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Hoping to elevate Black entrepreneurship, some top leaders from the private and public sectors examined fresh ways to make that happen.
They gathered as Operation HOPE, the U.S. Small Business Administration, and the U.S. Treasury hosted a roundtable last week to honor Freedman’s Bank. The forum allowed participants a chance to frame an actionable plan that extends the path to Black business ownership, a tried-and-true strategy for boosting wealth and creating new jobs.
Black entrepreneurship has been an instrumental tool for building Black wealth for years. Research in recent years has shown that the median net worth for Black business owners is more than 10 times higher than for Blacks who do not own businesses.
John Hope Bryant, founder, chairman, and CEO of Operation HOPE, the nation’s largest non-profit dedicated on financial empowerment for underserved communities, was joined by SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman, U.S. Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo, and other attendees (included here).
The forum acknowledged the anniversary of the founding of the Freedman’s Savings Bank by President Abraham Lincoln on March 3, 1865. At its peak, the bank had $57 million in deposits (adjusted for inflation) and some 70,000 depositors before it closed in 1874. At Bryant’s suggestion in 2015, the Treasury Annex building was renamed the Freedman’s Bank Building in Washington, D.C.
“The Freedman’s Bureau Act was the original small business program for formerly enslaved Black Americans, connecting assets–40 acres and a mule-with capital and financial education through the Freedman’s Bank,” Bryant said. “At Operation HOPE, we are building on this legacy, having created 185,000 new Black businesses since 2020 under our 1 Million Black Business Initiative, of which the SBA has been a significant partner. We are grateful to Administrator Guzman and her team for their ongoing support.”
The initiative was created two years in partnership with e-commerce giant Shopify to create 1 million Black-owned businesses over the next 10 years. It was among the key takeaways and challenges discussed at the forum. Participants concurred that the need for continued partnership between the federal government, private organizations, and community leadership can improve economic outcomes for all.
Other topics included boosting visibility and connections to help advance entrepreneurship. Black founders interested in learning how to qualify for procurement opportunities can do so at no cost here.
Hope added his organization will work with partners to expand programs that provide career education and training, access to mentorship and contacts, as well as access to capital. He emphasized those elements are critical to reinvesting in growing small business, particularly in communities of color.
“Today, there is a disconnect between policy makers and organizations that serve on the frontlines to support Black entrepreneurs (both non-profit and private sector). HOPE seeks to serve as a Sherpa to help connect the dots and improve outcomes.”
To help boost the support of Black-owned plans, some actionable plans from the forum included:
- “Increasing access to capital—HOPE’s 1MBB program participants are offered $25,000 worth of in-kind services, including access to Shopify e-commerce experts upon program completion. The SBA has also committed to providing funding opportunities.”
- “Developing entrepreneurial talent—HOPE’s 1MBB program provides free counseling and low-cost training to new entrepreneurs and existing small businesses. Business planning, financial coaching, and even legal services are offered at no cost. Of note, Black women have been leading the charge for the increase in new small business creation.”
- “Educating Black Business Owners on procurement—This includes building the pipeline and educating entrepreneurs on how to apply and qualify for government contracting opportunities. The certification process can be tedious, but help is available through SBA resources.”
Back in 2019, in my somewhat odd mission to watch a variety of sports anime despite having absolutely zero interest in athletics myself, I end up becoming enthralled with Stars Align, which focused on the complicated lives of an all-boys high school soft tennis team. Now, I am completely unable to tell you anything about soft tennis other than it looks mostly like tennis, but I can tell that Stars Align was one of the most brutally effective examples of vignette character studies. The 12-episode single core season managed to give deep dives into the lives of the eight players, student coach, and friend of the team while managing to tackle gender identity, trans issues, the stigma of adoption in Japan, parental neglect, parental abuse, and more which all ultimately corresponding to the one of the most heart wrenching cliffhangers I had seen in the last five years that to this day and that was it.
As it turns out, Kazuki Azane, the director of the series, originally planned for the story to be a single 24-episode season before the production decided to cut it in half at the last minute. Rather than upend the entire story, they gambled and kept the original version hoping it would get enough traction to wrap up, but that never happened and the closest thing we got was a three-and-a-half minute movie that vaguely showed where the characters were two years after the fact, and I remain sad about it.
Stories have to end. At some point, whether for narrative completion or the practical situation of the world, a story has its last entry and most of the time we as consumers of media hope that is satisfying in some way, shape, and form. However, the last few years have been an alarmingly uptick of stories not getting a chance to conclude on their own terms. Whether it’s Netflix’s G.L.O.W. getting canceled due to actor commitments and stalled production during the start of the pandemic, any other of the Netflix projects getting canceled due to the mysterious and vague algorithm that apparently “decisions”, HBOMax actively burying movies and series due to the merger with Discovery, AMC+’s following suit with their originals even though production had already finished, or Disney’s long running history of stymieing beloved cartoon series thus resulted in a slightly modified endings.
I’m not going to sit here and name all of these examples (even though I very reasonably could go on for hours about Dead End: Paranormal Park, Infinity Train, Young Justice, Batgirl, Westworld, Love Life, Pantheon, Amphibia, The Owl House), but what I am going to do is lament about the fact that the reason these stories got canceled/altered is because the capitalist framework does not place value on art if it stops generating monetary value (or threatens the generation of it): Budgets, tax-write offs, union fees. I’m also not going to pretend that I understand what happens in the higher echelons of media production companies.
And in lieu of production companies failing to supply the monetary resources required to make anything, crowdsourcing has managed to help provide some coverage by providing a means for fans to directly support creators whether it’s out of the wish to see more content being made or receiving some sort of incentive and/or access to media. But I don’t think crowdsourcing is enough anymore. I think the accelerated rate that we saw several beloved series unceremoniously discarded and unable to find second lives anywhere else is a symptom of the fact that creators are valued equally. Of course, the problem is that the solution hasn’t been viable in about 700 years.
And that solution is Renaissance-styled patronage. I’m talking about patronage that gives artists blank checks to cover costs of living and cost of production. I’m talking patronage that’s no strings attached, no editorializing. I’m talking “I have enjoyed the vision you have offered of your world before, and I would like to see another” patronage. I want to give artists the biggest canvas/platform possible, and let them go wild. I would probably err on taking a slightly more agnostic approach: the model of giving artists money unconditionally sounds really good to me as someone who has been broken up about so many stories either not getting an end or getting a butchered ending.
Alas, patronage is not sustainable. It’s likely anyone with the actual means to create such a program would be altruistic enough to do so. But it would be really nice for the people who labor over the stories that instill values of inclusion and bravery get proper recompense for the work that they do and a chance to tell the story how they always pictured it – whether that be the back 12-episodes of an anime ostensibly about soft tennis but really about making connections with the people around you, or a full season order instead of three abbreviated “movies.” Sometimes, we do luck out, and a story gets to end on its terms, but wouldn’t it be fantastic if that were true of all tales.
In lieu of all of that, we should keep crowdsourcing projects that we believe, like/comment/sharing the content from the source. We should donate to grants and charities that give artists a chance to create without the unbearable structural weight of capitalism. We should look for when our favorite artists on social media have commissions opened and also maybe just donate to them directly.
In a day and age where art is treated solely as a commodity, it’s up to the people consuming art to support in as many ways possible, because art reveals things about ourselves. Art reflects life and allows us to learn from it and perpetuate itself. The act of creation is singularly one of the hardest things to do, and I’m foolishly hoping for the day where artists get properly compensated for the life-changing pieces they share with the world.
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The post Crowdsourcing No Longer Enough, Bring Back Renaissance Style Patronage appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
Love is in the air for this pair of athletes.
After reportedly dating since last year, Raiders star tight end Darren Waller and WNBA Aces point guard Kelsey Plum exchanged vows during an intimate wedding ceremony on Saturday.
According to TMZ, the Las Vegas athletes shared the special moment with friends and family and extended the love to followers, posting a carousel of photos on Instagram.
In the photos, Waller sported a cream-colored jacket with black slacks, paired with a black bow tie, and black shoes, while Plum flaunted a white floor-length wedding gown with elegant embellishments.
The enchanted setting surrounded the lovers with green plants filled with white flowers.
Kelsey shared the series of photos featuring herself and Waller with a caption that read, “Him 
3.4.23.”
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The Las Vegas Review Journal reported that Waller and Plum filed for a marriage license on Jan. 22, according to The Clark County clerk’s office.
Reportedly, the couple ranks among the top athletes in their respective sports.
Waller left the Baltimore Ravens practice squad and became a part of the Raiders in 2018. Since his move to Las Vegas, he has become one of the highest ranking tight ends in the NFL. During his 2020 season, Waller had 107 catches for 1,196 yards and nine touchdowns.
Plum, who was drafted by the Aces in 2017, was a contributing factor in the Aces winning the WNBA championship last year, averaging 20.2 points and 5.1 assists per game. Plum is recorded as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2017 WNBA draft out of Washington, all-time leading scorer in NCAA Division I women’s basketball with 3,397 points, and a gold medalist at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in women’s 3×3 basketball and with Team USA at the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup.
As previously reported by BLACK ENTERPRISE, Plum was named MVP during the 2022 WNBA All-Star Game, scoring scoring 30 points.