Violence need not be inevitable
Over the last year, our television screens have been filled with images of protesters decrying police brutality followed by riots. Business owners, many of whom are minorities, have seen their life’s work disappear overnight. What’s going on? There’s an old saying that someone with a job doesn’t have the time to commit a crime.
In the 1950s, African-Americans migrated to northern cities to secure good paying jobs in our manufacturing industries. Their families stayed intact and produced a fair living standard. There were not riots despite the fact there was intolerable discrimination.
What has changed? The answer is jobs.
The large industrial manufacturers have exited our central cities for less expensive labor in other countries all the way to China. In the wake of the loss of jobs, Milwaukee has become the fourth poorest city in the nation. Is there any hope? Let’s look at Detroit. It is slowly emerging from bankruptcy. It’s a long road back, but there’s a general feeling that Detroit is on the mend. It was the poorest city in the nation but that is changing.
Civic leaders led by Dan Gilbert, founder of Quicken Loans, have been leading the charge. Their investments have helped launch hundreds of new businesses that have created thousands of new jobs. Where there was no hope there is now hope.
In the absence of a Dan Gilbert what should Milwaukee do?
There needs to be a collective acknowledgment that the No. 1 problem facing our community is the lack of jobs. A job bestows dignity on any individual and enhances the individual’s own self-worth. A father or a mother with a job becomes a role model for his or her children.
Millions are being poured into education (and that’s well and good) but that does not necessarily translate into jobs. Today, stories abound of individuals with doctorates becoming personal trainers to support themselves.
What our central city needs is entrepreneurship.
On a recent trip to Brooklyn, I was able to observe neighborhood after neighborhood sustaining itself through hundreds of small stores, virtually everywhere. These are what I call “deer:” small businesses that provide a living wage. They included hairdressers, pizza places, small groceries, delis, flower shops, car services, Chinese carry-outs, coffee shops, car washes, restaurants of every shape and size, small hardware shops, bars, yoga, dance classes in storefronts, and the list goes on.
Can that happen here in Milwaukee?
Yes, but everybody from the mayor to the foundations to business leaders and AfricanAmerican leaders have to make starting new businesses the central priority.
Our successful African-American athletes should create a fund that makes forgivable grants to small businesses.
Our schools need to start teaching entrepreneurship. Make a Difference teaches financial literacy in the classrooms. Why don’t our high school curriculums emphasize and teach the basics of running a business, including math classes where students learn about a profit-loss statement?
Successful minority entrepreneurs should be invited to classrooms to talk about the joy and agony of running a business. Teachers need to be the catalyst for getting those entrepreneurs speaking to students.
The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce needs annual campaigns to encourage people in Milwaukee to buy from Milwaukee businesses. The chamber in Brooklyn promotes a campaign to celebrate Brooklyn businesses and to encourage purchasing at those businesses.
The Common Council needs to make its greatest priority the reduction of barriers to succeeding in business including accelerated permitting to get through the thicket of bureaucracy standing between a business and success.
In the late 1960s, I served in the Peace Corps in Kenya. That was six years after independence from Great Britain. The new African Kenya leadership had no choice but to lead that new country. The leaders learned fast.
Will Allen, founder of Growing Power, and Bradley Thurman, owner of Coffee Makes You Black, are role models and prove that it doesn’t take a college degree to become a successful business person.
Former police officer Ray Robakowski runs the Community Warehouse on S. 9th St., which employs one of the felons he arrested. The warehouse sells manufactured goods, and donated hardware and supplies at a discount to people in lowincome ZIP codes. The employees are primarily minorities and the manufactured goods come from an inner city plant on the north side. The Kaztex Foundation helps support it because it believes in the dignity of work and the increase in self-esteem that comes from holding a job.
Milwaukee has the resources to promote and encourage entrepreneurship in the city, which could be transformative for neighborhoods where crime and violence are high. We have the resources to get this done.
The city has started an initiative called “Growing Prosperity” to foster more entrepreneurship, and Mayor Tom Barrett is to be congratulated for getting behind this effort. BizStarts has moved beyond serving gazelles (high-growth companies) to welcoming all entrepreneurs of any shape or size to assist them and connect them to the resources they need to grow business.
If the Milwaukee area is to flourish, it is vital that we collectively and unanimously support entrepreneurship in the city. Daniel Steininger is president of BizStarts.