Why Corporate Black Lives Matter Initiatives Are Doomed to Fail

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, corporations vowed to take swift actions to curb racism and white supremacy in their organizations. Some proudly announced that they would stand with black lives, and increase diversity and inclusion within their ranks.

As a black woman, I felt that we were finally on the verge of a global awakening on the issue of race. Companies seemed serious about making solid progress in increasing diversity and inclusion in their businesses. I had been waiting for this for most of my career. We were finally there.

Where are we a few months later?

Now, a few months later, I realize that most of these corporate Black Lives Matter posturings are doomed to fail. Why? For several reasons:

Firstly, because most of it wasn’t sincere. Some corporations used the Black Lives Matter movement to promote themselves, to engage in brand activism. According to Phillip Kotler, Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg’s School of Management, brand activism consists of business efforts to promote, impede or direct social, political, economic, and/environmental reforms or stasis with the desire to promote or impede improvements in society.

Consumers now demand that companies take a stance on social issues

Businesses resort to brand activism because, in this day and age, consumers are ruthless. They demand that corporations take a stance on the pressing social issues of our times like Black Lives Matter or Pride. If you don’t, you risk losing significant portions of market share.

For a Nike or Adidas, imagine losing swaths of black consumers who venerate their product ranges or even worse losing key brand ambassadors like Serena Williams or Colin Kaepernick? There was no way they were going to let this happen, so brand activism was the way to go. These brands and many others portrayed themselves as entities that value and respect black lives. But do they really?

The writing is on the wall, the facts are clear

The facts are clear: of the 46 major companies that engaged in BLM commitments, including the likes of Nike, Adidas, L’Oreal, Spotify, and Apple, not one, let me repeat not one has a single black person on their executive board. Do black lives really matter for these companies if they don’t even have one black person contributing to decision making at the most senior echelons of their enterprises? I would think not.

Some of these mammoths have been hiring loads of people since the dawn of time. So if there are only a few black people working there or in senior decision making roles, there must have been a deliberate decision for that to happen. There are scores of black and brown people competent enough to work at the senior echelons of these organizations. So why didn’t these companies hire them? The answer is clear and simple: Because they didn’t want to.

So yes, all this to say that there is a certain level of hypocrisy out there, but I’m fine to overlook this if it means that corporates are now really serious about finally instilling genuine and not token diversity and inclusion in their ranks.

As companies made BLM announcements, I started following them closely to better understand the concrete steps they were putting in place to curb anti-racism and open their doors to more people of color. What I found is that many companies have no idea about how to go about doing this.

They were taken by surprise by Geroge Floyd’s murder, made big announcements for what now looks to me like a publicity stunt, but they didn’t have the foundation or expertise upon which to build such programs.

And then there is another simple reality: a company can launch as many BLM and diversity initiatives as it wants, but these programs can only work if there are enough black and brown employees investing their time and efforts to champion, advocate and help implement them.

If black people are in your face on a daily basis, you can’t afford to pass on these programs, they will hold your accountable. And you need these black and brown employees because white employees are often too imbued in white privilege or lacking the knowledge about how to even begin to understand or go about such a Herculean task.

So again my point, if you don’t have a critical mass of black employees, to begin with, or if you don’t hurry to hire tonnes of them now, your programs will fail.

Case in point, the women’s rights movement became successful because there was at least a critical mass of women in the workplace to see it through. Men who also saw the benefits of their wives working were strong allies in this movement as well. Together they were able to change mindsets and initiate, drive, and implement social change.

So the same goes for black lives matter initiatives — within and also outside the corporate sphere. The people concerned — meaning black people — will need to be present and feel empowered to actually drive these programs toward successful and laudable outcomes.

Thanks for reading my perspective.