Most Americans will remember the first few years of the 2020s for the pandemic, the lockdowns, the layoffs, and the Black Lives Matter (BLM)-fueled riots. Shareholders will also remember them as a tempestuous time for the market. Many companies announced mass layoffs and cuts to dividends and share buyback programs. For example, Disney’s last dividend date was Dec. 12, 2019.
But shockingly, as we’ve shown in our BLM Funding Database, companies contributed or pledged more than $83 billion to the BLM movement and related causes following the death of George Floyd.
In fact, according to a study by McKinsey and Company, our figure is conservative, and companies actually committed more than $340 billion to these causes. As a point of reference, $340 billion is 83 percent of the $411 billion the World Bank estimates is needed to reconstruct Ukraine. It is also greater than the GDPs of 51 African countries.
Our database tracking contributions and pledges to the BLM movement and related causes is replete with companies prioritizing “racial justice” to the detriment of shareholders and employees.
Take, for example, AT&T, the Texas-based telecommunications giant, which in 2021 made headlines for its racist, anti-white so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs.
In June 2020, at the height of the pandemic and riots, AT&T laid off 3,400 employees and shut down more than 250 of its retail stores. And in 2022, AT&T cut its quarterly dividend from $0.52 per share to $0.2775 per share to redirect cash flows toward righting its stretched
