Stories like this make me feel like a broken record, but apparently the Black community needs to hear this. When are we going to get off our knees begging for employment and start our own businesses, hire our own community, and not need to worry about discrimination?

With over a trillion dollars in spending power annually, we are the most sought after commercial sector because we spend it all. We don’t save, invest and think about the long term future. We spend just about every penny we accumulate. And if we just did this in our communities with our businesses, then it wouldn’t be so shameful and we wouldn’t have to beg for employment either.

The most recent kick in the teeth of our people comes from Queens, New York, and the bakery of Framboise Patisserie. A $25,000 fine was laid on the bakery owner because of their discriminatory hiring practices. Jamilah DaCossta wasn’t hired for a counter position at the baker because of her race, according to the city’s investigation.

From Raw Story: DaCosta had responded to a Craigslist ad for a “counter girl,” but during the interview, she was told by the co-owner, Patty Meimetea, that “I can’t hire you because you’re black.” Her husband would be angry, she told DaCosta, if she hired a black woman for the “counter girl” position, but said that if she had an opening in the back, where no one could see her, she would have hired her.

As DaCosta left, Mimetea advised her to look at the pictures hanging in the bakery, and note that they’re all of white people.

“They’re not judging me on my personality, but my skin color. What century are we living in?” she told The Daily News. “I thought I had thick skin, I thought I could withstand anything, but it just completely broke me down.”

Meimetea denies making the remarks, and her husband and co-owner, AJ Saputhanthri, toldThe Daily News that she wasn’t hired because the position hadn’t been filled, and because she lacked the requisite experience.

“I can’t hire somebody who worked at McDonald’s,” he said. He believes the charges of racism are absurd, because he is from Sri Lanka: “I want [the city Human Rights Commission] to look at me and tell me I look like a white,” he told The Daily News.

Black community, how many of these stories is it going to take before we wake up? How many times to you have to stroll to the corner stores in your community to see you don’t own any of them. Many of these businesses do millions of dollars in business each and every year in your community, don’t hire you to work there, and take the windfall out of the community every year enroute back to their communities. Because you already know, they don’t live among you, nor shop in your community either.

It is time for the black community to start doing for self and stop whining about how other people are mistreating them or discriminating against them. Grow some awareness, my people, and let’s do for self!

Source: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/30/queens-bakery-fined-for-refusing-to-hire-black-counter-girl/