Corporate Blackface
Speech
noun
the idea that corporations publicly declare support of the Black Lives Matter movement, often with vague language, without actually committing to or implementing real, systemic change within their company to support Black employees, clients, customers, and community
Examples
When a company:
- releases statements, claiming to support Black lives, but fails to fix the toxicity and discrimination against Black people within their own company culture
- openly showcases illustrations and or stock photography of Black people in its marketing materials, but doesn't actually include them in any of its teams and/or user research
- has an all-white leadership team and tweets about its support of Black Lives Matter without addressing its complicity within white supremacy
- does little to impact policy that disproportionately and negatively influences their Black employees, clients, and/or customers
- claims to care about diversity and representation, but then retaliates against/terminates a Black employee for identifying and speaking out on anti-Blackness they experience in the workplace
- no longer actively tries to increase diversity and inclusion in their company after Black Lives Matter is no longer trending on social media
While the list above is finite, there are many more ways that corporations show again and again that they only really care about their image, rather than Black lives.
Related Words
Further Reading
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