Is There Fairness in Corporate America? – GDN Exclusive
by Afi G. Osakwe, Contributing Writer 02/01/2021
Afi G. Osakwe, Contributing Writer
According to historian, Edward E. Baptist in How Slavery Became America’s First Big Business, it was 1792, when one hundred and sixty feet from New York City’s slave market, that New York City’s stock market was formed. Corporate America owed that development to the horrors of human trafficking and enslavement the173 years after Blacks were brought to these shores. The 1792 event marked the rise of the United States from a colonial economy to the second largest economy in the world predicated upon that enslavement and economic inequality an injustice that has lasted throughout this nation’s history.
Today, 402 years after being terrorized and subjugated in this land, Black Americans continue organizing and creating implementation tools to redress systemic political and economic exploitation.
One of those emerging strategies includes developing coalitions that include HBCU Alumni, Divine 9, students, community organizations and Black businesses. The coalition touches millions of people working in common purpose. Greater Diversity News has launched two major approaches, “A Call to Colors” and “A Call to Corporate America.” The latter specifically calls upon Corporate America to redress its historical wrongs while the former is a civic engagement initiative directed against voter suppression. Today, corporate America continues its support of economic exploitation and voter suppression through alliances with right-wing think tanks and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). However, the 2018 and 2020 general elections are a testament to successful voter education, registration and mobilization efforts by many individuals and organizations and to their abilities to organize and execute strategies that promote economic equity and political inclusion.
Greater Diversity News (GDN) has been a part of the broad coalition fighting voter suppression and economic inequality and continues to stress the fact that both are being funded and supported by corporate America through their right-wing think tank, ALEC, despite public statements of support for diversity and inclusion. It is becoming more and more difficult for corporate America to justify this contradiction with today’s focus on racial inequities.
Corporate America continues to be challenged to redress these injustice as cited by ALEC Exposed, Better World Shopper, and A Call to Corporate America. GDN will cite those who continue to promote inequality with the millions of consumers by various strategies that will be revealed as we move forward. That redress should include financially supporting civic engagement on HBCU campuses, supporting HBCUs and creating opportunities for capable Black businesses to create wealth.
In the interest of expanding our collective efforts to address the injustices of Corporate America, GDN invites you to subscribe to our free eNews @ www.greaterdiversity.com to keep informed; it requests that you become a member and participate in our Facebook user group “A Call to Corporate America”@ https://www.facebook.com/groups/152616439589560; post to your social media groups about this initiative; and participant in our monthly Public Zoom meetings.
