The New Builders. Seth Levine

The New Builders - Seth Levine


Скачать книгу
lack of access to entrepreneurial endeavors at least in part explains discrepancies in our society. More than 400 years of disproportionate treatment is a lot to overcome, and our country's long history of educational, economic, and societal inequality has had an enduring toll. The average White family in America has nearly 10 times the wealth of the average Black or Latino family. Many Black families who have established themselves in the middle or upper‐middle class are only one generation into that income and wealth class. Even for Black families who are climbing the education and income ladder, wealth lags. The average Black family where the head of household has a college education has less than one‐third the wealth of a similarly situated White family. That same Black family lags in wealth even compared to a White family where the head of household only holds a high school degree. Net worth across income brackets also lags significantly behind for Black families. This is true for every decile of income bracket from top‐earning Black families, who have one‐fifth the wealth of their top decile White counterparts, to the lowest 20 percent of earners, where Black families have around one‐quarter of the wealth of similarly situated White families.6

      Most Black people have an idea for a business, Isaac told us. “Most of the people I know are trying to do something. If you're Black you have something else going on that you're trying to build – every Black person I know has a business idea, even if they don't have the means to make it happen.” In the broader culture, entrepreneurship, once a hallmark of American lore, is deemphasized in almost every aspect of our lives. Little of the entrepreneurial economy's reality or power is reflected anymore in our business media, pop culture, or politics.

      Forty years later, after a long period in which much of the best pop culture explored the way that increasing corporatism and growing materialism was affecting American families – The Wonder Years or King of Queens – or went full‐out into dystopia or science fiction, you have to look hard to find entrepreneurs in today's pop media. There's the animated Bob's Burgers; or Atlanta, in which a Princeton dropout manages the hip‐hop career of his cousin; or the occasional self‐employed lawyer who turns up as the main character of a TV series. But many protagonists of today's hit shows either don't seem to have a recognizable source of income or are part of the larger corporate machine.

      Pop culture reflects a lot more than just the norms of economic life. And a lot of great culture in the past few decades has explored the realities of gender, race, and sexuality hidden under the mainstream narratives of the middle of the century. Entertainment and culture also have become fractured so that fewer TV or movie producers are trying to capture the experiences of a broad swath of Americans.

      But perception follows reality. Heroes, whether they're comedic, dramatic, or tragic, matter. And, while the majority of working Americans are still entrepreneurs – people working in or for small businesses – or people who have an entrepreneurial venture on the side, very little of our culture today reflects that. Neither does our support system for entrepreneurs reflect the reality of who they are or what businesses they're starting.

      Innovation, invention, and big dreams are what drive entrepreneurs. But those dreams can only be realized with some key ingredients, the most important of which is pretty basic: money.

      Back in 2010, Chris Cain, a longtime community development executive and advocate for entrepreneurs, directed a small business development center for the Small Business Association (SBA) in Richmond, Virginia. She taught classes and helped workshop business ideas. About 80 percent of the people who came to the free classes were women of color.

      The Covid‐19 crisis laid bare how the United States was falling short in supporting this most critical segment of our economy and the foundation of our economic future. In fact, perception has traveled so far from reality that when the US Congress designed the Covid relief packages that were specifically meant to help small businesses keep employees, the legislation was written in such a way that it failed to include many independently owned restaurants and storefront businesses, which are, as a group, the economy's largest


Скачать книгу