McNeese, Jazmyne. Two Americas: a mixed-methods approach to examining racial capitalism in business ownership. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-r6an-vm52
DescriptionThis paper investigates experiential differences in business ownership under the framework of “Two Americas,” a term coined by the Kerner Commission, a task force assembled under Lyndon B Johnson in the 1960s. This work has four primary purposes: (1) to employ racial capitalism as a framework while using a mixed-methodological approach to help aid in the translation of value to profit and the impact of that translation on business owners, (2) to contextualize disparities in wealth for Black business owners from individualistic deficiencies to fully operational ethnic economies, (3) to expand definitions of what it means to be resilient for Black communities amid challenging circumstances, and (4) to include these considerations when assessing what it means to close the racial wealth gap. This paper begins by evaluating literature that intersects structural inequality and wealth-building, then positions business ownership as the vehicle for wealth-building and the focus of this work. Next, this study presents racial capitalism as a lens to understand and interpret quantitative and qualitative data. Then this study describes the methodological choices and discusses using the Oaxaca decomposition analysis, participatory observation fieldwork, and content analysis of photographs and the findings thereof. Lastly, this study finds: (1) a 44% difference in sales receipts between Black and white business owners, (2) that Black business owners provide surplus value for the community because of the disinvestment in their neighborhoods and their labor is uncompensated, (3) and lastly, that embedded resilience of Black business owners is a key mechanism in the production ethnic economies. This study quantifies structural inequality in business ownership, presents a case for the “Two Americas” concept, and proposes the reconsideration of how one measures the racial gap. Concluding with suggestions for future research and implications for policy decisions, this work is foundational for using racial theory to answer empirical questions about the social world.