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Minority Dealers Concerned Their Gains Will Erode

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Sholnn Freeman, Washington Post, April 28, 2009

Since the 1970s, General Motors has led the way in providing opportunities for minorities to own car dealerships. The automaker pioneered special training programs and put money behind candidates for new dealerships.

Now, after almost four decades of slow but steady progress, minority dealers are increasingly worried that the latest wave of GM cuts could erode any gains. As part of its latest restructuring, GM yesterday said it planned to slash about 2,600, or 40 percent, of its 6,200 dealerships. GM currently has about 240 minority dealers.

GM officials have yet to list which dealers could face closure. GM spokeswoman Susan Garontakos said decisions will be based on individual dealer performance but said the company remains committed to expanding the number of minority-owned dealerships. The criteria include sales, customer satisfaction ratings, capitalization, profitability, location and the quality and size of the store. Minority dealers say those criteria could prove fatal for their operations.

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“I’ve got two of the largest volume Chevrolet stores on either side of me,” said Mike Johnson, owner of Michael Chevrolet in New Baltimore, Mich. “In terms of raw numbers, we don’t compete with the larger, well-established white dealers. GM is going to be looking for the dealers who dominate their market territories.”

GM dealers see other bad signs. They point to GM’s decision to kill the Pontiac brand. Nearly a third of GM’s minority dealers sell Pontiacs, according to the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers.

The number of minority dealerships industry-wide has slipped to about 1,200 from a peak of 2,000 in 2002 and 2003, according to NAMAD. Johnson said he was particularly concerned about the staggering decline of black-owned dealerships at GM.

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Even during good times, minority dealers struggled. Their problems have centered around insufficient capital and being placed in poor locations by the companies. The recession has brought on plummeting sales and tight credit markets, exacerbating the dealers’ troubles.

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Johnson and other dealers say they are troubled by cutbacks in staffing levels of GM corporate initiatives that support minority dealer development. Dealers say the department has been “basically dismantled” by the cutbacks at GM.

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Original article

(Posted on April 30, 2009)

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Comments

1 — Anonymous wrote at 7:35 PM on April 30:

People probably don’t want to get swindled by a black car dealership, either. Buying a car from a black dealership is the worst of both worlds.

2 — John PM wrote at 8:01 PM on April 30:

“GM spokeswoman Susan Garontakos said decisions will be based on individual dealer performance but said the company remains committed to expanding the number of minority-owned dealerships. The criteria include sales, customer satisfaction ratings, capitalization, profitability, location and the quality and size of the store. Minority dealers say those criteria could prove fatal for their operations.”

I must say that this country and its corporate economic rectum, become more of a joke with each passing 24 hour period. What has seriously gone wrong with the mental processes of the GM corporate “elite,” when they miss the fact that even their nonwhite dealers can grasp with ease; this being that “affirmative action” is a luxury, that neither they or the United States can afford anymore. Moreover, that it is one of the key reasons that they and the USA, are now hovering over the financial abyss with no safety net.

And we all know that if this Comrade Garontakos, can speak with confidence for her diabolically deranged Multi Cult masters that: “the company remains committed to expanding the number of minority-owned dealerships,” that they will do it. Probably of the 40% of dealerships to be cut, less than 1% to 5% will be nonwhite in ownership, if any.

As always, God help us all!

3 — Anonymous wrote at 1:29 AM on May 1:

Blacks absolutly killed Chrysler and crippled GM. They demanded and demanded, and did poor work, until the host organism died. Notice how Nisson and Toyota aren’t struggling for life—-they don’t employ vast armies of blacks.

4 — SKIP wrote at 9:31 AM on May 1:

The criteria include sales, customer satisfaction ratings, capitalization, profitability, location and the quality and size of the store. Minority dealers say those criteria could prove fatal for their operations.”

I wonder which of the nouns or verbs above is the most threatening to the blacks. John PM is correct I’m sure, NO MINORITY WILL BE CUT or squeeling lawsuits will follow that WILL break GM. I think GM, Chrysler and Ford SHOULD go the way of the DoDo now, it would be cheaper and less painful for those few of us White taxpaying slaves remaining to row this Titanic we call the U.S.A.

5 — Michigan Patriot wrote at 12:55 PM on May 1:

I have heard ” robbery stories about refunds, rebates, etc. ” from fellow social club(s) members by a former black owned Ford dealership in a white rural S.E. Michigan. This black crooked dealership owner ran his dealership into the ground for both himself and Ford Motor Co.by defrauding White customers for many years. This former owner must likely benefited immensely by some type of a ” minority outreach/specially funded program ” to help blacks own Ford Dealerships ( double racist standards against White owners, of course ). The owner is now a White Man whose father was a senior excutive with Ford; he came in about 5 years ago to try to undo the mistrust and clean up the financial mess that he inherited from the previous black owner, he is succeeding slowly. Special ” favors ” for minorities (affirmative action ) always comes back to bite everyone in the rear; doesn’t it ?

6 — Anonymous wrote at 6:40 PM on May 1:

blacks also did the same damage to USAirways that they did to Chrysler and GM,how many other companies have suffered in a similar manner?,the minority mortgage meltdown has been verified time after time,city after city destroyed by black anti-social behavior,38,000 White women raped in the U.S.each year,the list goes on and on along with black on White crime going unchecked,and mostly unreported!,where will it end?

7 — Anonymous wrote at 8:22 PM on May 1:

With GM now a ward of the welfare state, expect dealership decisions to be made for political reasons, not profitability reasons.

8 — Michael C. Scott wrote at 2:18 PM on May 2:

With GM about to end the Saturn line, I have already sworn I will never buy anything made by GM again, so who cares?

Good riddance, GM. Maybe you can sell the giant SUVs and minivans you prefer building to reasonable sedans to the blacks you like so much.

9 — SKIP wrote at 1:32 PM on May 3:

Good riddance, GM. Maybe you can sell the giant SUVs and minivans you prefer building to reasonable sedans to the blacks you like so much.

The Arabs love the big SUVs, but of course gas is only 18 cents a gallon there.

10 — Anonymous wrote at 11:23 PM on May 4:

There are less than 300 minority-owned General Motors dealerships in the entire country which are owed collectively by African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans. How can you say that minority are the problem when they haven’t been given fair and equitable opportunities to own dealerships? If GM liked blacks so much, wouldn’t there be more black owned dealerships? Think about that one.

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