A group of children hold up their fists in front of a Black Lives Matter sign as people gather to protest the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, near the White House in Washington, US, Jun 7, 2020. SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK: In the past, American corporations have largely remained silent as protests erupted over killings of African-Americans by police officers.
Companies’ willingness to take strong stands could signal a substantive shift in the attitudes of corporate leaders, said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist for Leuthold Group, a research and asset management firm. “Some is probably lip service, but I think it goes beyond that, and there's a realisation that something needs to change,” Paulsen said.
The growing corporate involvement may also reflect a shift in public attitudes on race, said R. Paul Herman, chief executive of sustainable ratings agency HIP Investor. In the past, he said, companies avoided weighing in on racial controversies for fear of alienating customers. A Monmouth University poll released on Jun 2 showed the proportion of Americans who consider racial discrimination to be a big problem has increased from about half in 2015 to about three in four now.
African-Americans make up less than 4 per cent of Facebook’s workforce and about 3 per cent of its senior leadership, compared to 13 per cent of the US populace, according to company disclosures. Other major technology firms, including Google, Twitter, Intel and Microsoft, have disclosed similarly low proportions of African-American workers and senior managers, relative to the population.
Proportions of African-American workers are much higher at firms with large numbers of relatively low-paid workers, such as retailers Walmart and Amazon, according to company disclosures. But the higher percentages don’t extend to the senior management ranks of either retailer and remain well below the level of the US population, the disclosures show.
Amazon has defended Rekognition and said all users must follow laws limiting its use. An Amazon spokeswoman did not directly address the criticism and pointed to Amazon’s pledge of US$10 million to social justice causes. Some of that money will go to the ACLU Foundation. The percentage of black board members often mirrors or surpasses that of the broader US population, the company disclosures showed. But the percentage of black employees in senior management is typically much lower.