Black people and other people of color are calling out not just police brutality, but also racism, discrimination, harassment and racial bias in the workplace. They're sharing stories publicly about bosses and colleagues who have mistreated them and others. They're pointing out that the companies that now publicly state that Black lives matter don't bother to actually follow through by treating employees of color fairly and equally.
It's hard not to see parallels to how the Me Too moment took off in 2017, when women (and some men) shared stories of sexism, discrimination, harassment and assault.
Back then, powerful people were fired. And they're starting to drop now too.
A reckoning could be at hand. Companies have long paid lip service to Black people and diversity, with little to show for it, even when their employees urge them to improve. Executive suites are blindingly white. But some observers note this time around could be different. As brands try their usual mix of social media sloganeering, their current and former employees are pushing them further and holding them to account.
"Black folks are having a moment where they say, I have my stories, too," said Evelyn Carter, director at Paradigm, a consulting company that works with businesses on their diversity and inclusion strategies. "Those who have experienced racism, whether subtle, overt, individual or structural, for a long time, are finally being listened to."
Carter said the combination of stories surfacing on social media and companies and celebrities taking swift action "feels Me Too-like."
Racism is baked into corporate America, just as it is baked into the criminal justice system. That's clear from the numbers: There are only four Black CEOs on the
Fortune 500. Just 3.3% of executive-level roles are held by Black professionals in the U.S., according to
federal data. Only about
1% of the entrepreneurs who get venture capital funding are Black. (VC-backed companies often go on to become billion-dollar behemoths, typically with diversity issues, like Google, Facebook and Uber.)
"Corporate America has failed black America," Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation and a member of the board of Pepsi, and a Black man, told
The New York Times this past weekend. "Even after a generation of Ivy League educations and extraordinary talented African-Americans going into corporate America, we seem to have hit a wall."
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