January 2019


www.hamptonroadsmessenger.com


Virginia’s Small Businesses Need Digital Tech and Data


Your Opinion Matters


The Hampton Roads Messenger 5


White Churches Have a Moral Responsibility to Stand Up


BY REVEREND JESSE JACKSON, SR. Photo Courtesy of Sitinmovement.org


In 2019, we will commemorate BY JEANNIE FRANKS Digital business tools


technology and digital are


increasingly


powering today’s small businesses. In Virginia, small businesses employ more than 1.5 million people. Many, like the business I started two months ago,


use digital technologies to


make a “traditional” small business more efficient, easier to manage and more successful. Now we are hoping that government regulation of digital platforms does not harm our momentum and success.


I started a digital notary business two months ago as my post-military retirement


plan. Already I have


serviced more than 200 customers, including dozens who were outside of the United States. Most notaries disappear when the local bank branch closes down for the day, but as a pioneering


digital notary, I can be


available nights and weekends to serve customers whose busy lives do not fit a 9-to-5 schedule.


The notary platform I use is secure, which is very important because customers must share sensitive data so I can authenticate identity and notarize electronic signatures. I am proud that our software platform is secure and customer data is protected, but I am concerned by some privacy and data protection


legislative that proposals that


could harm small digital businesses. For example, some


propose every digital business have a


Chief Privacy Officer. Others want government to regulate artificial intelligence, or to identify specifically the business partners that are storing and securing customer data.


I sure hope that my 1-person business will not need a Chief Privacy Officer, as I am already busy enough switching hats as the Chief Executive, Marketing, Sales and Operations Officer. I also do not want to email every


customer if our software


platform picks new partners for data storage and security. People want to know that my company and our


software platform are secure, but they do not want spam email with useless information.


Soon I hope to start advertising


my business online. In doing so I will utilize artificial intelligence and data science that advertising partners provide their small business customers. I hope that legislators allow


me advertising to use that data so remains inexpensive


and so I can hyper-target potential customers.


It is hard to predict what laws Congress will consider in 2019, but it is most important that


Senators


Warner and Kaine and Congressman Scott


internet companies. It


understand how many small businesses stand on top of our foundational


is easy to blame Google, Amazon and Facebook for making mistakes or being hacked, and to call them monopolists. It is harder to understand that


these and many more digital platforms are using data science and artificial intelligence to help small businesses succeed. If government insists on massive changes to their operations, small businesses like mine could be hurt badly or even put out of business.


There


stay-at-home moms and of corporate


are so many veterans, prisoners


America who long


to start a business using their ingenuity and hard work. Thanks to digital technology I have taken the plunge and I am excited about my successful beginning. I hope that in 2019 Congress shows its support for digitally-powered by protecting


small our opportunity


businesses, to


succeed and the platforms that support us.


Commissioned by the Commonwealth of


Jeannie Franks is a Notary Public Virginia, and President of


NotaryNow, LLC in Hampton, VA and a member of the Connected Commerce Council (3C). Notaries do not provide legal advice.


Learn what's new at HBCUs across the country at www.thehbcuadvocate.com


400 years since the first 20 slaves were transported by ship from Africa by white slave traders and landed in Jamestown, Va.


Now four centuries later, race


remains a central dividing line. Today, for example, the racial wealth gap exposes a stark difference. The median wealth of a white household (median means half are above and half below) is 12 times greater than that of a black household. The median wealth of a white household is $134,430, of blacks it is $11,030.


a home, the leading source of middle income wealth.


still suffer from de facto segregation, after years of being red-lined from decent neighborhoods.


In the financial collapse, African-


American households suffered the worse. Black unemployment rose twice as much as white unemployment in the Great Recession. Middle-class black families,


lacking inherited wealth,


were targeted for the most aggressive and leveraged home loans. When the bust came, they were the most at risk and suffered the greatest loss of homes.


educational employment,


The wealth gap is not erased by attainment, by full-time by getting


the right


occupation. The typical black family with a head of household working full time has less wealth than a white family whose head of household is unemployed. Median wealth for a black family whose head has a college degree is about 1/8 that of a median white family similarly educated.


African-Americans are constantly


told to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. In the black church, for example, ministers repeatedly preach the need for discipline, self-reliance, faith and hard work. Yet even those who succeed still remain behind.


The divide has deep historical


roots. Two-hundred forty-six years of chattel slavery (1619-1865), only twelve years of Reconstruction (1865-1877), 19 years of Black Codes, KKK and white citizen council violence (1877-1896), 58 years of legal apartheid with nearly 5,000 African- Americans lynched and, even since the 1954 Brown decision, ongoing racial discrimination


elections, During the recent Democrats I was constantly asked midterm


whether African-Americans would vote in high enough numbers and margins for


so that


candidates white and black had a chance to be elected. Democrats seem almost satisfied if 20 to 30 percent of whites turn out to vote for black or progressive white candidates.


This is virtually all about equity in African-Americans


What The responsibility do white


people have to register and turnout for progressive black and white Democrats running for office


nation is facing many


morally relevant social, economic and political crises — voter suppression, income and wealth inequality, criminal justice reform and climate change —that now pose an existential threat to the next generation. Why does the white church remain so silent in the face of these mounting crises and denial of justice and opportunity?


dogs biting children,


In Birmingham in 1963, with high-pressure


fire hoses knocking down peaceful protesters,


churches and Dr. King in jail, many white


bombers blowing church


leaders chose


to attack Dr. King’s non-violent methodology rather than to fight for a non-discriminatory Accommodations Act.


Public One would have thought when


the four little girls were bombed in the 16th Street Baptist Church, white churches would have at least held prayer services or services of reconciliation. Instead, most attacked Dr. King as an outside agitator, as if he had set the bombs.


a stark


Recently in Alabama, I witnessed contrast. One extreme was


the excitement in anticipation of the Georgia/Alabama SEC championship football game. When a young African- American


athlete, Jalen Hurts,


replaced an injured Tua Tagovailoa at quarterback, every Alabamian of every political persuasion, right, left and center, was pulling for him.


of skill, Alabama won the game. He not only won the game,


With Hurts’ remarkable display he


arguably beat George Wallace and the legislators who earlier locked blacks out of the University of Alabama. He beat Bull Connor who unleashed the dogs on demonstrators and the KKK on Freedom Riders. He beat the KKK bombers who watched as the church was decimated and four little


girls


were murdered. The other extreme was witnessed


in Hoover, Ala., where E.J. Bradford was shot in the back by a policeman. That police officer is still on the payroll. The patterns and prejudices of the old South are hard to overcome.


Here once more, the white church has the opportunity and the responsibility to stand up, to serve as a Christian witness. White voices of moral authority and inclusive leadership are needed now as much or more than ever.


That is why the silence seems so deafening. up


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