Corporate Amercia forced to confront its race bias
AFTER hitting the streets to protest racial injustices, Sharon Chuter was disillusioned by the number of corporate brands posting “glossy” messages spouting support for black lives.
The 33-year-old founder of Uoma Beauty, a cosmetics company that caters to black women, came up with a social media challenge to test the sincerity of the companies.
Her #pulluporshutup campaign on Instagram pushed brands to reveal the racial make-up of their corporate workforce and executives. The hashtag has amassed almost 100,000 Instagram followers in a week.
Ms Chuter said it was a wake-up call for many businesses who could not see or did not take seriously enough the silent racism and prejudices that held black people back in their own workplaces.
“The truth hurts and I just felt like brands didn’t want to do it,” she said.
Microsoft has been posting quotes on Twitter from black employees describing how systemic racism takes a toll on their lives. Employee Phil Terrill talked about the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man whose death under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer sparked protests around the globe.
“It should not take the death of black people at this magnitude to inspire everyone to be an ally,”
Mr Terrill is quoted as saying.
Only 4.4 per cent of Microsoft’s workforce across all brands, including retail and warehouse workers, identify as black, and fewer than 3 per cent of its US executives, directors and managers are black, according to the company’s 2019 diversity and inclusion report.
Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella addressed the issue in an email to employees, saying the company “must change first” if it wanted to help change the world, and that it was expanding connections with historically black colleges and universities.
An AP analysis found more than 60 per cent of warehouse and delivery workers in most cities were people of colour. Amazon’s 2019 workforce data showed about 8 per cent of its managers in the US were black, compared with the almost 60 per cent of managers who were white.