Beyond Business As Usual

In response to the national racial justice movement and Greensboro protests, CM Storytelling, HQ Greensboro, Launch Greensboro, DGI, & Forge Greensboro will host a virtual town hall to discuss how the Greensboro business community can engage in the necessary work to achieve long-term racial justice in our city. Speakers will be announced soon!

When? June 30 | 12-1:30pm

Where? Zoom | Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0tdO-spjwpEtGRdFC8pv2R_oL3RMFNe9mN

Why?

• Because entrepreneurs are people. We are all impacted by structural racism and have a role to play in dismantling it if we are willing;
• Because the Greensboro business community came head to head with the effects of structural racism (frustration, anger, pain, fear that spills over into unrest);
• Because the message of peaceful demonstrators has been overshadowed by the vandalism and theft that opportunists outside of the community caused;
• Because starting the conversation internally is important – we must take the opportunity to educate ourselves as a business community;
• Because the Greensboro business community is diverse – with black-owned business owners experiencing the double-burden of doing business while black and experiencing racism in their everyday lives—understanding that experience and welcoming it into the broader conversation can help us learn and make us better; and
• Because entrepreneurs are creative, innovative and collaborative, and those qualities may lead to new ways of addressing racism within Greensboro and the nation at large.

Discussion: The conversation will consist of a moderated panel discussion with featured panelists and Q&A from Zoom participants to answer questions like:

• What is structural racism?
• Does the business community have a role as an ally to The Movement for Black Lives and dismantling structural racism? If so, what do we imagine that role to be?
• Are there ways for entrepreneurs to collaborate and innovate around ways to address structural racism? What role could business incubation and collaboration spaces play?
• How do we handle instances where businesses suffer property damage as a result of vandalism? How have businesses damaged recently in Greensboro processed these events?
• What’s the relationship currently like between the black community (or other communities of color) and the Greensboro business community? How can we improve that relationship?
• What are the unique experiences of minority-owned businesses in Greensboro? How have they experienced structural racism in the business industry?

Confirmed Speakers:
● Dr. Jason J. Caldwell, Instructor, Willie A. Deese College of Business & Economics, North Carolina A&T State University

● Porshe L. Chiles, Associate Director for Global Research and Assessment at Wake Forest University, Greensboro Jaycees

● Lou Anne Flanders-Stec, Executive Vice President - Entrepreneurship, Launch Greensboro

● Kris Fuller, Chef/Proprietor, Crafted

● Zack Matheny, President / CEO, Downtown Greensboro, Inc.

● Erika Rain Wilhite, Development Director, NCCJ