Successful Black American business leaders unfairly targeted

By Benjamin F. Chavis Jr

There is an old African proverb that captures one of the challenges that too many financially successful Black business leaders face today in America. That proverb is, “Your earned riches may engender envy and jealous criticism but be not dismayed by the foolishness of the envious.”

Across the United States as business owners are attempting to recover from the COVID-19 global pandemic, African American business leaders who are defying the odds with their financial success are often targeted by “mainstream media” and others who summarily and unfairly castigate Black business leaders’ economic achievements. Is this syndrome racially motivated? The simple answer is “Yes.”

Former Congressman and past leader of the Congressional Black Caucus, Parren Mitchell, once said in defense of Black business leaders, “There is a national systematic campaign to unfairly subjugate and to prevent the financial success of Black American businesses.”

It appears that business leaders from communities of color in the United States are being held to a different standard of business practice, ethics, and regulation. Such is the case, I believe, with respect to Jack Brown III who was recently targeted for business practice criticisms by the New York Times because of what they state are personal financial profits that Brown has earned as result of his businesses providing shelters to New York City’s homeless.

The publication emphasized, “Since 2017, as homeless has risen to record levels, the city has awarded more than US$352 million to a nonprofit run by Brown to operate shelters. The money is meant to help homeless people regain their footing in life, but it has benefited Brown, too.”

Is The New York Times implying that there is something wrong or unethical for earning a financial profit from one’s work and business? Brown’s CORE Services’ companies, nonprofits and for-profits, have worked effectively in New York for over a decade.

Both nonprofits and for-profits have to be run as successful businesses in order to be sustainable. Jack Brown has been a national leader in multiple Black-owned businesses not only in New York city, but also in other cities he has been effective in providing much needed services to the homeless and to people “returning” back to society after prison incarceration.

Investigative journalism has its rightful and respected space in our democracy. But it should always be balanced and non-racially prejudicial. The piece on Jack Brown was full of unsubstantiated innuendo and one-sided reporting.

Those of us in America’s Black press are fully aware of the double standards and the racial stereotyping that cast unfair dispersions on Black entrepreneurs who dare to strive to own legitimate multi-million dollar businesses.

After the feature on Brown was published, Rudy Giuliani who is well known for his unprincipled attacks on African American leaders joined in the chorus against Brown. I conclude with the following tweet that I posted: “It is questionable to see Rudy Giuliani and The New York Times aligned. But today the Times published an innuendo-filled story targeting successful Black-owned business leader, Jack Brown, who Rudy Giuliani then calls Brown a ‘poverty pimp.’”

Sadly, Former US President Trump, Giuliani, some in The New York Times, and many others take the position that there are limits and ceilings both politically and economically across the nation that are categorically prescribed by race. We do not agree. We will not submit.

Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. is president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA)