EthnicMajority

(Huffington Post) While Wall Street financiers reap healthy profits off the backs of a bailout that U. S. taxpayers paid for and while leading U. S. businesses that could hire, incredibly, refuse to hire for reasons that make no sense to me and millions of out of work Americans, I, for one, have had enough.

I’m tired of Wall Street benefiting while Main Street USA–and far too many of those Americans who suffer in silence on our nation’s side streets–wait in frustration for a good faith show of support from those who’ve benefited from the American taxpayers.

To riff off one of our President’s favorite talking points, for those leaders who are serious about putting America’s economic interests in “drive,” I believe the keys to our nation’s economic engine should be put in the hands of small business owners–especially the growing legion of innovative African American, women- and minority-owned business owners that have a proven track record of reinvesting their talent, their financial investments and their jobs in local communities.

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(The Hill) Shirley Sherrod’s firing at the Agriculture Department (USDA) has put the national spotlight on the agency’s troubled civil rights history.

And it reminded several black farmers’ advocates that the USDA has had to address charges of racism in the past.

Anger toward USDA by black farmers is not new. Thousands of civil rights complaints have been filed against the department after many black farmers were denied loans and other federal assistance over the years.

But Sherrod’s swift firing, based on edited video of a speech she gave — something Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has since apologized for — has reignited those feelings.

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(Atlanta Journal Constitution) Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said today he is reconsidering his department’s decision to fire a Georgia official in wake of new details about her controversial speech to the NAACP.

Vilsack said in a statement early Wednesday morning that he will “conduct a thorough review and consider additional facts” about his decision to ask Shirley Sherrod to resign. Washington’s apparent reversal came hours after a video of Sherrod’s full speech was released, and the director of rural development in Georgia was defended by the white couple at the center of the controversy.

The full, uncut video of a federal agricultural official’s NAACP speech purporting racial scheming, told a different story than the barely-three-minute snippet that cost Sherrod her job.

Despite admitting in the edited version of the taping that she once withheld help to the couple on the basis of race, Sherrod was defended Tuesday by the wife of a white Georgia farmer.

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(Los Angeles Times) The number of minority-owned businesses in the U.S. increased nearly 46% to 5.8 million from 2002 to 2007, according to data released Tuesday by the Census Bureau.

In the same time period, the total number of businesses increased 18% to 27.1 million.

The new data come from the Preliminary Estimates of Business Ownership by Gender, Ethnicity, Race and Veteran Status, culled from the census bureau’s 2007 survey of business owners.

The same report found that black-owned businesses rose 60.5%, Native American and Alaska Native-owned businesses climbed a combined 17.9% and the number of Hispanic businesses gained 43.6%.

Other highlights of the report:

• Of the nation’s 27.1 million businesses, roughly 5.8 million had paid employees. These businesses employed 118.7 million people, a 7.1% increase from 2002.

• Of the 5.8 million minority-owned businesses in 2007, an estimated 5 million had no paid employees.

• The number of women-owned businesses totaled 7.8 million in 2007, up 20.1% from 2002. Men-owned businesses totaled 13.9 million, up 5.5% from 2002.

• There were 1.9 million black-owned businesses in 2007, up 60.5%, with 37.6% of them in healthcare and social assistance, repair and maintenance, and personal and laundry services.

(Los Angeles Times) Comcast Corp. said it would add a Latino to its board of directors after it closes on its deal to take control of NBC Universal.

The move is part of an effort by Comcast and NBC Universal to ease concerns among the Latino community about the possible effects of their proposed merger on media diversity. The two companies also unveiled several other initiatives it hoped would lower the volume on the protests over the deal.

Besides adding a board member within 24 months after the deal is sealed, Comcast and NBC said they would boost the number of Latinos working at both companies as well as carry more independent channels and do more business with Latino-owned vendors. Signing a letter supporting their pledges were several Latino advocacy groups, including the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda and the National Hispanic Media Coalition. The National Hispanic Media Coalition and its chief, Alex Nogales, had been very critical of Comcast since the deal with NBC Universal was announced.

In a blog post on Comcast’s website, Comcast also says the two companies will boost carriage of Telemundo, which NBC owns, as well as create new Telemundo spin-off channels.

Both companies also committed to expanding outreach to Latino students and increasing scholarship and internship opportunities.

Comcast also has an African-American — former Fannie Mae executive Kenneth Bacon — on its board of directors.

(BLR) In a move aimed at enabling small businesses to “participate in the nation’s economic recovery, including businesses owned by women, minorities, socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, and service-disabled veterans of our armed forces,” President Obama recently established an interagency task force—”The Interagency Task Force on Federal Contracting Opportunities for Small Businesses.”

Stating that “the federal government is the world’s largest purchaser of goods and services, with purchases totaling over $500 billion per year,” President Obama’s task force is intended to further Congress’ goal of awarding at least 23 percent of all federal prime contracting dollars to small businesses. Congress also established governmentwide contracting goals for participation by small businesses that are located in Historically Underutilized Business Zones (at least 3 percent) or that are owned by women (at least 5 percent), socially and economically disadvantaged individuals (at least 5 percent), and service-disabled veterans (at least 3 percent).

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(Hotel Interactive) Supplier Diversity programs are at the forefront of many leading hotel companies’ initiatives and are quickly becoming an industry mainstay. In fact, many of today’s leading lodging companies are investing in diversity programs not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because companies falling under the Diversity banner are delivering real solutions to industry buyers at the right time and at the right price.

More important, these programs are not kowtowing to political correctness. In fact, hotel companies are finding themselves relying ever more on these typically smaller firms to fill gaps created by larger organizations that were overextended and succumbed to the effects of the Great Recession. Diversity classified companies are proving to be smarter and more resilient than many expected.

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(Finance & Commerce) Joan Johnson’s construction-supply business has furnished materials for projects ranging from Block E to the new Twins and Gophers stadiums, but it has yet to make much headway on highway and transit projects.

Johnson hopes that could all change soon.

She believes that her business, J-MOS, is in a good position — both literally and figuratively — to be part the biggest public-works project in state history: the $957 million Central Corridor project, which is gearing up for major construction this summer.

She’s so intent on being part of light rail history that she recently leased warehouse space on Endicott Street in St. Paul, a few blocks from the planned route of the Central Corridor, which will link the Twin Cities’ downtowns when it starts running in 2014. And she’s hoping to hire five to 10 additional employees.

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(Business Wire) Bank of America today announced a commitment to increase its spending with small, medium-sized and diverse businesses, pledging to purchase $10 billion in products and services from those companies over five years, with the spending amount expected to grow by an average of more than 5 percent each year.

“What businesses of all sizes are telling us they need most right now is more business,” said Brian T. Moynihan, president and chief executive officer, Bank of America. “In addition to extending credit and providing technical assistance and a full range of banking services to our clients, we want to increase our support by purchasing more of their products and services, particularly from small, medium-sized and diverse businesses — coast to coast and across a wide range of industries. We hope other large companies will do the same.”

Small, medium-sized and diverse businesses provide the bank with a broad range of valuable services and products, including advertising, furniture, cleaning, courier service, home inspections, legal services, landscaping, maintenance, photography, security and software.

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(Ryan Blethen, Seattle Times) The media cross-ownership debate should be settled by now. Unfortunately, it is acting up again like a slow stubborn disease fed by the greed of big media companies.

The question of how much is too much for one media company to own should have been answered in 2007. At the end of that year the Federal Communications Commission wrapped up an exhaustive review of its cross-ownership rules. It held public hearings across the country. The feedback was overwhelmingly in favor of not relaxing cross-ownership rules. The FCC also commissioned studies, which again shed an unflattering light on media consolidation.

It would make sense then that the FCC would look at the studies, listen to the public and tighten up its long-standing consolidation rules. Didn’t happen.

Instead, former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin decided to monkey with the rules, making it easier to own a newspaper and broadcast outlet in the same market.

The rule changes permitted a company to own a newspaper and broadcast station in any of the nation’s top 20 media markets as long as there are at least eight media outlets in the market. If the combination included a television station, that station couldn’t be in the market’s top four.

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