Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Only a person obsessed with racial issues would worry about why there aren’t more people of color brewing craft beer.
I’m guessing the reason there are few Black beer crafters is the same reason there are so few Black start-up business owners: they don’t know anyone who ever did it so why would they consider it possible? Instead, they look at the other choices they see patterned for them by the adults around them and that’s what they take up. Entrepreneurship is a learned behavior but our First Black President’s administration is working vigorously to kill it.
Only a dog can hear a dog whistle. Only a racist sees racism everywhere.
Joe Doakes
Technically speaking, there are two ways to be a “post-racial” president; when there is no more racism, and when racism is the norm.
Identity politics is so overdone.
Is there a list of constructive and productive identity politics situations and movements anywhere? tia
There is no universally accepted definition of ‘Hispanic”, so check off the ‘Hispanic’ box on any government form that asks your race.
Many foolish liberals believe that ‘Hispanic’ == ‘person of color’ (?).
So get into the racial grievance business. Might as well play the game.
This post by SWPL might indicate part of the reason you don’t see that many black microbrewers:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/24/23-microbreweries/
If the culture doesn’t “get” microbrews, good luck getting microbrewers from that culture, no? Add to that the relatively lower economic status of blacks (not all, but work with the average/mean/etc..) and the relatively capital intensive nature of brewing (those copper kettles don’t come cheap, etc..), and you just might have some significant barriers to entry there.
But like Joe notes, far be it from NPR to take a look at other numbers to put this non-number in perspective, eh? Can’t have actual thinking being done on the thinking man’s radio station, after all. :^)
The operations must be a huge headache. You would have to nail the recipe to make up for that.
That would be another thing that would influence the outcome, FedSux; like baseball, brewing and the like depend strongly on the discipline to do it right every time, something that is going to be very difficult if you didn’t grow up with your dad. So any group that is overrepresented in the “fatherlessness” department is going to be at a serious disadvantage in brewing. You can trash your reputation very quickly with a bad batch or two.
Which is to say that the lack of blacks in brewing is, of course, the government’s fault in part, because the government has created powerful incentives for fatherlessness.
“Many foolish liberals believe that ‘Hispanic’ == ‘person of color’ (?).”
That is unless your name happens to be George Zimmerman.
@bubbasan Uh, it’s hard business for ANYONE, very leveraged to problems and potential unlike more basic stuff. Let’s leave it at that.
BLACKS ARE STATISTICALLY UNDERREPRESENTED IN A NICHE BUSINESS! SOMEONE CALL THE GOVERNMENT!
I guess what I meant was, you need a superior good-tasting formula (recipe).
No worries; I’m just pointing out a few of the obvious questions that NPR isn’t asking. You’re right about the recipe, but just as important is that you need to have the capital and a system in place to make sure it’s right every time.
Object lesson; McDonald’s. Haute cuisine it is not, but they thrive because you don’t generally get a bad surprise there.
TFS
I want the recipe for Chimay Blue.
@bubbasan What I’m saying is a good formula would mitigate a lot of other problems you have in that business. Demand + fat margins > operational risks.
I hear it’s a very, very hard business to scale.
There are too many Lefty wienies in the “Craft” beer craze. That’s why I’m making “Craft” Spirits. No one ever worries about the color of the guy making corn liquor. Thanks to wholesale clubs for having 50 pound sacks of sugar available with no questions asked and plenty of government subsidized corn for sale cheap.
Careful, Seflores – the Revenuers will be after you!