by the Association for Enterprise Opportunity found that the wealth
disparity between white and black adults is an astonishing 13:1, although this
is reduced significantly by 3:1 among business owners. While any disparity is
still unacceptable, it’s clear that entrepreneurship is a great driver of
racial economic equality as start-ups set a positive and life affirming
example to their communities.
They can
help people take control of their lives
While we can
bemoan the election of President Trump all we want, it’s clear that he didn’t
rise to power solely on the approval of baying alt-right ultra nationalists.
His election was due to the way his election campaign struck a chord with the
disenfranchised working classes who were sick of banging their heads against a
glass ceiling that showed that opportunity and prosperity were out there but
were just slightly out of reach.
Entrepreneurship
empowers people of all colours and creeds by enabling them to take back control
of their lives and carve out a niche for themselves in ways that would be
possible if they continue to confine themselves to the nine-to-five.