Local minority leaders talked today about ways to get the political establishment to offer more support for black and Latino businesses.
The event was a “Unity Luncheon” at the Princeton Hyatt Regency in West Windsor and included members of the state’s African American Chamber of Commerce and the statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
“This state’s strength is its diversity,” said African American Chamber chairman John Harmon. “We have the collective ability to leverage that diversity, to make the state better. Bottom line: We’re all in this together.”
Harmon added that economic problems disproportionately affect people of color, and said it was up to the two chambers to bolster those communities by supporting and encouraging entrepreneurship and steering people in the right direction to create and maintain jobs.
Specifically, he mentioned the academic achievement gap, rising poverty rate — especially among minorities — and a recent statistic indicating that half of the businesses owned by African-Americans nationwide fail within five years of opening.
Saying his own chamber and the Hispanic chamber “carry the biggest burden on the state balance sheet,” Harmon said the purpose of the two chambers uniting is to address and own those problems in order to fix them.
“We need to be frank about this discussion. If we tiptoe around it, the points are missed,” Harmon said. “We’re underperforming in many instances for reasons we can fix, if we just take a step back and evaluate them objectively.”
One point he repeatedly said needed to be worked on is holding political leaders more accountable for their failure to produce more funding or structural support for successful businesses in poverty-stricken communities.
Harmon, who has been named incoming chairman of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, told the gathering he was frustrated with apathetic communities or those who rallied around politicians for the wrong reasons, especially organizations that supported only one political party, whether or not those candidates delivered on their promises.
“It all starts with leadership,” he said. “If we have African-American leadership that’s a hot mess, we have to deal with it. Many African-American organizations are very partisan in their policy, and that doesn’t help. That doesn’t help at all.”
Hispanic Chamber chairman Carlos Medina also mentioned the importance of joining forces in a state where more than 30 percent of residents are either African-American or Hispanic. Combined, the two chambers encompass nearly 140,000 companies, which opens many doors for larger, corporate opportunities, he said.
Harmon said he hoped the group could focus on such positive opportunities in the future.
“We are all struggling unnecessarily. We’re either all in this together, or not in this at all,” he said. “The ironic thing is, we all become one united New Jersey in times of adversity — a bomb or a shooting — but why can’t we be on the same page when it comes to our children getting education and our communities getting business services? That kind of unified thinking is what made America.”
