Data shows Santa Clara County seldom awards contracts to minority businesses [Video]

A new study commissioned by Santa Clara County shows that only a small portion of government contracts are awarded to minority business owners.

Leaders in the minority business community say the data only proves what they’ve been saying for years: minority business owners are being ignored and left out and that has to change. 

“All these tax dollars are being paid by women, mid-sized minority-owned businesses that are not having the opportunity to have access to these major county contracts,” said Walter Wilson, Co-Founder of the Minority Business Consortium of Silicon Valley. 

Wilson says the lack of business opportunity in the county for African American business owners shows stark disparities.

“Black contracting in this county is dismal. Black people are leaving this county in large numbers, primarily because they don’t feel at home. They don’t feel like they belong. Belonging is important these days and guess what, in the last five years, 13,000 people have left this county. Ten thousand of them were …