My credit-card bank,
Citibank, a huge global enterprise, sent me a message on June 5, and probably
to all of their millions of customers. Given the history of corporate politics,
the message was surprising. The CEO of Citi’s US Consumer Bank, Anand Selva, wrote,
“I hope you know that Citi is an organization that champions equality,
diversity and inclusion and is willing to stand up for those values when they
are threatened.” I knew that Citibank paid lip service to equality and
diversity, like all major organizations, but I also knew that the only value
that Citibank had been consistently willing to stand up for was its bottom
line.
The message also quoted two
other high executives, who clearly stated that the racial status quo is not
acceptable. Mike Corbat, Citi’s CEO, said, “The tragic and unnecessary death of
George Floyd in Minneapolis and the ensuing unrest are glaring reminders of the
progress we need to make to have a truly equal and just society.” Jane Fraser,
President of Citi and CEO of Global Consumer Banking said, “We must use this
painful time as the turning point to a better future that embraces our common
good by listening, learning and being committed to taking action to create a
more equal and just society.”
Good talk, but what about
action? In two surprising cases in recent days, financial giants have fired
people for racist actions off the job. The story
of Amy Cooper calling the police in New York’s Central Park on a black man,
Christian Cooper, who wanted her to leash her dog, has become known around the
world, and led to her being fired by Franklin Templeton. Less well known is a
similar incident this month: a white couple saw a Filipino-American man
chalking “Black Lives Matter” on a wall in front of his house and called the
police. The cops recognized the man as the owner of the house and left. The
white man, who had been a managing director in the public finance group at the
wealth-management firm Raymond James, got
fired. Raymond James issued a statement: “Raymond James has zero tolerance
for racism or discrimination of any kind” and the man’s actions “were
inconsistent with our values”.
Firing employees who attract
national attention because of racist behavior is easy, although it seems to me
to be a new phenomenon. Changing the culture that allowed those people to think
that they could safely act out their racism in public is much more difficult.
But perhaps Citibank and other corporate giants will actually do something “to
create a more equal and just society.”
While it’s important to see
that America’s white leadership seems to be shifting position, what really
matters is what the rest of Americans think. Here’s my scientific study of
popular attitudes. I participated in the Black Lives Matter Protest for
Equality on Sunday, June 7, in Jacksonville, our very local piece of the
nationwide protest movement that itself is remarkable. About 100 of us stood at
a major intersection with signs, many about Black Lives Matter. I watched the
stream of traffic for 2 hours. Hundreds of people displayed their approval of
our demonstration by waving, giving thumbs up, flashing the peace sign, raising
clenched fists, and of course honking. People in and on every type of vehicle offered
support: pickup trucks, Cadillacs, motorcycles, guys driving semis, sports
cars, and beaters.
I saw only five expressions
of disapproval: a guy with thumbs down, 2 guys with a middle finger, and 2 guys
shouting “All lives matter.” In a Republican town in the rural Midwest, that
informal survey might indicate a broad shift in opinions about BLM and the
larger issue of racial inequality.
Here’s a final piece of
evidence for anyone who is waiting eagerly or apprehensively for November. I
can’t help checking Trump’s disapproval rating on the website of
538 every day. I have written before that his levels of approval and
disapproval have been remarkably steady since his election, steadier than any
other postwar president. Since March 2017, his disapproval level has ranged
between 52% and 57%, except for a few weeks during this March and April, when
disapproval briefly dipped to 50%. His approval percentage has been between 37%
and 44%, again except for those weeks, when it rocketed upwards to 46%. That
was the only moment during his presidency that his approval got within 4% of
disapproval.
That’s the background. Since
that positive blip, his ratings have gone down, but there have been so many brief
ups and downs over the past 3 years, that nothing seemed to actually change.
But the fall in approval and rise in disapproval has continued for two months,
and the gap is now more than 14%. During the past two years, that has only been
topped during a short period in January 2019. At that level, the presidential
election in November would be a landslide.
Just how much skin color does
matter in America is made visual in a NYTimes
article that graphs the differences between white and black lives in terms
of employment, income, home ownership, college completion, and life expectancy.
In Minneapolis, for example, where protests have been intense, the median
household income in white neighborhoods is nearly $80,000, but only $30,000 in
black neighborhoods.
Some enterprising and
courageous reporters asked Trump supporters at the Tulsa rally this weekend
about what
they teach their children about Black Lives Matter. The usual response was
some version of “The protesters are radical leftists. Trump is doing everything
he can for blacks. We are color blind. All lives matter.”
The attitude that racism is
not worth talking about, much less fighting, has predominated in white America
for decades. It meant, among other things, that police brutality, exercised
within a racist context, was broadly tolerated. Now maybe the rubber band has
snapped.
We’ll see.
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
June 23, 2020
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