Moving on up: it's time the U.S. rethink the term "disadvantaged business".

• Author: Romero, Edward O.
• Position: Column

I recently moved from the third floor to the ninth floor of a 10-floor condo residence. It reminded me of the sitcom "The Jeffersons." Mr. Jefferson, an African-American, is able to ''move on up to the east side to a deluxe apartment in the sky,'' thanks to the success of his dry-cleaning business.

I don't know that I felt more important as a result of my "move on up," but I did have a better view of the mountains.

Not long ago, I attended the "Disadvantaged, Minority and Small Business Seminar" hosted by Don Marostica, executive director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade. The seminar outlined the economy and the future role of "DBEs," minority and small business in Colorado and ended with an emphasis on opportunities for the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise community.

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All of a sudden it hit me that I was a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise. After some 40 years of being an entrepreneur, I realized that according to my government I have been disadvantaged all of that time. I have not been promoted to equal business status, achieved success that led to the elimination of the terms minority or DBE. I was to be a minority or DBE for all my business life. The labels minority and DBE had been part of our sense of being for so long it seemed normal to be a minority business.

I asked myself who made the decision that I was to be a minority in America? Who decided that I had to be disadvantaged to be in business in America? Who had the right to make that decision? Leave it to the United States of America and Congress to label us with demeaning labels for all of our lives. When does it end?

Discrimination has certainly been a part of our collective existence for the last 200 years. Congress in its infinite wisdom created programs of inclusion and then in order to justify those programs gave us demeaning labels that don't ever seem to go away.

There is no doubt that the terms minority and DBE affected our ability to operate on that mystical "level playing field." We were literally forced on big business by set-asides from local, state and federal mandates. We were suspect in our ability to deliver a product, achieve an on-time schedule and in general be successful. In fact, even today we know that big business is hesitant to acknowledge we are real and that we are here to stay.

America is changing, and...