Charter Schools Find Gold in Federal Government Aid to Small Businesses
While Black-Owned Firms Get the Shaft
During the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic fallout, the charter industry added to systemic inequities that afflict Black communities.
The charter school industry has done much during the COVID-19 pandemic to
add to systemic inequities that afflict Black communities by hijacking small
business relief aid originally intended for minority-owned businesses and
redirecting these funds to schools that further isolate Black
families.
When emergency aid for small businesses hit by the economic fallout of the
coronavirus pandemic rolled out in North and South Carolina, Black-owned
businesses were mostly bypassed. Only 3 percent of loans worth $150,000 or
more went to Black-owned businesses, according to Charlotte-based WCNC, which analyzed loans awarded to small
businesses that included race on their applications. Of the 2,026 small
business owners and nonprofits who got the loans, only 64 of them were
Black, and 1,791 were white.
In Tennessee, the story was much the same. When a Nashville Fox News
affiliate compared the amounts of small business emergency aid given out to businesses
in Black communities in the city to those in whiter, wealthier parts of
town, it found “a huge [negative] discrepancy when it comes to historically
Black neighborhoods.”
This pattern held true on the other side of the country where San Diego
public media station KPBS reported, “Storefronts in underserved communities south of I-8 couldn’t get any
money.”
In heartland Kansas City, KCTV reported, out of 4,677 emergency loans given to small businesses in the CONTINUE
READING: Charter Schools Find Gold in Federal Government Aid to Small Businesses
While Black-Owned Firms Get the Shaft - Citizen Truth
