This week it is hard for me to talk about self-storage and ignore what is going on in the country at the moment.
So, let’s talk about it.
I am not sure when you see this, but at the moment we are slowly coming out of quarantine from COVID-19 (still no vaccine), and much of the country is demonstrating around the inequality inflamed by, once again, the death of an African-America man at the hands of the police.
Actually, the week George Floyd died in Minneapolis, Breonna Taylor was killed in my hometown by police.
And it happens week after week, all over the country.
The demonstrations are going on all over the country and all over the world.
For me to just continue business as usual without saying anything is inauthentic.
The problem is I don’t really know what to say. I don’t feel like I am in much of a position to say anything.
The reality is I am not, and I should really do more listening and learning than speaking at the moment.
I am committed to learning what I can do to impact the divide that still plagues our country.
There are a number of African American people I work with and have helped explore getting in self-storage or helped get in self-storage. There are some in this community who could really teach us way more about their experience being in our country at this time than I can.
Now, I know it is not your job to teach us. But, I do want to create a platform for any African-American entrepreneur, to share their experiences, and let us know your experiences of what it is like today: anything you want me, my staff, or this community to know.
I have grown up with what I clearly know is white privilege.
What is interesting for me is how, over time, my relationship with the police has changed.
From my early teens until my late 20’s, I was a white kid with long hair. I was rebellious, and in my time on this earth as a youth, if you were rebellious, you grew your hair and were anti-establishment. I was anti-war and anti-establishment. You remember the 60’s and early 70’s, don’t you?
That put me on the radar of the police everywhere I went. The police thought if you stopped someone like me, you would most likely find drugs.
Now, I in no way want to equate my experience with what African American’s experience, but I do know first-hand what it is like to get random stops for no reason. To be handcuffed and sitting on the sidewalk while my car is ransacked.
In my experience, the pretense for stopping me was just an excuse to try to find something to arrest me for.
And it happened time after time after time.
I was arrested four or five times. I was never prosecuted for anything serious, and as I got older, my hair shorter; in other words, I got whiter, the hassling stopped.
However, I always got to walk away.
Many people of color don’t.
I have the reluctance to say anything because I really didn’t feel I had anything to contribute. And I don’t.
For myself, I realize I need to learn and listen.
That at this moment in time, for myself, learning is way more important than talking.
So, I would like to hear.
Any of you who have something to say that would help me, or anyone in this community learn, from your experiences of being an entrepreneur and having to deal with a society that still harbors racial inequality, I really want to hear from you. Let me know if this is for me and my staff, or the community at large. And thank you for your willingness to share.
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