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Category: The Seraaj Files
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Created on Thursday, 25 October 2012 07:36
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Written by Kevin Seraaj
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Black critics of the President accuse him of not doing "more" for the black community. The criticism is patently unfair.
With his first priorities having to be stopping the economic train ride into full-blown depression, passing a comprehensive health care bill, hunting down Osama Bin Laden, and dealing with an openly hostile and antagonistic Republican party hell-bent on him not being succcesful, it is not exactly clear what else they expected the President to have been able to get done.
If those same critics have any hope that Mitt Romney will focus on the black community, or on "black issues," it is seriously misplaced. But don't take my word for it. Romney was interviewed by Black Enterprise recently. Following are excerpts of that interview, focusing on questions asked him about his plan (or lack thereof) for African-American enterprise. Read what he said-- and did not say:
Critics say that with a Republican in office there will be fewer resources for the Small Business Administration and Minority Business Development Agency.
We’ll look at whichever programs are the most effective at encouraging the economy. We can’t keep spending every year $1 trillion more than we take in. I will go through our budget and try and eliminate those programs that are ineffective and expensive. But SBA has been an effective way of helping start businesses. Small business is a great source of job growth in this country. The SBA will be part of my agenda going forward.
Will the MBDA be a part of your agenda?
I don’t know a good deal about the program. So I’m not going to tell you it’s going to be eliminated or cut because I just don’t know enough about it or about how effective it’s been in terms of it stimulating minority business investment.
Are there any initiatives you’d develop to ensure black and minority firms gain access to financing and contracting opportunities?
My ambition is to target and encourage small business. I don’t have plans to provide a special set-aside for minority-owned businesses other than the programs that currently exist. So, I will continue to encourage small businesses to grow, and to be the most pro-business president we’ve seen in a long, long time.
Diversity is a large part of business. Looking at your 25 years of business experience, including Bain Capital, how did you apply diversity to recruiting executives?
In hiring, we try to hire the best person we could possibly get without regard to the gender, race, or the sexual orientation of the person involved. I can tell you that when I became governor [of Massachusetts] I noted that government by and large drew from the same pool of applicants. I wanted to get more diversity in my senior administration members. So, I tasked our team with reaching out to other sources of résumés and to bring in people of a broader background. So, in my cabinet I had a number of minority members.
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So how would your presidential cabinet look?
I would hope to have the most capable people that I could find across the country. I would expect a number of them would have business backgrounds. I would hope a number would also have experience in the public sector. I recognize that you’re looking to see if there would be representation of various ethnic groups and genders. The answer is yes. I would love to have a cabinet that reflected the fabric of America.
You talked to the NAACP about addressing African American unemployment. What specific measures would you take?
The best thing I could do to help African American unemployment is to create growth of the overall economy which will lead to greater employment overall. I will get the economy going through the five major steps I described. That will put all Americans to work and I'll get African Americans back to work.
I, for one, appreciate Romney's demonstrated business acumen. But as President Calvin Coolidge once said: "the business of America is business." The more people doing business in the nation, the better for us all. What is particularly disturbing about the Governor's responses is that as a candidate for the highest office in the land, he has taken no time to even familiarize himself with a national program designed to increase black business-- and simultaneously decrease black unemployment.
Shame on his campaign staff. Shame on him.
