A Chance To Get Into The Room - washingtonpost.com: ... Ford's anxiety about image is common among black businessmen who are barreling into territory where relatively few of them have established ownership: information technology, construction, real estate, financial management. Many bring with them advanced degrees, years of corporate experience, and cultural and emotional complexities that can both enrich and burden their lives as business owners. Many struggle with whether they must sacrifice their identity to be successful. In Ford's case, that means questioning whether Enlightened should even promote that it is black-owned.
'The dilemma is you don't know whether doing this or not will help,' says Barron H. Harvey, dean of Howard University's School of Business and a long-time consultant to minority businesses. 'There are some firms that have decided they are going to be who they are and not downplay that they are black-owned. But then they question if they had done it differently, would they have been more successful? You never know.'
