Action Items: A Breakdown on Sneaker Brands Delivering on their Promises to Black People
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The year 2020 was a lot. And that’s putting it lightly.
The year will forever be remembered for one of the most horrific events the world has witnessed with the killing of George Floyd on May 25th. The aftermath, included worldwide protests, asinine arguments, and companies having to deal with previously ignored inequities within their business practices. In an effort to thwart the subsequent calls for action, companies vowed to do more for, and to better by, Black people, specifically.
In our world of sneakers and all things that affect the Black community, there is a dearth of representation, specifically in decision making, powerful, C-suite positions where there is an even greater discrepancy. To be frank, there is a crippling imbalance. People of and for the culture of which the sneaker world derives its most frequent influence, are absent in spaces where they should probably be intentionally present. Without rehashing the entire ordeal, Black employees at adidas North American Headquarters, which comprised less than 5% of the employees, banded together to apply pressure in the form of an “Our State of Emergency” presentation to management surrounding the imbalanced treatment and lack of support for Black employees. A few days after the uprising became public, adidas released a statement vowing to hire more people of color, reinvest into the Black community, and, you guessed it, increase its diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
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There were similar promises of internal change or a greater level of involvement that ranged from monetary investments to providing greater opportunities for Black people, which is severely needed, made by other footwear companies, as well.
This begs the question: Now three years later, what, if anything, has actually been done?
Starting with the positive, two of the more notable pledges came from a collective that included Converse, Jordan Brand, and Nike, Inc. Jordan Brand donated $1,000,000 to the Formerly Incarcerated Convicted People and Families Movement, which is a part of a 10-year, $100 million pledge by the brand “to organizations dedicated to ensuring racial equality, social justice and greater access to education”.
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In addition, NIke, Inc. has gone beyond their initial pledge of $40 Million over four years to create the Black Community Commitment, which outlines how the conglomerate will disperse nearly $9 million in Black Community Commitment investments, including the Equal Justice Initiative, across national and local grantees over the fiscal year.
Foot Locker made an initial pledge to contribute up to $200 million. Though we are just over a quarter of the way there, the retail giant is well on their way to keeping their word to help uplift the Black community. In addition to launching the Leading Education & Economic Development (LEED) program in June of 2020, they have also invested nearly $54 million in programs geared to the advancement of Black people, specifically. The programs include investments that span across scholarships, Black-led venture capital firms, and Black vendors and creatives. Finally, Footlocker has expanded their internal employee scholarship opportunities.
In contrast, adidas hired Vanessa Abrahams-John, a black woman, lawyer, and former law professor with a plethora of corporate DEI experience, as the new Senior Vice President of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion to “oversee the implementation of the company’s DEI efforts.” To highlight her role and plan of action for the acceleration of adidas' impending change initiatives, the esteemed legal council penned a letter at the beginning of the year discussing the initiative details. The Three Stripes has also put quite a few programs in place meant to address racial and gender equity issues, internally and otherwise, via its Creating Lasting Change Now initiative.
Though this a step in the right direction, and there has been incremental progress (this is the heel turn in case you were wondering), much of adidas’ plans, as currently laid out, read as well worded messages of hope as opposed to a true plan. In fact, adidas multiplied its initial plan of donating $20 million dollars in support of “racial injustice” and the black community to a whopping $120 million by 2025. A quick Google search would show you some of the scholarships adidas has helped fund, such as partnering with United Negro College Fund (UNCF) for 55 scholarships worth up to, $10,000, their partnership with Black Women's Player Collective (BWPC) to increase access and visibility to young black women soccer players nationwide, or any of the other group projects they have their hands in.
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Please understand, these are wonderful movements that are greatly appreciated. However, it must be noted that only 37 of the 55 scholarships mentioned above were for the full $10,000. Even if each of the 55 students had received a fully funded scholarship, that would only amount to $550,000, or $2.75 million over the five years. With annual public, in-state tuition costs hovering around $10,000, it’s a wonder if there could possibly be a bit more done to help alleviate these costs. Outside of the mentioning of the programs and initiatives adidas has begun, it is difficult to pinpoint how any of the promised $120 million has been distributed over the last three years.
Deckers Brand, the footwear behemoth that has the likes of UGG, HOKA, and Teva under its umbrella, initially donated $500,000 total to five organizations that “champion the #BLACKLIVESMATTER movement”.
That’s $100,000 a piece for those counting.
In March of 2022, Deckers Brand added to their support by also partnering with UNCF to offer scholarships money to Black or students of African descent at accredited HBCUs. Each scholarship is worth $5,500 dollars. Again, anything is better than nothing, but one can’t help but wonder how a company that has a net worth in the billions, can only part with these comparatively small donations considering the most affordable 4-year, public HBCU institution has an estimated net cost of $6840.16 per year for in-state, full-time students, according to a Lending Tree article published in 2022.
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Under Armour wrote a great letter Standing for Equality in 2020. Then, another quick letter in support of HBCUs last year. But not much has been done by the brand outside of a vague HBCU scholarship program and an extensive list of “commitments”, both made public last year.
That list of commitments is similar to adidas’ list, which both include percentage targets for employment diversity metrics. Again, great start. However, if we are just doing the numbers and trying to meet metrics in that sense, the math just won’t math how it’s supposed to math. For instance, if an increase of 5% to 12% of the director board being black is the goal, and the board is currently 20 people, that’s a total of one and a half hire. One and a half; and that number being met in this scenario is contingent upon the total number of employees staying at 20. If the jobs are added, the percentages will still be off.
So, is this truly a solution?
For companies, it would be more beneficial to hire the best people at the best time. Companies should increase the accessibility and clarify the pathway for black people to join the pool of employees of which executives are selected.
In fairness, strides have been made. But it can be objectively said without much disagreement from either side that corporations don’t know what to do. More cynically speaking, many have not put much effort into addressing that knowledge gap. On one hand, it is understandable that the year of 2020 was unprecedented in many ways. Therefore, a level of grace is allowed for companies being put in a position they have never been, or assumed, they would be in. On the other hand, it is inexcusable to not actively hunt solutions and properly vet causes and movements where their corporate dollars could accelerate tangible, quantifiable change. At this point, biases playing a role in decision making is the only plausible reason for this level of hold up.
If I had to offer an unsolicited action step, I would suggest asking the people. It is insufficient for representation to be used for photo ops and other marketing ploys. If helping Black people is to make the transition from idea to activation, it is reasonable to believe that could be done more efficiently if the guesswork was minimized by consulting the source. When we note consulting the source, we also don’t mean putting the burden of solutioning onto the shoulders of burnout people of color either. So far, much of the information available is a mixture of convoluted “plans” that are either too large to truly execute, or too difficult to track in its effectiveness. Quite honestly, it often feels a lot like words meant to placate instead of providing true aid. A true plan of action complete with deadlines and tangible metrics like the campaigns shoe companies run on a regular basis. That level of attention to detail is needed for the plan to help the plight of black people, as well.
Shouting impending support in the face of tragedy, performative social media posts, and black and white emotionally driven commercials about equality were all for not if it is not followed by action. Clear action with a clear direction that clearly addresses the deeply rooted problems that the untimely death of George Floyd brought to the surface. In short, companies need to be held accountable for doing what they said they were going to do, and doing so transparently while void of ulterior motives. It is time for inanimate words to mobilize, or for companies to be honest about their resistance to do so.
Anything else is, and will continue to be, unacceptable.
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