San Francisco (AFP)
Companies are not often ready to embark on an examination of conscience on the diversity - or lack thereof - within their personnel, but the surge of anger provoked by the death of George Floyd in the United States forced them to show their solidarity with African-Americans, or even make donations or promises.
Non-exhaustive overview of the responses of societies to pressure from the street and networks against systemic racism.
- Symbolic gestures -
"For once, + Don't Do It + ... Don't pretend there's not a (racism) problem in America," Nike tweeted May 29, hijacking its famous slogan ("Just Must").
It is one of the first brands to draw an ad hoc response to the murder of George Floyd, asphyxiated by a white police officer, while several large American cities were facing riots.
At the same time, Mark Mason, the financial director of Citibank, an African-American, wrote 10 times in a row "I can't breathe" ("I can't breathe") in a blog post on the bank's website. .
Other symbolic gestures followed: Playstation (Sony), Android (Google) and Electronic Arts reported marketing events, explaining that it was "not the moment".
Jack Dorsey has decided to make June 19, the holiday that commemorates the emancipation of the last slaves in the United States, a holiday in the country for his two companies, Twitter and Square.
Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of the Reddit platform and husband of Serena Williams, resigned from the board on June 5 and asked the company to hire a black candidate to replace him.
- Actions, reactions -
The computer giant IBM announced at the beginning of June to suspend the sale of facial recognition software. This technology is accused of being unreliable in the identification of minorities, especially black or Asian.
Amazon and Microsoft, under pressure from associations calling on them to position themselves "on the right side of history", followed suit.
Social networks are both platforms for combating racism and target many activists, who accuse them of facilitating the spread of hatred.
Twitter masked for the first time a message from Donald Trump who said in late May that the riots would be "greeted by bullets".
The Twitch streaming platform temporarily suspended the President's account for hateful behavior, and Reddit, usually very permissive, banned a Trump fan forum for violating its hate speech rules.
Grindr, a gay dating app, has removed the ethnicity filter.
But the big piece is obviously Facebook, regularly accused of laxity. The global social network, which has invested heavily in moderation of content, has banished supremacist groups and hardened its regulations.
Insufficient, respond associations and nearly 1,000 advertisers who participate in an advertising boycott against the network.
- Sub -
Apple has launched a $ 100 million "Racial Equity and Justice" initiative, Facebook is going to spend $ 200 million to support African-American SMEs, and Google needs to donate $ 275 million to various causes to fight racial discrimination, including 100 million by YouTube to help black artists.
The Japanese SoftBank Group will create a $ 100 million fund for start-ups founded by black entrepreneurs.
Walmart (distribution) is also putting 100 million on the table, over 5 years, to create a "center of racial equality".
Many entrepreneurs and companies have donated to civil society organizations linked to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Nike promised 40 million over 4 years, Amazon and Target supermarkets each promised 10 million, Coca-Cola 2.5 million, and Satya Nadella, the boss of Microsoft, 1.5 million.
Next come Electronic Arts, H&M, Gap, Levi's, Peloton, Ubisoft, and many other brands.
- Some promises -
Adidas has promised that 30% of new hires in the United States will be black or of Latin American origin.
Google wants to promote African-Americans in the management of the company and has set itself the objective of improving the representation of minority groups by 30% by 2025.
Microsoft, Apple and others have made similar commitments.
Target will offer 10,000 hours of free advice for SMEs owned by "black and colored people".
Airbnb, which says it has banished 1.3 million people since 2016 for "refusing to treat others without prejudice", has pledged to "flush out, assess and overcome" discrimination in the booking process.
© 2020 AFP