The assassination of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter momentum
Dorothy Rhau ·
How many businesses from Black communities employ more than ten people? How many generate revenues of more than 5 million dollars?
On the economic front, in Canada, business leaders made commitments through the BlackNorth Initiative. Financial institutions created dedicated funds for Black entrepreneurs. The federal government launched the Black Entrepreneurship Program, Canada's "Supporting Black Canadian Communities Initiative," and the Black Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub.
After just over five years, one question remains — and it is a legitimate one: where are the results? Where are the measurable transformations in access to capital, supply chains, and the spaces where major economic decisions are made?
How many businesses from Black communities employ more than ten people? How many generate revenues exceeding $5 million?
Commitments were made. Funds were announced. Programs were created. But these responses were deployed in parallel, without any true shared architecture. On the institutional side, commitments remained largely voluntary, leaving their impact fragile and reversible.
On the Black communities' side, the influx of funding — a historic first — also produced a less-discussed effect: a proliferation of organizations, sometimes without sufficient oversight, without shared standards or support commensurate with their new responsibilities.
In the absence of transmitted institutional experience, structured mentorship, and collective mechanisms for growth, we sometimes confused access to funding with lasting organizational development. It must be said honestly: not all of us were prepared for this scale.
To this is now added another troubling signal: the quiet retreat of EDI policies. Reduced budgets. Neutralized language. The disappearance of the word "Black." What was once named becomes diluted. In a context of rising right-wing politics and political polarization, non-institutionalized initiatives become vulnerable.
This observation goes beyond economics
In health, education, justice, the cultural sector, and academia, data remains absent or unbroken down. Representation sometimes advances, without any real capacity to act. Without clear data, without longitudinal tracking, and without stated objectives, there is a serious risk of conflating visibility with transformation.
The true post–Black Lives Matter challenge is therefore no longer moral. It is structural, institutional, and political. It compels us to put forward two simultaneous demands:
- institutions capable of delivering measurable and lasting results;
- communities equipped to organize themselves, grow, and sustainably occupy positions of power.
What comes next will not depend on new symbolic commitments, but on our collective ability to transform intentions into lasting structures.