Dispatches from a Pandemic: ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ Looters nearly destroyed her business, but that’s just the latest challenge for this black entrepreneur
The new storefront at 611 West Lake St. was supposed to be the place where Tiwanna Jackson took her business to the next level.
The Minneapolis owner of Tweak The Glam Studio, a beauty boutique, was going to hire employees and start a mentorship program for newcomers to the beauty business. And she was going to put the casually racist remarks of one real estate broker behind her.
Now, that same spot has been ransacked by looters who capitalized on protests over George Floyd’s May 25 death in police custody.
“ ‘I try not to be easily defeated and I always have to fight for what I want.’ ”
Six months into a seven-year lease, Jackson looks at her roughly 500-square-foot space now and feels “crushed, gutted, literally sick. I felt defeated for a minute. I try not to be easily defeated and I always have to fight for what I want.”
The looters smashed through Jackson’s glass window early Saturday morning and ran off with her laptop, her sound systems, an iPad AAPL, +0.86% that she used to process customer payments, and even a wine cart.
“Bingo!” one looter kept shouting, according to a neighbor’s smartphone video, which Jackson shared on her business’s Instagram FB, +1.84% account.
“This small business is BLACK OWNED & we also support GEORGE FLOYD!,” Jackson wrote in the post. Addressing the “ignorant group of material thirsty bandits,” she wrote, “If your going to protest then protest. But don’t use George Floyd as a reason to ROB hard working people for what you want and don’t want to work for!!!!!!!”
Floyd, 46, died during an arrest that was videotaped by passers-by. Police were responding to a report that Floyd had used a fake $20 bill. Derek Chauvin, one of the arresting officers, kneeled on Floyd, pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes while Floyd was facedown on the ground, prosecutors allege.
Chauvin is facing second- and third-degree murder charges and second-degree manslaughter charges. Three fellow officers were charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
Floyd’s death — and those of so many other unarmed black men who have died in police custody — is a brutal example of the uneven ways law enforcement treats black and white communities, reform advocates say.
Jackson’s path to her Lake Street shop provides another look at inequity — this time, on the steep hill for black entrepreneurs, which is getting steeper.
“ 58% of black-owned firms were either ‘distressed’ or ‘at risk’ before the coronavirus pandemic while 27% of white-owned firms were in the same condition, according to Federal Reserve data. ”
More than half — 58% — of black-owned firms were either “distressed” or “at risk” before the coronavirus pandemic, according to Federal Reserve’s 2019 Small Business Credit Survey. About one-third — 27% — of white-owned firms were in the same condition, the survey showed.
Now, 35% and 40% of black-owned businesses will ultimately fold between the pandemic, the lack of federal stimulus money and fallout from the looting, according to one estimate from the U.S. Black Chambers, Inc.
“I just feels like racism happens in so many scenarios,” Jackson, 42, told MarketWatch. “Don’t quit, don’t give up, go through adversity,” she’s told herself over the years. “Now I’m at another roadblock.”
‘It’s going to be kind of expensive but we do need more minorities in the area’
Jackson calls herself “a visual person,” and she’s always loved beauty and fashion. “Anything that makes you feel like somebody, I’m drawn to it.” Tweak the Glam offers eyelash extensions, which add oomph to someone’s eyes for $35 to $250, as well as other beauty services like waxing.
Before breaking into the industry, Jackson worked in the banking sector. For years, she worked in compliance for Ameriprise Financial AMP, +5.42%.
She was laid off during the Great Recession in 2009 and decided to take a chance and find a way into the beauty world. She went to beauty school, learned how to do eyelash extensions and built her clientele.
Jackson started Tweak The Glam Studio in 2014 at an office suite. Within a year and a half, Jackson had gross earnings in the six figures.
“ Jackson had six-figure gross earnings less than two years after starting her business. ”
But she had overhead and other costs too, like the roughly $10,000 she spent to learn microblading, which is a form of tattooing that enhances eyebrows.
Jackson needed a storefront to grow her business, she decided. She started looking around for places and cold-called one real estate broker about one space.
“It’s going to be kind of expensive but we do need more minorities in the area,” Jackson recalled the woman telling her over the phone. “She didn’t even know me and knew I was already black.”
The broker made a snap judgment about someone’s voice and their earning power that researchers have found elsewhere. Black and white listeners can assume people speaking so-called “African American Vernacular English” might earn less, studies show.
Back in Minneapolis, Jackson kept looking for a space. On at least three different occasions, she got far in the process — only to have the deal fall through and the space go to white-owned beauty businesses.
One of those disappointments involved the same broker she had initially talked to. Jackson said she “swallowed her pride” and talked to the woman about a space she loved. “I tried that approach and I got stabbed in the back,” she said, noting a franchise took the spot instead.
“ ‘It wasn’t the space I wanted, but I took it anyway because I always feel there’s a reason for everything.’ ”
Finally, Jackson found the Lake Street location and went for it. “It wasn’t the space I wanted, but I took it anyway because I always feel there’s a reason for everything.”
All throughout, Jackson was relying on her personal savings and credit cards — something female business owners are more likely to do than men — for business capital. Her business loan applications were unsuccessful, while the hard pulls on her credit score and the revolving credit card balances harmed her score.
The big picture for black-owned businesses
Tweak The Glam Studio is one of the 2.6 million-black owned businesses facing a common set of challenges, according to Ron Busby, president and CEO of the U.S. Black Chambers, a business group with 232,000 members.
“ ‘There is no doubt racism plays a huge role in the challenges black-owned businesses face day to day.’ ”
“There is no doubt racism plays a huge role in the challenges black-owned businesses face day to day,” he said.
Busby doesn’t buy it when skeptics say a business rises or falls on the quality of its product, not the person selling it.
“That’s like saying I won’t get killed for getting out of my car for spending a $20 bill,” Busby said, referring to the Floyd case. “Anyone that does not understand the challenges black business owners have is not facing reality.”
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Twenty-eight percent of black and Asian-American small business owners use their own money to fund their operations, while 29% of Hispanic owners do the same, according to Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Sixteen percent of white owners use their money as the primary funding source.
When black- and Hispanic-owned applicants get business loans, the central bank’s data said, they’re typically getting less than they asked for, compared to white-owned small business applicants.
It’s not just dollars and cents differences.
Businesses in predominantly black neighborhoods typically have lower Yelp YELP, +3.02% reviews, according to Brookings Institution findings in February. That perception is important because businesses with more stars have higher growth rates, they said.
The $2.2 trillion dollar stimulus bill’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) highlight the struggles for black business people, Busby said.
The program offers potentially forgivable loans to small businesses faltering because of the coronavirus pandemic. But 2.5 million of the 2.6 million black-owned businesses have no employees, Busby noted. In other words, there’s no payroll to protect.
Furthermore, many banks administering the programs asked for information about an applicant’s lending relationships. But many black-owned businesses don’t have those relationships, Busby said.
Damage to Tweak The Glam after looting.
Courtesy Tiwanna JacksonThe U.S. Black Chambers polled members about PPP and 96% either didn’t get any money or got less than 60% of their sought-after loan, Busby said.
Jackson is still waiting to hear about her PPP application.
She would have reopened on June 1, but the looting changed all that. Now she’s making a list for her insurance adjuster and working with a contractor who’s putting in new shelving free of charge.
She’s still got plans for her business.
“I’m not going under,” Jackson said. “I’m not leaving. I’m not going anywhere.”
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