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Republicans are fighting to limit the ways public school teachers talk to their students about U.S. racism. But the heads of teachers unions like the AFT and the NEA are refusing to organize workers to fight back.

Over the last few weeks, Republicans passed laws that ban public school teachers from teaching what they call critical race theory in five states: Oklahoma, Texas, Idaho, Tennessee, and Iowa. They have pushed for similar bills in 15 other states.

Even though Republicans say they are targeting critical race theory, the attacks have little to do with that set of ideas. Critical race theory comes from the academic field of legal studies and explores the effects of race on policy and law. But in Oklahoma and Texas, for example, the bills stop universities from making students take diversity training. They would also stop teachers from giving any educational credit to students for taking part in actions like anti-racist protests.

And in Texas, whenever teachers discuss race in current events, they have to show contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective. That means that when white supremacists rally with torches and chant anti-semitic slogans, and when a white supremacist kills an anti-racist protester with his car as happened in Charlottesville in 2017 teachers would be required to say that both sides had valid points of view.

These laws aim to make it harder to teach students honestly about the role that white supremacy continues to play in the United States. And they are aiming to make it harder for teachers to help their students connect to, and understand, the struggle for racial justice that hasnt ended.

Above all, though, officials are trying to keep one of the most powerful sectors of workers in the U.S. teachers separated from a powerful anti-racist movement that shook the country last summer.

Last year, Black youth led a massive struggle against the white supremacist police. That uprising sent shockwaves through the ruling class and not just Republican leaders. The mayors and governors who savagely put down the uprising in Minneapolis, Philadelphia, New York, Portland and elsewhere were all Democrats.

Teacher unions, too, have shown major power and leverage over the last year. Both Republican and Democrat leaders both Trump and Biden, and an army of Democratic mayors tried to reopen public schools throughout 2020 and 2021 in the middle of a deadly pandemic. Teachers unions upset their plans again and again. The local teacher union in Philly, for example, refused to report to unsafe schools. In Chicago, too, they defied the mayors unsafe plan to reopen. Unions won key concessions pushing back school openings until infection levels had fallen more, for example, and securing vaccines for teachers.

That fight cost the ruling class major profits. Early in the pandemic, newspapers like Bloomberg were reporting that closed schools meant billions in lost productivity for the bosses. Thats because closed public schools means parents many from the working class have to stay home too.

All of this means that its no surprise that lawmakers are fighting tooth and nail to limit the ways teachers and students talk about race. Its crucial for the ruling class to keep one of the most powerful social movements in recent memory separate from one of the most unionized, organized segments of workers to protect its profits and its power.

The laws against teaching critical race theory are a direct attack on teachers work. But the leaders of teacher unions are refusing to truly fight back.

The heads of the NEA the biggest union in the U.S. have only made a few weak statements in response to the legislation. In an interview, Becky Pringle says the laws wont stop teachers from teaching about racism. And NEA Today, the unions magazine, ran a story on the importance of learning about racism. For its part, that article called for teachers to take part in the Zinn Project, to pledge to individually teach the truth about race and oppression in U.S. history. But NEA leaders are stopping well short of organizing a mass refusal of the new rules the NEA Today article just calls for raising awareness. And theyre stopping well short of organizing the union to disrupt business as usual in Texas, Oklahoma, or beyond through a walkout or strike, for example.

In the AFT, too my union and the eighth biggest union in the country were getting precious little beyond a few sharp words. AFT president Randi Weingarten put out a statement that criticized Floridas new rules on teaching race and defended the importance of critical race theory in an interview. The Texas AFT also issued a statement critiquing the new set of rules there.

But its clear that no statement will stop this latest attack on teachers. Instead, Weingarten, Pringle, and other union heads are waiting for the Democratic Party to save them the reason they spend so much time fundraising for Democrats like Biden.

But this is a failed strategy. It wasnt Biden or any Democrat who stopped the unsafe school openings from happening. Exactly the opposite was true: it was teacher unions themselves, taking action on their own by refusing to return to their classrooms, that delayed the reopenings. They did this in defiance of the Democratic Party. It was Democratic mayors and Biden himself vowed to open schools during the pandemic.

And it wasnt Democrats who fought white supremacist cops after the murder of George Floyd or Breonna Taylor; it was activists, led by Black youth, who did that in the streets, toe to toe with the cops. In fact, Democratic mayors in Philly, Portland, and DC attacked the movement against the cops, all while Biden called for cops to just shoot Black people in the leg instead of the heart.

Stopping this latest round of attacks on teachers means relying not on the Democrats but on ourselves and the weapons we hold as workers. The pandemic showed teachers the key power they hold to affect the economy. That leverage is even greater now than it was a few months ago: the capitalists are desperate for an economic recovery to recoup the profits they lost during the pandemic shutdown.

Using our leverage means doing more than making statements. It means taking real action: sickouts, walkouts, strikes, and pickets to defend our right to teach the actual, racist history of the United States. These actions could help build real solidarity actions with Black Lives Matter locals. In other words, they could help build exactly the kind of power between the anti-racist movement and teachers unions that the Republicans are terrified of.

Our union leaders are waiting for Biden and the Democrats to save us. They wont. Fighting the latest attack on teachers means fighting from the bottom up, in our locals, taking action on the job and forcing our leaders to really join the struggle for Black lives.

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Anti-CRT Laws Seek to Divide Teachers' Unions and the Struggle for Black Lives - Truthout

Ashley described the Bafta win as meaning everything to him (Picture: PA/BBC)

Diversity dance star Ashley Banjo has reflected on the groups 2021 Bafta win for Virgin TVs must see-moment for their powerful Black Lives Matter inspired routine, seeing it as what the country really thinks.

The dance, which was performed on Britains Got Talents first semi-final of the series in September 2020, was a reflection on topical issues of the past year, including the coronavirus pandemic and the death of George Floyd.

The homecoming for BGTs 2009 winning act sparked 31,000 Ofcom complaints and saw 32-year-old Ashley subjected to racist comments online at the rate of 100 abusive tweets per minute.

However despite acknowledging the polar opposites in reaction, the choreographer and dancer has chosen to believe the Bafta win is the publics true response to the emotive routine.

Describing how the win meant everything, Ashley explained: To go from being the most complained about group of people in the country to winning a Bafta for the must-see moment as voted for by the public its like polar opposite ends of the scale.

The star, who was chatting on The One Show on Monday, commented further on the division in public reaction to the performance.

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Even though its the same Great British public, it represents a completely different group of people to me, he revealed.

All of the hate [of] minority. That Bafta represents, in my view, what the country really thinks, so Im forever grateful for everyone that voted.

For anyone wondering where he keeps his award, the new host of ITV gameshow The Void reassured presenters Jermaine Jenas and Emma Willis that it has pride of place on his mantelpiece.

Ashley has also very recently revealed that he is in talks with Hollywood producers about a possible Diversity action-inspired blockbuster, which he described as feeling like Mission: Impossible or Fast and Furious, but with dance stunts and genuine creativity at the heart of it.

Speaking to The Sunday Mirror, he teased that the bosses hed been speaking to were very experienced in action movies and they know dance.

Considering the current record-breaking box office performance of Fast and Furious 9, we reckon Ashleys on to a good thing.

The One Show airs weeknights at 7pm on BBC One.

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MORE : Bafta TV Awards 2021: Ashley Banjo thanks those who complained over Diversity BGT performance amid win: You showed why this moment was necessary

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Ashley Banjo: Diversity's Bafta shows 'what the country truly thinks' - Metro.co.uk

(JTA) The organization that pioneered the Jewish civil rights alliance with Black Americans may lose its independence in part, insiders say, because of its support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the grassroots-driven community relations network, is in talks about its future with the Jewish Federations of North America, the umbrella body for the federations network.

Neither the JCPA nor Jewish Federations would comment for this story, but some insiders say the likely outcome is the incorporation of the JCPA into the federations umbrella. Such a move would end JCPAs 75-year history of consensus-driven civil rights advocacy and leave standing a single voice that is deeply beholden to wealthy donors to speak on behalf of Jews on national issues.

Other insiders say the talks are still open-ended and theres no clear outcome in sight. They emphasize that the talks are an exploration and not a negotiation.

They are being led by Eric Fingerhut, the Jewish Federations CEO, and David Bohm, JCPAs lay chairman. Its not clear if there is any deadline for a resolution.

Conditions in U.S. politics and the funding and leadership situations of the two groups make a potential merger seem practical on many levels. But the possibility of one has startled some stalwarts of the JCPA, who see it as one of the few remaining places in the Jewish community where unity is cultivated. They also fear its disappearance would bring to an end the leading role that Jewish communities have played in shaping post-World War II America.

The JCPA represents the most democratic with a small d method of coming to policy decisions as a community, said Hannah Rosenthal, who for years was its executive director and subsequently served as president and CEO at one of its constituents, the Milwaukee federation.

By contrast, the federation system, which raises money for Israel and local Jewish activities, is guided more by donors than by the grassroots, Rosenthal said. Wary of alienating big givers, a combined organization would likely be less inclined than the JCPA to tackle the sometimes controversial issues of racial justice, climate change and stem cell research, she said.

Im not telling a secret here, but larger donors have more say over a local community in the federation system than the smaller donor, Rosenthal said.

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency interviewed more than a dozen people for this story, including the directors of local Jewish community relations councils, the backbone of the JCPA network, and former JCPA staffers. Many declined to speak on the record because of the sensitivity of the topic.

Some of the insiders say the trigger for the JFNAs effort to effectively take over the JCPA came in August, when the JCPA signed an open letter in The New York Times declaring Black Lives Matter along with some 600 Jewish organizations. Others say the talks already were underway.

The ad infuriated some federation officials, who thought it was reckless to endorse a movement despised by Republicans and has been accused of anti-Israel politics.

These officials also worried that the ad threw into question JFNAs hallmark: nonpartisanship. Even though the JCPA and Jewish Federations are separate national groups, local federations and Jewish community relations councils have a symbiotic relationship: Virtually every local federation funds its JCRC to a degree, and all but a dozen JCRCs are fully incorporated into their federation. That leaves the federations fundraising vulnerable to disgruntled donors if a community relations council adopts a divisive opinion.

Traditionally the model was meant to achieve the exact opposite and keep fundraising separate from government and community relations, said Shaul Kelner, a Vanderbilt University professor who studies the contemporary American Jewish community. But that model has grown difficult to sustain, he said.

As the country has become more polarized, so has the Jewish community. That has made the JCPAs job much harder, Kelner said.

During the polarizing debate over the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, for example, federations and their JCRCs agonized over whether to support or reject the deal.

Those close to the JCPA say the community needs a national organization adept at forging alliances with other groups and providing a Jewish voice in shaping civil society. Ron Halber, executive director of the JCRC of Greater Washington, said the federations, which are more susceptible to donor pressures, are necessarily less agile.

An independent JCPA will shield federations from some of the very, very difficult political issues, and divisive issues, Halber said.

The JCPA was founded as the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council in 1944 by groups eager for the community to speak in a single voice about what would become known as the Holocaust. In the late 1940s, the group led advocacy to end discriminatory immigration policies. By 1950 its focus was civil rights, and it joined with the NAACP to found the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, which helped spearhead desegregation and voting rights activism. (The organization changed its name in 1997.)

The umbrella body was a major force through the 1980s, crafting consensus policies on immigration, civil rights, pro-Israel advocacy in the wake of the 1967 Six-Day War, and through the 70s and 80s on Soviet Jewry.

Its process to make formal statements is arduous, involving months of debate and buy-in from national agencies and constituent JCRCs, which currently number 125. It culminates in a lengthy voting process at the annual JCPA conference. The process is meant to assure credible consensus on issues like Israel, civil rights, hate crimes and, more recently, climate change and stem cell research.

It was even useful when there was no consensus to be had: In 2015, JCPA released a noncommittal statement on the Iran nuclear deal. (Polls showed the majority of the American Jewish community supporting the agreement, but also a significant portion against.)

That process, however, is increasingly out of step with Americas polarized politics, which are reflected in a Jewish community divided between a largely liberal majority and a highly vocal and increasingly activist conservative minority.

Donors more often prefer to give to ideologically driven groups, making JCPAs emphasis on consensus-building less attractive, insiders say. JCPAs financial disclosures show a decline in donations from nearly $4 million in 2015 to $2.4 million in 2019, the latest year for which data are available.

JCPAs struggles have not just been financial. It also lost at least one member: The American Jewish Committee last year quietly removed itself from the JCPAs national roster, which now includes 16 groups. An AJC spokesman did not return a request for comment.

And more recently, the JCPA has been without a CEO: The most recent person to hold the job, David Bernstein, left at the beginning of this year and now leads the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values, which of late has been warning about the dangers of Critical Race Theory, an educational framework that claims that racism is embedded in legal systems and policies.

Jewish Federations, by comparison, has a stable budget and is a financial behemoth that brought in $270 million in 2019, according to tax records. Some $212 million of that money went out in grants to local federations and other Jewish initiatives. It also has a relatively new CEO in Fingerhut, who joined the organization two years ago bringing with him, insiders say, a conservative approach to public relations. They point to his years as CEO of Hillel International, where he cracked down on controversial messaging, particularly on Israel. That included inhibiting cooperation on campuses between Hillel and J Street U, the liberal Mideast policy group that is often critical of the Israeli government.

A number of directors of independent JCRCs said they were watching the talks with interest, but many noted that the national JCPA had not influenced their agendas for years.

National organizations find it increasingly difficult to find common ground, evidenced in the infighting and dissension that have divided the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

One-size-fits-all no longer serves Jewish communities, said Jeremy Burton, the Boston JCRC director.

The issues and relationships and partnerships, and where to land on those issues in our increasingly fractured partisan, national conversation, is different for Boston than it is for Houston, he said. JCRC officials in St. Louis, San Francisco and Minnesota had similar takes.

The JCPAs added value, said Steve Gutow, who directed the JCPA from 2005 to 2015, is in giving voice to the Jewish street the JCRC constituents that include synagogues, Jewish fraternal societies, grassroots activists and veteran groups that engage in broader community activism.

This was begun in the 40s, this idea that there would be some good to having certain issues looked at by a group of people that were tied to the federation in one way or another, but also were probably more involved with whats going on in the streets of the Jewish community in levels that arent just about giving, he said.

The polarization of the American polity coupled with the financial crisis of 2008 made Jewish community relations a harder sell for fundraisers, insiders said. It made more sense for donors to give to a Jewish group, on the left or the right, that was wholly dedicated to their politics rather than a body like a JCRC or a JCPA that would necessarily embrace policies that they might not prioritize or even oppose. The process accelerated JCRCs being absorbed into local federations.

The civil rights protests that erupted after a police officer murdered George Floyd, an African-American, in Minneapolis in May 2020 exposed these divisions in the Jewish community.

Bend the Arc, a liberal Jewish social justice group, spearheaded the Aug. 28 ad supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. Its language was unequivocal: The Black Lives Matter movement is the current day Civil Rights movement in this country, and it is our best chance at equity and justice. By supporting this movement, we can build a country that fulfills the promise of freedom, unity, and safety for all of us, no exceptions.

The national Jewish establishment, however, was wary of the movement ever since the Movement for Black Lives, an activist group that represents some but not all groups under the BLM umbrella, called Israel an apartheid state and accused it of genocide. Since then, a number of BLM movement leaders have been harshly critical of Israel, drawing parallels between the Palestinian struggle and their own.

Jewish groups who engage with Black Lives Matter note that the movement is decentralized, and that individual members and chapters do not necessarily endorse or even care about criticism of Israel. They see the movement as having evolved into a set of ideals related to racial justice rather than a specific agenda.

In its end-of-year report for 2020, JCPA boasted that it was standing with the Black community to advocate for ending structural racism in the U.S. At the same time, it acknowledged that there had been questions and concerns about antisemitism within the Black Lives Matter movement, and said it had produced webinars and resources addressing those complaints.

An insider faulted the JCPA for a recent set of resolutions embracing voting rights reforms that are endorsed only by Democrats, as opposed to advocacy for a less objectionable course of action like joining nonpartisan get-out-the-vote drives. But voting rights activists, alarmed by a battery of new laws advanced by Republicans at the state level that would restrict access, see little use for ostensible neutrality.

Fingerhut, representing the federation movement in the discussions with JCPA, is said to be leveraging the fact that the vast majority of constituent JCRCs are wholly federation-run, as well as his influence over the donors. Fingerhuts critics say he has a tendency to crowd out dissent. His defenders say his leadership style comes with a track record of getting things done.

At Hillel, Fingerhut doubled funding and set clear parameters on Israel policy. And as JFNAs head during the pandemic, Fingerhut helped wrangle from Congress and the Trump administration massive relief for nonprofits. Fingerhut, who in the 1990s served a term representing Ohio as a moderate Democrat in Congress, is a stickler for nonpartisanship.

The JCPA still endeavors to find common ground. Its most recent resolutions included an urging to advocate for the Muslim Uyghurs under siege in China and to advance the recent normalization agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Halber said the JCPA is a platform for networking. Some of the Washington JCRCs best recent initiatives, he said, had come out of talking with other JCRCs. A peer-to-peer program that sends Jewish students to public and private schools to talk about their lives as Jewish teens was modeled in St. Louis. Another that reviews public school curricula on Israel, Judaism and the Holocaust was modeled in San Francisco.

That kind of schmoozing would continue at least informally, but it wouldnt be the same as a forum where they can exchange ideas, Halber said, particularly in a time of crisis.

With polarization, with the Jewish community in a society where there is the undermining of democratic norms, with the need to bring people together, with the need for Israel advocacy, more than ever with the need for intergroup relations with the rise of antisemitism, this should be the golden age of the JCRC movement, he said.

Rosenthal, the former JCPA executive director, said the best protection against antisemitism are the alliances forged through the responsive community relations that federations are less able to handle. She recalled as director of the Milwaukee federation convening an interfaith event at a synagogue after the 2018 massacre of 11 Jewish worshippers in Pittsburgh.

We called upon the faith leaders of other faiths to come up on the bimah, and they came and they kept coming and they kept coming, she said. And I started crying, and Im the child of a [Holocaust] survivor, and Im looking at all these people who came up to say we stand in solidarity with you, we have your back. And that could not have happened without a robust community relations strategy.

Steve Windmueller, a professor of Jewish communal studies at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion who has directed the federation in Albany, New York, and the JCRC in Los Angeles, said past crises, including the Six-Day War and the civil rights movement, were moments where a single Jewish voice proved effective. Such moments will continue in the future, he said.

The community has to figure out how to effectively message what our interests are, especially at a time when we see so much antisemitism and the isolation of the Jewish community from the larger public, Windmueller said.

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Last August, Kirk Triplett put a Black Lives Matter sticker on his bag for the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship.

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Triplett was prompted to show support for the cause of racial injustice because of his son Kobe, who is African- American.

I was thinking about my son, who is 18 years old and could be driving a car in the wrong situation, Triplett said Friday after the second round of the $3 million PGA TourChampions major. I wanted to make sure thats not his responsibility to deescalate the situation.

But Triplett knew displaying the sticker was not really taking action. An interview at Firestone Country Club and some that followed helped him discover a way to accelerate change.

One of his comments I actually Googled what can a white guy do? he said caught the attention of Hall of Fame safety Donnie Shell, who emailed Triplett and told him he had an answer to his question. The former Pittsburgh Steeler is a board member of Dedication To Community (D2C), a national non-profit that educates and empowers communities on diversity, belonging, and equity. Tripletts partnership with the organization was announced in February.

Putting a Black Lives Matter sticker on your bag is just kinda, Thats a problem. But you hope people migrate from that to solutions and thats the reason for Dedication To Community on my bag, Triplett said. Their main focus is law enforcement training. Its guys that came through the NFL, worked heavily with them on their conduct policy, and the founder is [M.] Quentin Williams, he was an FBI agent and a prosecutor.

These guys have one solution. Training law enforcement, training the communities, helping people understand each other better. Really what they work on is communication and not letting these situations escalate.

Triplett, who lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, and his wife Cathi have four children twins Conor and Sam, 25, daughter Alexis, 21, and Kobe, the latter two adopted. Alexis is Latino; Kobes biological father is Black, his mother Japanese.

Before Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree murder in the May 25, 2020, killing of Floyd, Triplett said he had several conversations with Kobe. Chauvin received a sentence of 22.5 years on Friday.

Weve discussed that fairly regularly, Triplett said of the Chauvin case. This is not a great deal of interest to him. It became a great deal of interest to me when I talked to him and said, If you get stopped by the police, you need to do this, this and this. Ive got three other kids and that conversation looked completely different with them than it did with him. I thought, Heres where the patent unfairness comes in.

When people say systemic racism or system inequality its something thats really hard for me to visualize and understand because Ive never faced it. When Im having that conversation with him, I just get the little, tiniest inkling of what this might be like. I think thats the first step, everybody understanding what sometimes these people face.

Triplett said Kobe got the message. The Tripletts also participated in relationship training through D2C.

D2C has a partnership with the Miami Heat, training Miami patrol officers the Heat sponsor, and is involved with otherprofessional sports.

They have an agreement with Joe Gibbs Racing and they train the organization there. They do some stuff with the NHL, Triplett said. The NHL is like golf, theres not a lot of racial issues in those sports because theyre so white, for lack of a better term, theres not a lot of diversity.

Most sports today that lack diversity want to create opportunity. Its not an overnight process, but some of it starts with funding and finding ways for young people to look at a sport and instead of saying, Oh, thats the white mans game, they think, Heres this APGA, [a non-profit tour to prepare African-American and minority golfers] or I can go to school at a HBCU. Theres a pathway to participate in the sport.

Triplett sees progress in that regard.

Phil Mickelson made a large donation to HBCU golf teams, he said. The PGA Tour is trying to help minority access to golf through the APGA. Billy Horschel has also sponsored a tournament for the APGA. Access to health care, access to economic opportunity, all of these things.

Golf does a great job of contributing to the community. Maybe we havent always done a great job in the social justice area. I dont see any reason we cant.

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After sporting Black Lives Matter sticker on his bag last year, Kirk Triplett takes more action on social justice issues - usatoday.com

Last summer, when Black Lives Matter protests rolled through nearly 550 towns and cities across the U.S., the business community reacted swiftly.

Two weeks after the senseless killing of George Floyd, American corporations pledged more than $1.7 billion to address racism and injustice. At the same time, company leaders publicly promised to make their organizations more diverse by improving anti-discriminatory hiring practices, pay parity and equitable access to advancement for people of color.

Business has the transformative power to change and contribute to a more open, diverse and inclusive society. We can only accomplish this by starting from within our organizations, wrote Vijay Eswaran, executive chairman of the multinational conglomerate QI Group.

One year later, it seems appropriate to ask what has become of this outpouring of good will. How many Black people have been hired or promoted? How many are at pay equity with their white peers? What are the results of the systems put in place to promote Black employees retention and career advancement?

History makes it clear how crucial accountability is for social justice. Although diversity and inclusion initiatives trace back to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the chasm that separate promises and even good faith efforts from results remains stubbornly wide.

A February 2021 McKinsey report on race in the workplace describes Black employees as being 41% less likely to believe promotions are fair and 39% less likely to believe their companys diversity, equity and inclusion programs are effective than white employees in the same company. Racial discrimination suits, among the most-filed complaints at the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, result in relief only 15% of the time.

And of course, corporate support of social justice initiatives is not altogether altruistic. By speaking up for Black Lives Matter, companies position themselves to reap capitalistic benefits and avoid cancellation. According to a June 2020 survey, a majority of Americans of all generations 60% of the U.S. population say that how a brand responds to racial justice protests will influence whether they buy or boycott the brand in the future.

Nonetheless and not surprisingly its not hard to find examples of companies publicly voicing solidarity with Black workers but not backing it up in their hiring practices and policies.

A study published in May looked at diversity in the technology industry and found that companies that made statements of support with Black Lives Matter had 20% fewer Black employees on average than those that didnt.

As the protests were peaking in 2020, Amazon announced a $10-million donation to organizations supporting the fight against systemic racism and injustice, a figure that grew as the company matched employee donations. Since then, however, at its various businesses, it has racked up allegations of systemic bias against people of color, including retaliating against employees who wore Black Lives Matter paraphernalia, paying low wages to a disproportionately Black and Latino warehouse workforce and discriminating against them when it comes to promotions.

During this years proxy season, Amazon shareholders considered a proposal asking the board for an independent audit to assess the companys equity policies. Although the proposal had backing at the May 26 shareholder meeting, it was voted down.

On the other hand, Starbucks, with social justice initiatives that stem from a much-publicized 2018 in-store racial profiling incident, recently released an independently produced report on its progress on civil rights concerns. The report includes metrics on racial/gender pay equity and its workforce demographics, as well as strategies for reassessing policies previously put in place and updates on how they are tracking to their long-range diversity goals.

Additionally, in April, BlackRock, the worlds largest asset management firm, announced that it too would get an independent audit of its racial equity and inclusion. This puts pressure on smaller firms to do the same.

A companys dedication to the timely disclosure of complete equity data is the only way the public can assess whether its activism is performative or a real attempt at change. According to As You Sow, a shareholder advocacy organization, approximately two-thirds of companies in the S&P 500 made statements in support of racial justice in 2020, but tracking their progress toward goals they set was hampered because of a serious lack of data and transparency at the companies.

The tragedy of such lost accountability is best illustrated by Harvard University English professor and public intellectual Henry Louis Gates Jr., looking back at the 40 acres and a mule promise to newly freed slaves the first systemic attempt to mitigate racism: Try to imagine how profoundly different the history of race relations in the United States would have been had this policy been implemented and enforced; had the former slaves actually had access to the ownership of land, of property; if they had had a chance to be self-sufficient economically, to build, accrue and pass on wealth.

In 100 years, no one should have to imagine what might have been if the promises of equity and inclusion in 2020 were kept. Companies can be kept honest. Customers and consumers can demand that businesses promote the outcomes of their diversity programs, their process and even their struggles in the same way they promoted their aspirations a year ago.

The pledges made by American business last summer need not become the thoughts and prayers of the racial justice movement. Too much is at stake.

Ralinda Harvey Smith is a marketing and business strategy consultant and a freelance writer in Santa Monica. @ralinda

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Op-Ed: U.S. businesses pledged to support BLM. How have they done? - Los Angeles Times