President Biden stated last week that he will prioritize help for small businesses hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic based on the racial makeup and sex of their owners.
“Our focus will be on small businesses on Main Street that aren’t wealthy and well connected, that are facing real economic hardships through no fault of their own,” Biden announced. “Our priority will be Black, Latino, Asian, and Native American-owned small businesses, women-owned businesses, and finally having equal access to resources needed to reopen and rebuild.”
We know exactly how this will play out. It runs counter to every gain that we have made in this country to overcome racism and racial division.
Look no further than my home state of Massachusetts. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker announced in late December that his administration had chosen the 1,158 small businesses which would receive nearly $50.8 million in state grants. According to Baker, over 10,000 small Massachusetts businesses applied for the grants. Fully 95% of the grants went to minority-owned businesses and 76% to female-owned businesses. In addition, his press release stated that “100 percent of qualified applications submitted by minority-women, minority-male, veteran-, LGBTQ-, and individuals with disabilities-owned businesses that have not received prior aid will be receiving funding.”
Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito almost farcically announced that these grants were helping to “ensure a strong, equitable recovery from COVID-19.” But in what sense is this equitable? Evidently, any business owned by a white, straight male is simply out of luck in the Commonwealth.
It’s not as if white-owned businesses aren’t hurting along with everyone else. About one hour west of Beacon Hill, many businesses are suffering acutely, many of them anchors of the small towns along major roads. These small, mostly white towns that leaned toward Trump in 2016 and 2020 (yes, such towns do exist in Massachusetts) apparently matter less, hence the state-sanctioned discrimination against them.
Discrimination was baked into these grants from the outset when the state legislature laid out the priorities in authorizing the grant program. Each grant recipient met, as Baker touted, “the preferred criteria of being owned by women, minorities, veterans, individuals with disabilities, or that identify as LGBTQ.” Every individual is listed as a priority except a person who is male or white or straight.
The Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation, chosen to effectuate the grant program, exists in large part to ensure that only non-male, non-white businesses receive access to funding. Its website boldly announces that “MGCC empowers small businesses! Inclusive of women, minorities, and veterans, along with businesses located in underserved communities.”
Using the grant distribution as a guide, “inclusive” means almost completely exclusive of white men.
Every day, stories seemingly appear of a disturbing “reverse” discrimination against individuals and groups because they are not a member of a special subset deemed “vulnerable” or “victims” by the elite institutions of America and their media allies. But not often has the level of discrimination against white males been so brazen, used so much taxpayer money to effectuate the discrimination, and been statutorily imposed. Indeed, on Dec. 23, Baker announced that another $668 million in similar small business grants would be distributed by his administration through the Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation.
The United States has made tremendous strides in recent decades toward overcoming racial discrimination, but this type of explicitly discriminatory action fuels racial tension. Biden and all involved in the distribution of taxpayer-funded small business grants should soberly follow Chief Justice John Roberts’s sage advice: The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.
James P. Ehrhard is a bankruptcy attorney in Worcester, Massachusetts.
