Monday, January 25, 2010

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 had a lot of interesting topics discussed. Some of them were Diversity, affirmative action, women in the workplace, and so many more but the topic that sparked an interest within me was the topic of race. It was interesting to see the data that the book provided about the statistics of how America will have changed by the year 2050 regarding race. The book states that, "Hispanics will account for 25% of the population in 2050." It also suggested that minority groups will make up 55% of the workforce in 2050. Despite these findings, minorities still have a "glass ceiling" over their heads just as women do. One of the reasons for this is because "minorities in general are advancing less in managerial and professional ranks than white."

This is no surprise to me but it did interest me so i decided to do a little more research on it.
Many minorities are owners of their own small business instead of working for a company trying to move up in the rankings. These small owned businesses are a big part of the economy. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy, in 1997 minority owned businesses made $495 billion in revenue and has since grown over 168 percent in the last decade. This is astonishing to me. This is just my opinion, but I think that minorities seem to find other ways to become successful and make it to the top when the majority try to stop them or put a "glass ceiling" over their heads. Since facts show that not many minorities advance in managerial ranks, they decide to become their own managers and own their own businesses. After reading through the Minorities and Business report from the Office of Advocacy US Small Business Administration, I've come to the conclusion that many minorities are entrepreneurs rather than workers that start at the bottom and work their way up.

www.sba.gov/advo/stats/min.pdf

Xavier Muldrow

2 comments:

  1. I think that minorities are rarely seen at big corporations because stereotypes from managers or higher level officers prevent them from advancing. It's a common situation where two people, similar in skills and experience, are applying for a promotion but the position is given to a non-minority employee. Whether it's because the manager is racist or bias, minorities don't have as many chances of getting a promotion than whites. Also, many minorities are entrepreneurs because of how they were brought up. Many minorities come to the U.S. in hopes of starting over and make it on their own, that's why many of them own businesses instead of working for other people. In addition, a lot of the big corporate jobs require them to have an education, which many of them lack due to their circumstances whether it's economic or social. Because of this education barrier, it further pushes minorities to build their own businesses.

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  2. Intelligent post and comment. In addition to the glass ceiling, I believe that minorities have to endure unconscious and pervasive stereotypes on a daily basis that could drive them to start their own businesses. I imagine that those subtly discriminatory comments and behaviors are stressful and tiring.

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