Obama dined with technology business leaders in February. All of them were white. Photo by Pete Souza
Because the Gathering of Angels conference aims to be the launchpad for a movement, organizers urge attendees to return to their communities and begin mobilizing them. For instance, they ask people to create an asset map of their communities — particularly the names of local angel investors of any race — and send them to America21. But for some attendees, such admonitions are too vague, raising concerns that the initiative will flounder. Jarvis Sulcer — the Director of Education Programs at the Level Playing Field Institute, a San Francisco based non-profit that promotes innovative approaches to fairness in education and the workplace — stands up during the last 30 minutes of the session to say he’s frustrated there isn’t a more concrete plan. “Everybody needs to leave here with one thing, one specific thing they can do,” he says. “I’m tired of going to places and talking about these problems and not seeing any follow-up or action.”
Fraser predicts that given how uncoordinated black business people are right now, the process of learning to work together will take 100 years. “It took us 250 years to get out of slavery, 100 years to end Jim Crow, and I think it will take another 100 years for us to close the wealth gap with white people,” he says. “I say that because it seems to take at least a century for us to do anything.”
An omen of the struggle ahead is the disagreement that erupts between himself and Ahmad-Llewellyn over whether the goal of the movement should be wealth creation or economic development. She prefers the former. He prefers the latter. “We’re saying the same things just two different ways,” he repeats, while she insists otherwise.
Another omen of the struggle ahead comes from a panelist who — during the last 30 minutes of the conference — announces that blacks don’t make good customers or good vendors, throwing the room into an uproar. When several attendees insist that he avoid judging all black vendors and customers on the basis of his limited experience, he persists. His example: a black web developer that he once hired disappeared for 8-months during the project, without giving any explanation. “I’ve been burned by black people too many times,” he says.
An organizer restores calm to the room by asking everyone to re-focus on the mission and the attendees finish creating their list of action-items.
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Great article! Why is the information about meetings like this not more widely distributed, as I have known Mr Fraser for many years I can only imagine that the conference was very informative. As I just recently moved back to New York to work on our new venture, I find it somewhat distressing at times that there seems to be a lack of mentorship/funding opportunities/and opportunities to connect for minority entrepeneurs, unless of course you are “in the know”. Sadly it seems like some of us are interested in creating environments were we imitate the silicon valley types, where only a peculiar type are invited in. There needs to be more African American mentorship and a willingness to take a chance if you will with each other. If the CNN piece proves nothing else, it should inform us that if we don’t start taking a chance on each other, no one else will. Unfortunately there are still too many of us who have the attitude about “black people” not being good customers etc etc etc. wonder if every time we have been disappointed at a Chinese restaurant, followed in a Caucasian owned store, had an Italian plumber perform poorly, etc etc etc, I wonder did we take the same approach. Doubt it.
Thanks for reading. It sounds like you’re an entrepreneur yourself. Someone at the conference threw out the idea that wealthy people should create fellowship programs that give black engineers funding to develop their businesses. What do you think about that idea. The rationale was that a lot of people can’t afford to take the time off work that is necessary to start a demanding high growth business.
Kelly, we are in discussions with building something like that for minorities but there are a lot of resources our there already that aspiring entrepreneurs can take advantage of. while they wait for the new program.
Rich – congrats on starting a new venture. If i could be of any assistant let me know. I was one of the panelist at the event last week and I currently work for a VC firm out of Delaware, plus i started a bizz a year ago to help startups like you blossom.
I definitely understand your desire to have more black mentorship/funding opportunities but don’t let that hold you back. The venture world is simply based off of who you know nothing more, nothing less. My suggestion for you is to starting attending these tech startup events around NY (assuming you have a tech startup) and begin there so that way you can be part of ‘in the know’ crowd because that is the only way your going to get funded. Investors–we invest in people. We rather have a B company with a A management team. Plus attending events like http://www.earlystageeast.org gets you in front of 30 plus investors.
To Kelly’s point that may have been me because I stated that we need a program that helps wealthy blacks learn more about angel investing to help young very early stage companies to get their first infusion of cash. And, we are in talks with the founders of the American Project to put together something for black tech entrepreneurs but by searching the web and being immersed in the tech community in NY you discover a lot of insight on building a business. For example, by reading http://www.avc.com and watching videos on http://www.udemy.com you’ll learn a great deal just from that. Plus soon you’ll be able to play mobile games on your phone that will teach you all you need to know about business – that’s a startup i’m working on as we speak.
Lastly, I was also the guy that created the uproar about blacks not making good customers or vendors. That came from the speaker at the time asking if any of us have money in a black bank and I asked myself y? We shouldn’t put money in a bank b/c it’s black owned we should put money in a bank b/c its a great bank and if its black owned even better.
Sorry for the long email Rich and Kelly. Rich – if you have more questions about the venture world shoot me an email. I’ll do my best to help.
Kelly, this is a powerful insight into the two-day summit. You captured the essence of a nascent economic initiative that’s headed toward becoming a national movement. As with all historic transformations in society, this one will also require a concerted effort to change the status quo and overcome the inertia of stagnation, complacency and apathy within our communities.
The America21 Project welcomes the doers in our midst. And we hope to welcome later all others. Thanks much for your participation and support of A21′s efforts to create job growth and generate wealth by building urban innovation ecosystems. That efforts begins by bringing together our people to engage in discussion, debate and strategies that lead to a common uplifting purpose and outcome. Thanks for joining us.
Glad you all invited me. My mind and network have expanded. I’m the kind of person that needs to do something about the world’s problems. So are you all. Rock on!