Facing The Elephant in the Room - The Reality of Racism for Entrepreneurs

Elephant in the room = an English-language metaphorical idiom for an obvious problem or risk no one wants to discuss, or a condition of groupthink no one wants to challenge.

Recently, in one of his posts, Javier 🐝 beBee was open, vulnerable, and transparent about the challenges that Spanish entrepreneurs face as they move into the American market. It was refreshing to see a successful entrepreneur keeping it real. Almost immediately, someone replied to him and gave him what amounted to a pep talk on "positive attitude". It doesn't matter who it was. This reaction is quite common.

It was a reminder that there is a lot of bad advice out there, even from people who are supposed to be coaches. I am especially stunned when I hear people from visible minority groups dishing out this type of advice. "Just be positive and everything will be alright."  Methinks some people have been drinking copious amounts of "the Koolaid" for too long and buying into the hype about the law of attraction. I don't buy it. I am a Jamaican living in Canada and some of my ancestors were slaves. Are you going to tell me that they were captured, transported like cargo to the other side of the world, and enslaved and abused for generations because of what they "projected into the universe"? Poppycock! Within this context, the "Law of Attraction" is very dangerous thinking and a slippery slope. It smacks of "blame the victim" and provides justification for all forms of human oppression. 

One thing is certain. Ignore the elephant in the room and you will get trampled by it. 

When prejudices are this deeply rooted no amount of positive thinking will help. No one can convince someone who is this prejudiced to see a doctor who is "not White" or do business with an entrepreneur who is from a visible minority group or another country. 

If you think this type of thinking represents an isolated incident, just step into any major corporation in the USA, the UK, or Canada. Do you think it is by accident that one sees so few individuals from visible minority groups rise to or above the level of manager?  There have been improvements in recent decades but we have a long way to go.

We need to face reality and from that vantage point begin to generate more effective strategies.

Don't be Condescending

If someone is honest with you about some of the real barriers they face, it is totally condescending to give them a pep talk about having a positive attitude. 

If you are from a visible minority group and you have also come up against real barriers, then you are being dishonest. Shame on you. If you claim that you and the people you know have never encountered any barriers, I am going to call you out on that too. The term for someone who ignores reality is "delusional".

Delusional
adjective
Characterized by or holding idiosyncratic beliefs or impressions that are contradicted by reality or rational argumentDefinition

The bottom line is that denial and rhetoric about "positive attitude" and "self-fulfilling prophesies" are of NO help when entrepreneurs or employees are facing real barriers due to their race or ethnicity.