For Minorities the Obama Administration’s Start-Up Program is a Paper Tiger

I remember arriving in Rockford, IL after being discharged from the U. S. Marines and looking forward to not only re-connecting with my mother and family but feeling a sense of accomplishment having survived service to my country from September 1981 till April 1991.  That feeling was quickly short-lived.

The first job I landed was a security gig with a local security company and because the manager was also a former Marine, it was expected that I would fit in quite well especially since all that time In the Marines were as a military policeman.  It all started out pretty good but quickly spoiled when I could not understand why a unit was operating more like individuals.  Having been used to a group of people who may animatedly disagree about nearly everything could still be counted on to stand together and put mission over individual accomplishments.  Thinking that maybe this “esprit-de-corp” was out there somewhere led me on a quest to find it.

It became apparent that it did not exist at least in the manner of which I was accustomed to so all that I had left was to strike out on my own.  The path was clearly marked with all of the steps I would need to take to turning my dream of owning my own business into a reality.  There was this program called SCOPE which would help me create a business plan and because I was a veteran there were several different avenues to funding available, at least that was what I had been lead to believe.

Nothing happened as they said it would and even though I took advantage of every single possible avenue that was expressed existed; it all went to no avail.  The funding which was supposed to be there wasn’t and the help that they said would get me there didn’t.  Now the Obama Administration is preaching the very same thing as a new innovation to bridge the gap between good ideas and great companies.  While it looks really good on paper, for minorities like me, it has no teeth and does little to uplift us at all.

The problem, as I see it, is the funds are available but they are going through those who have private agendas and not the best interest of those it was designed to help.  Their idea of helping those small businesses that really need it is to pick a few that they know will never succeed and then they can justify the diverse of those funds to their friends and family.  Those “mentors” that are chosen to help, only stick around long enough to hear a good idea then they are off to develop the very thing that they told the originator would never work.  You can’t keep creating the wheel and thinking that this one will finally carry this nation to the “Promise Land”.  It’s time to stop trying to re-invent the wheel and begin to invent a bigger cart to take us all to the “Land of Milk and Honey”.

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