From buggies to buses, the first Black-owned US automaker did what few dared
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
While Frederick had the right idea, small firms like his own couldn’t compete for long with the mass-manufacturing might, and daily production capacity, of far larger automakers like Ford, General Motors, Willys, Studebaker, and others. Ford alone was building 10,000 cars a day, a number Patterson couldn’t begin to match.
Beyond sheer manufacturing scale, Patterson also lacked the engineering and design resources of these large concerns. Considering the time frame, that was no doubt due to the fact that, as the company’s own ads state, they were “the only Negro Automobile Manufacturing Concern in the United States.” Systemic racism and prejudice of the time made it difficult for Patterson & Sons to attract the financing necessary to compete. And on top of that, they were a decade too late. If automaking had been undertaken a decade sooner, it’s possible that Patterson & Sons might have grown along with the industry into a larger manufacturer rather than remaining a small-time assembler—something the company never was as a carriage builder.
The racism surely couldn't have helped. It already tells us something that this was the only automobile manufacturer founded and run by a Black man from among around 1900 competitors. I think the article suggests that if the discrimination hadn't made funding so difficult to acquire, they could have overcome their late entry. But it's hard to be sure 100% exactly what would have happened.
Doesn't it? How about the quote you included from the article?
Systemic racism and prejudice of the time made it difficult for Patterson & Sons to attract the financing necessary to compete
...small firms like his own couldn’t compete for long...
We’ll have to wait for the movie.
When someone says "no doubt due" I think people tend to assume but-for causation. But people who make the claim may not have intended that, even when they assume the opposite as listeners. In the next sentence the author uses the phrase "made it difficult", which to me has the effect of qualifying the previous claim, suggesting that "due" is not necessarily a but-for cause, but a notable contributing cause. I don't know what the authors intentions were, or even how much thought they put into it. And there are so many possible interpretations here, though undoubtedly many people will be primed to head down certain well-worn paths.
I wouldn't get too hung up on it. I see this everywhere. I even see it in my own writing. If we're being charitable, we can just chalk it up to not having enough time. (And there's never enough time.) We can probably safely assume a predisposition to emphasize matters of racial inequality. (I haven't read the article, just the title and your excerpt.) But so what? The phrasing is ambiguous, which means it's not wrong on its face, nor is it necessarily lacking support. There's little reason to be anything less than charitable, lest we draw flawed conclusions of our own.
Comparing it to something trivial from my own life, if I read an article about some surfer or skateboarder and he happens to be even older than I am, that makes me feel hopeful about improving my skills. But if the author again and again talks about how hard it is for older surfers and that it's basically a miracle that he even survives then I would feel the opposite.
Yes I know it's not the same but still, it would be interesting to hear from an actual African-American what they feel about this kind of article.
Perhaps in 2148 it will be revealed why sense making is a dangerous ability when the Federation of Planets starts colonizing new worlds.
You have no idea what you would feel, because you aren't.
> I think it would feel more empowering and encouraging if it was written like any other article about a historic person, and just causally mentioned the founders background.
No, whitewashing the context wouldn't make it more more “empowering and encouraging”.in any sense, it would just rob it of honesty and relevance.
> As it is, it doesn't feel empowering at all.
Yeah, honest stories about the Black experience in the late 19th and early 20th Century in the US usually aren't, except in the sense that making people feel less alone in the deep struggles they still face and see their community facing is.
That's not a problem with the storytelling.
> Yes I know it's not the same but still, it would be interesting to hear from an actual African-American what they feel about this kind of article.
As an actual Black American, it is, I guess, a fine piece of the struggle narrative, and notable as a reminder that the struggle was not then (and is not now) limited by either the geography of socioeconomic classes that are usually focussed on (though that focus, in both cases, is not without reason.)
It's not some kind of transcendent work that will liberate you from the struggle just because you've consumed it, but that's hardly the point.
Perhaps you could share examples of stories that actually are empowering and inspirational?
Also - why a company might have failed is always relevant to discuss even if it leads you somewhere uncomfortable.