Diversity event-Our year in America's Racially Divided Economy

Cultural Diversity Event

Brian Seda

            Attending the cultural diversity event our year in America’s racially divided economy was very interesting. This event helped open my eyes to an issue I had never thought of. This issue is the lack of African American owned businesses and businesses that employ African Americans. Maggie Anderson and her family pledged to only buy from African American owned businesses for one year.

            This experiment that the Anderson’s took part in was very controversial. According to Maggie she said that we need to bring back African American owned businesses and support their businesses. She was very passionate about this issue and she wanted to persuade us to support African American owned businesses. This issue is a major issue that we need to address.

            During the speech she stated many facts that helped point out how big of an issue this really is. One of her facts is that a dollar in the black community only circulates for six hours. This means that once a dollar is earned in their community it only takes six hours for this dollar to go to a business that is owned by another race. For other groups the time is much more than six hours. For the Asian community it is 28 days, and in the Jewish community it circulates within their community for 19 days. This means that there is a lack of African American owned businesses.

            Maggie’s main message is that we need to try and help African American people open up businesses and when they do we need to support them. She says if we do this then our economy will be much better off in all-racial classes. Right now she says that the black community is struggling because it is hard for them to own a business and when they do no one supports them. She also states that not enough businesses are hiring African Americans, so they are having economic troubles. Her solution to solving the problem is to get the issue out there and tell people that it is important to support black owned businesses.

            Overall I thought that the presentation was very interesting and I learned a lot. I was previously not aware of hos big of an issue this truly is. I now know that it is important to support African American owned businesses. Maggie Anderson is also the author of a book titled Our Black Year and one day I would like to read this book to make myself more aware of this issue. I know that going to this diversity event was very beneficial for me and it opened my eyes to a current issue that I was previously unaware of.