WEEBEDEBEs

An old boss used to call them WEEBEDEBEs. Working in a University setting with lots of government money there are subcontracting plans that have to be filed to explain how you are spending some of their money to Small Disadvantaged Homeless Minority Blind Hub Zone Mentally Challenged Women Owned Businesses.
Back in the 80s, big corporations were setting up dummy front companies which they would sell to at their cost so the little company could sell to government funded people. The State Universities HAVE to spend a certain %. Private schools try, but sometimes don't. We all want to look good- like we are supporting local businesses and the little guys. Travel Agents and Caterers were good for reaching your goals. Asians and Middle Eastern folks were not minority. (Just like in LA Unified- mostly because they had money I suppose) American Indians were hard to find and buy from. And all of this relied on the company telling us what they were and how they were qualified to get business allotted to their category.

There was one that shall remain nameless, that hired a lot of black saleswomen and proceeded to sell on the basis of being a small black women-owned business. They got major contracts with State schools. My experience with them was that they were dishonest, bribed officials to get orders and jacked up the prices whenever they thought no one was looking. I signed and canceled a couple of contracts with them because they did not deliver what they had promised. One day we needed a new form from them to keep on file for our auditors. They refused to identify who owned them. My boss asked me to research them and I could not identify who did own them. I did find a picture of their General Manager with his staff behind him and he had too many employees to qualify as a small business. The judgment was that we accepted what they said they were.

LA Unified has a similar absurd program with their magnet schools. The magnets were originally created to get a balance of the races together and that seems a good idea, don't you think? But these days it means that if you are white, its easier for you to get into the magnet schools. If you are Asian or Middle Eastern, you are not a minority. And its all based on what you put on the form. Kids that are half-Asian half-white and kids that are half-black and half-white are not- they are either white or not. If the parents were smart enough to list them as white, they get in.

When I go set up my cart over on Venice beach, I'm going to bill myself as mentally-challenged. I've gotten myself in trouble for putting zeros on these kinds of government forms.