Rashawn Ray on Black owned business challenges
Writing for MarketWatch, Leslie Albrecht examines the challenges facing Black-owned businesses and ways to support them. One of the main challenges is getting business loans.
"The coronavirus pandemic has thrown a fresh set of challenges at black-owned businesses," she writes. "Lockdown orders hit black-owned businesses especially hard, and though the $2.2 trillion CARES Act handed out forgivable loans to shore up businesses, an estimated 90% of black-owned firms were either ineligible for the money or denied loans."
Faculty Associate Rashawn Ray commented, “Here was an opportunity for the U.S. to once again help us reset some of the ways racism operates in our society, and we swung and missed again.”
Companies’ public displays are “hollow,” he said. “I want to see an action plan for diversifying your workforce, diversifying your upper management, and using black-owned businesses as contractors.”