This has been an interesting summer.

For purely commercial purposes I have been trying to get information on consumers of Black and North African origin in Europe. Why? I have a U.S. client ( a Black owned company) which sells hair products predominantly for Black people. The texture of our hair being different, we require different products than people of European origin. Clear and simple.

I contacted over a dozen major market research firms in Europe to do a multi-country survey and was surprised to discover that initially none would accept the mandate. In most of Europe, it is illegal to collect and collate data with respect to ethnic background and income. The idea is that the governments do not want to discriminate or encourage such discrimination and therefore there is no need for such differentiation. Data that is freely available in the U.S.A. or Canada, often as part of the national census, is illegal in most of Europe!

In other words, they don't really know how many of us there are!

Furthermore, current ethnic and religious tensions in Europe means that any such research would have to be done with a degree of delicacy that the mainstream firms just don't seem to have. One quote I did finally receive, for a million dollars, was submitted by a German group of a dozen Blonde haired, blue eyed females who did not even have any Black or Arab/Turkish employees or associate companies. While probably technically competent, I can just imagine these young MBA's trotting around the "banlieues" of Marseille or parts of London. Who is going to confide in them?

The one company that did come forward with a credible quotation, refused categorically to conduct the research in the Netherlands and I am being forced to conduct the research there myself. Holland is apparently a racial tinderbox.

Discrimination against Blacks and Arabs, particularly economic discrimination, is rampant in most of Europe. The situation ranges from avoidance in Western Europe to outright violence in parts of Russia and Italy. Indeed, one of the problems that the research firms faced in trying to quote me, was establishing credible outreach into the "ethnic" or "immigrant" communities. They just did not have the right profile of employee.

As there is no publicly available data on these communities, it becomes difficult for companies and marketers to estimate purchasing power, design products and support them as they do elsewhere in the world. This also means a lack of economic and political clout for the concerned group, who never realize how powerful they just might be. Some 25 million Black people who are European citizens are a force to be reckoned with. And don't assume we are all poor! The same applies to North Africans in France or the newly arrived Moroccans in the Netherlands.

The lack of research capability is another example of the commercial and political marginalization of Blacks and Arabs in Europe, and while perhaps laudable in its original intent, is actually an insult to a large group of consumers. The French government recently appointed a Minister for Diversity, who soon after realized that there were no official statistics upon which to base policy decisions. How are decisions made then?

In 2009, this situation is ludicrous and insulting.

Hey Mr. Sarkozy, Ms. Merkel et. al: how can we dance when you're standing on our feet?


W.L. Carney
September 2009