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28 years ago, in the first case of its kind, a bystander shot a video that captured the brutal police beating of Rodney King. Corporate America swooped in with vows to rebuild South Central LA. But within a year or so, the companies lost interest. 1/9 https://marker.medium.com/the-redlining-of-black-corporate-america-903f0403a4f5
Today, America’s companies have pledged $1.7 billion and counting to black causes in the wake of the George Floyd killing. But history going back to Reconstruction suggests caution — when the attention has passed, the economy has turned, or both, promises have gone unkept. 2/9
Black and White America alike rightly see this as a moment finally for economic justice for black Americans. That means not doling out the usual low-wage jobs, but opening up the higher-paid, white-collar professions that can lift a family into the middle class and beyond. 3/9
Right now, these “jobs of the future”—physics, economics, engineering, venture capital, programming—largely exclude black people. It's as though tech and science have been “redlined,” in the tradition of the urban boundaries that until 1968 kept many neighborhoods white. 4/9
But the persistent nationwide protests, the apparent bipartisan support for them, and pure gut feel have a lot of people convinced that we are at a historic watershed in which black economic justice has been pushed ahead decades in just weeks. 5/9
Much of the attention is on Silicon Valley, the purported capital of US meritocracy, where an idea and some tech know-how can make you a zillionaire. That vision hasn't held for black people, who hold few of the tech jobs and are rarely funded. People want to change that. 6/9
The racial inequities of Silicon Valley are the subject of the equivalent of a street protest right here on Twitter. Consider this thread Monday about racial problems at Pinterest. https://twitter.com/IfeomaOzoma/status/1272546213322080258?s=20 7/9
The argument is that this isn't just about equity, but about profit—that white America is losing money by excluding black talent. Studies show that diverse management teams produce higher returns than all-white teams. Yet … yet … the bulk of startup teams remain all-white. 8/9
Is the tech world — and corporate America at large — ready to make the kind of massive, systemic cultural and personnel changes that black America is seeking? That is the drama unfolding before our eyes. 9/9
