The West Des Moines Chamber of Commerce has been pushing its “Black & Brown Business Summit” quite a bit. And the event, which the organization hopes to be an annual event, begins today.
As part of the Black & Brown Business Summit, there will be a pitch competition sponsored by Hy-Vee. Minority entrepreneurs can win $10,000 in cash prizes.
The event was created to “elevate ethnic minorities and bring black, indigenous, people of color businesses together to assist with connection building, programming, promotion, training and to provide resources to help businesses grow and prosper.”
The “goal” is to “help advance the minority business community.”
Terrence Thames, owner and creative director of Cocoa Creative Agency, is moderating for the pitch workshop experts.
Here is Terrence’s pinned tweet on his Twitter account:
And here is another tweet from Thames:
A couple other participants include Deidre DeJear, who will participate in the emerging social media/marketing panel. DeJear ran as a Democrat for Iowa Secretary of State in 2018. The chamber’s event page states that DeJear “ran to restore Iowa’s progressive voting laws and fought for fair access to the ballot box.”
Joe Henry will also participate in the established social media/marketing panel. Henry is a realtor, and a “community activist.” You may remember reading about Henry here at The Iowa Standard. Henry is the political director of the group suing Iowa over its new law strengthening election integrity. He has also been involved with the Communist Party USA in the past.
Katherine Harrington, the President and CEO of the West Des Moines Chamber, visited George Floyd Square on Sunday, according to her Facebook page.
“We thought about how we can raise our voice and be a better ally,” she wrote on Facebook.
There is one final element to this story that should be highlighted…
Take a look at the West Des Moines Chamber of Commerce’s staff (and we’re not including “interns” on this list):
As the West Des Moines Chamber hosts an event specifically promoting “black & brown” businesses, what is missing from their “team?”
Let’s look closer at the group described as the “five brainy women” who the chamber consists of, according to its own blog:
Boy, look at all that “diversity.”
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