Meta's new report sheds light on how the pandemic has affected SMBs (especially black owned businesses)

A majority of people believe that an individual can not be judged based on his or her complexion, which is one hundred percent true. But when it comes to implementation, the silent majority always pays more heed and respect to people having a fair complexion. Thus, it is safe to say that light skinned people tend to get fair attention as compared to people having dark skin.

Because of this colourism, some people of color are destined to face bullying and harassment in some environments whether it be their schools or their workplace. The black children often find it difficult to get engaged in their curricular activities due the bullying culture. To eradicate this problem, Meta platforms is offering scholarships to 100,000 black students that are working towards online skills certification. Unfair treatment to the people of color is the main reason the black owned businesses inside the United States are smaller, with fewer staff members, decreased average income, and decreased average payroll expenditures, than businesses overall. Around 60% of small and medium sized businesses reported that they did not get any financial support during the COVID-19. Also, around 25% of small and medium sized businesses that are driven by women are reported to have come to an end throughout the world during the pandemic.

According to Meta’s latest ‘State of Small Business Report’, over 1/2 minority led businesses have reported a drop in sales during the crucial times of COVID-19, which is around 6% more than different small and medium sized businesses. But on the contrary nearly two thirds of Black led businesses particularly, have reported a drop in sales of more than 50%. As per another research on the Black owned small and medium sized businesses, around 51 percent of Black owned businesses are reported to have lower sales as compared to any other small or medium sized business. This study was quite alarming.

Meta claims that more than 200 million businesses use their applications everyday to reach out to their customers. Not only this, but in January 2022 the Grammy award winning singer and philanthropist Ciara teamed up with Meta to aid ten small businesses that are typically owned by black women. This selection was specifically based on the determination of the business owners, plus, the major purpose was to empower the black community.

It has always been a major goal for the Meta to support the communities around people of color, the minds at Meta come up with plan to create a space in Facebook application which is named "Meta Elevate" for the purpose to shine a light on stories inspired by people of color, share educational assets, and motivate people to take measures by rising money for racial equity. Meta also asked its workers to share schemes for new features and products to help contest against the racial injustice.

According to Sheryl Sandberg, Meta is planning to invest its resources to support the black businesses this year, dark skinned content creators and also to support the nonprofits to help serve the people of color.

Meta promises to do whatever it can to aid these businesses owned by dark skinned people. Meta has been actively working to offer greater assistance for black owned brands, so that it will elevate their performance and get rid of ongoing social inequality.


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