SECOND OPINION / THE BLACK ORANGE : Give Black-Owned Businesses a Fair Chance

Sadly, our community is not as forgiving as others when it comes to our own entrepreneurs. We tend to go to a start-up business and expect journeyman output. The profile of many a black business is that it has no mentor, lacks the money to buy the state-of-the-art equipment and usually has very little money to run the business. The way a business becomes better is by growth, both in size and experience. The experience comes with time but usually about the time the black business has built up expertise its financial resources run out.

A business should offer service, quality and honesty. We should be the first to police our own community, identify and weed out unscrupulous members. Do not accept an inferior product, but exercise patience and reinvest in your own community. The inferior image of black businesses is no different from the “Japanese transistor radio” image that existed in 1960. Today no one laughs at the leader in the electronics industry. This shows what can be done when an ethnic group is allowed to continue to build on its own expertise. There is no need in asking our kids to start their own business if we continue to pull their mentors down today by not patronizing them and bad-mouthing them. Reflect on what black businesses you have been disappointed in and why. Try and communicate to them what you like and dislike. All businesses need customer feedback.