CNY Lags Behind In Black-Owned Businesses
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on May 7, 2006
This is more of a local story, but I do live in the Syracuse, NY area. There's an interesting story in the Syracuse Post Standard this Sunday morning on how difficult it is to have a black-owned businesses in central New York than anywhere else in the Upstate communities. It then goes into many other details that either explain why the statistics are misleading, or how they're alarming. I can't really decide what the story's hoping to do, so I've decided to post the link and let people check it out for themselves; click here.
While I'm posting on race today, there was another interesting story on the growth of the Asian community in the Syracuse area that appeared today. Unfortunately, that link has already disappeared; that's what happens with online news services it seems...
When the Whitman School of Management (SOM) began its South Side Entrepreneurial Connect Project in 2004, it asked the Chamber of Commerce and City of Syracuse about businesses on the South Side (which is predominately African American). Neither knew of many businesses in that area. Since then, the SOM has compiled a list of more than 300 businesses on the South Side (owned by a variety of ethnic groups).
Why am I telling that story here? Because we don’t know how the U.S. Census located the businesses that it did and if it found all of the African American businesses in Syracuse. So, the data “might” have some flaws. But I also think that — for many of us — there are more African American businesses in Syracuse than we think, no matter what the real number is. We should seek out those businesses that exist and do business with them, if we can.
There is a database of South Side businesses at http://whitman.syr.edu/eee/southside/database.asp. This database includes African American and non-African American businesses, and likely includes businesses that you never knew existed. Feel free to check it out.
For those of us that are small business owners, we should support — financially and emotionally — others like us. Being a small business owner — no matter your background or prior training — is not easy. There are always bumps in the road. Support from people in similar situations can be a tremendous help.
Most probably there are hundreds of businesses that aren’t officially registered with the state, and I know for sure that there are many minority owned businesses not hooked up with the Chamber of Commerce. The city of Syracuse is pretty bad at encouraging minority owned businesses also. I fully agree that small businesses need to help each other, no matter where we are.