“How are the kids?”

“Did you catch the game last night?” These are the types of conversations that can be heard over the sound of the TV set that is tuned to Black Entertainment Television.

The owner of the shop, Jon Wafer, works out of the barber chair closest to the door. While he is busy cutting a customer’s hair, his watchful eyes are constantly peering across the shop, keeping track of everything that goes on in his store. He says that although this is where people come to get a cut or shave, it also is where people come to get away from the hustle and bustle of the world.

“This is a place to get a haircut as well as a place for people to let their hair down,” says Wafer. “People come in here to see one another, to socialize, to catch up on the latest news in the community. We laugh, we joke we go back and forth talking about everything. We enjoy coming to work, and people enjoy coming in here.”

Wafer is proud of his success. His business has been open for six years now, and he is already looking to expand. But as an African-American business owner, as well as a barber—a job he takes quite seriously—he knows that he holds a great responsibility to the community.

“In some ways, I am a role model for kids,” says Wafer. “When I was growing up, you didn’t see many black business owners. I think it’s very important for kids to see that black people can do this, so that they have something to aspire toward and to look up to. And one day they will become the next generation of entrepreneurs.”

Wafer says that although there has been an increase in—and improvement of—black role models on TV, those images are not as tangible as the local barbershop or restaurant owner in the neighborhood.

“Seeing successful black people on TV doesn’t have the same impact on kids as seeing, day in and day out, successful black people living and working in the community,” says Wafer. “We try to show by example, by the way we dress, the things we discuss in our shop, that you don’t have to be what you see on the news.”

This is one reason why Wafer is enthusiastic about the recent boom of businesses owned by people of color on Central Avenue. Creative Technologies, Helen’s Just Enough Florist, Top Notch Clothing, Circle City Gallery, 2 Brothers Urban Apparel and Monique’s Cafe are just a few of the many businesses that have opened along Central Avenue in the past couple of years.

Anthony Capece, executive director of the Central Avenue Business Improvement District, says that there is a real upswing in activity on Central Avenue, and that minority businesses are sprouting up everywhere.

“In the past two years, things have really taken off for this area,” says Capece. “A real change has taken place. Where we used to see a lot of transient stores opening up and then closing shortly thereafter, we are now seeing a lot of really solid minority-owned businesses, like contracting companies, computer stores, plumbers and parts stores moving in.”

As a result, Capece says, the neighborhood is stabilizing.

“It’s really been nice,” he comments. “We see a lot of people who feel this is a good place for minority ownership. We have an opportunity to make this a real multicultural niche.”

Deborah Williams Muhammad, cofounder of Gelede Center Inc., a nonprofit consulting business, says she can’t emphasize enough what an important impact it has on a community when people of color open their own businesses.

“Ownership equals empowerment,” Muhammad says. “Just as it is important for the kids to see people of color going into business, the impact this has on adults is equally important. It lends itself to self-sufficiency and to be able to sustain yourself.”

However, Muhammed says, there are some unique challenges people of color face when they decide to go into business for themselves—challenges that most white business owners don’t come up against. For one, she says, people of color have to work harder to prove that they are committed to their work.

“The hard reality is that many black businesses get judged with a different yardstick than white businesses,” she says.

For example, when she meets with a realtor or an attorney on behalf of one of her clients, more times than not, if her client is a person of color, the realtor will question the client’s seriousness and ask whether Muhammad really thinks they have the ability to pull it off.

Blacks also tend to become easy targets for stereotypes that may hurt their ability to prosper.

All too often, when a black business is successful, some people automatically think it is a front for drug money or a gambling ring, and therefore don’t shop there. All types of people, she adds, not just white people, believe the stereotypes.

Muhammad says that she had one client who was standing on Central Avenue outside of his business, leaning on his SUV and talking on his cell phone; people automatically made the assumption that he was a drug dealer.

“They didn’t know that he was on the phone selling computers to one of the biggest businesses in Albany,” she adds. “These types of assumptions would not be made if he had been white. . . . But black people are given less benefit of the doubt, and it makes it harder for us to prove ourselves.”

Often, Muhammad says, when she is conducting her business by phone, she finds that she can get a lot farther by changing the tone of her voice to sound more like a white person.

“I have learned to turn it on and off—my voice that is,” said Muhammad. “Socially, I am not happy that I have to do this, but I understand how perception and socialized information plays into things, and that is just a reality. I deal with it every day of my life.”

For Antoine Harrison, owner of Creative Technologies at 169 Central Ave., managing these unique challenges is just as much a part of business as anything else.

“Although a lot of people swear that they are not prejudiced, they do things in a prejudiced nature,” says Harrison.

For example, Harrison says, people will automatically assume that Harrison works for someone else—that he is not the owner of Creative Technologies.

He says that when he goes into a meeting accompanied by one of his white employees, people will turn automatically to the employee first, or will try to make a deal with the white person rather than with Harrison.

He also notes that if his business and a competing white business carry the same products for the same price, people often will go to the white business because they seem to trust its product over his, even thought they are exactly the same. And Harrison has encountered people who tell him he should drop his prices.

“It’s like people think that they should pay less for a service provided by a black company than a white company,” says Harrison.

To combat these prejudices, Harrison tries to overact the part of the perfect business owner.

“I try to fit that stereotype of the business owner, business model, to a tee,” says Harrison. “I don’t have the room, like white businesses may have, to be the slightest bit casual in any of my affairs. It is not like I have the advantage of walking into a business and saying, ‘Hi, I’m Antoine and Johnny sent me.’ I am black and I am on my own. I am obviously not part of the good-old-boys club.”

Like many other minority business owners, Harrison enjoys working on Central Avenue and seeing black people patronize black businesses. He sees his role, particularly as a black man involved in technology, as very important.

“On TV, when we hear about black business, it is always entertainers like Puff Daddy, and it’s always clothing or music,” says Harrison. “You rarely see black mathematicians, engineers or those involved in technology. Hopefully, people will see what I am doing and realize that they can do it as well.”

Larry Woodson and Sha Thomson, owners of 2 Brothers Urban Apparel, a clothing store that has been open for eight months at 201 Central Ave., say that many people who see their store assume that it is run by drug dealers.

Woodson attributes this misconception to the hiphop clothing that they sell and wear. Both brothers also are recovering drug addicts, which they feel may add to some people’s suspicions.

“People assume that we are selling drugs,” says Thomson. “The police drive by and watch because of the clothes that we sell, and people start to talk. It is always going to be that way. There is always that outlook of the black person. But that is not for me to feed into.”

Woodson agrees and says that the significant role that they play, not only as black business owners but also as two people who have turned their lives around, outweighs its negative side.

“You know we are here all day, every day, and kids walk by and see us doing this, and we know we are making a difference,” says Woodson. “We are neighborhood people. People see us at the Price Chopper, at the Laundromat and the car wash. We are team players and we are showing them that this can be done and that is what matters most.”