how to respond to socdems/libs advocating "asian owned" small business etc?

the whole "support black owned biz" or "support your local small biz" stuff?

when i say "then you’re just supporting a small group of exploiters within that minority group" then they just tell me "but it gets more money in their communities" and "it’s the best we can do"

(i am poc myself, so this is not a cracker opinion)

  • congressbaseballfan [she/her]
    ·
    4 years ago

    This is tough. Maybe @neera_tanden can opine?

    Seriously, though, this is a tough issue. I HATE when minorities or women who own businesses use the “entrepreneur” rhetoric, and act like every random white jackass business owner.

    On the other hand, I tend to be a bit of a :LIB: and as long as we have the current system in place, we should redistribute capital away from white people, and white males in particular.

    I do think it’s good to support minority owned businesses when possible, but I think there is also a responsibility for us as consumers to make sure employees are paid a living wage and have decent working conditions. If minority owned businesses have known issues in that regard, then we should boycott just as we would white owned businesses. I think the key here as a political movement is to have a place where employees can complain about their employer that is visible to their customers. Like normalize leaving Yelp or Google reviews about your experience - positive or negative. These are just as important in deciding who you want to give your money to as consumer reviews.

    There’s also a lot of friction between Asian owned businesses and black patrons, which kind of came to a flashpoint earlier this year. Lots of twitter discourse on that if you’re interested. So it’s not a black and white issue, no pun intended.

    Idk if that helps with this conversation at all, but if someone starts a business, puts on a Bluetooth ear thingy and starts acting like a jackass, whether they are Killer Mike, some Italian steakhouse owner in NYC, or a Burmese refugee, they are a jackass.

    I also wouldn’t look at it as “putting funds back in the community” that has little to do with this and frankly, a lot of minority owned business that white people who are trying to be woke would support are NOT in disadvantaged communities. In other words, these minority business owners wouldn’t get Kopmala’s student loan forgiveness.