An Open Letter to America’s CEOs on Behalf of Black Americans, Including Skilled Black Workers and Able Black Business-Owners

CEOs: Keep Your Token $2M. Don’t Squander Real or Potential Black Abilities and Crush Black Dreams. Give All Blacks a Fair Hand-Up to Take Their Rightful Places as Skilled and Loyal Workers, Managers, Executives, CEOs, and/or Business-Owners. Thereby, Enable Them to Create $300 Billion in Business Equity, and even $1.5 Trillion GDP Per Year,  for Their Families and for All Americans. It’s a Win-Win.

CEOs (and Others)—You want to do something real (instead of symbolic or defensive) to make sure Black lives truly matter? Here are Two Chapters of a Major League Playbook to follow. Put away your paltry $2M checks—Let’s better protect All Black workers and their families and their businesses; better educate, train, mentor and sponsor All Blacks; give them a “Real Hand-Up;” and help enable them to create $300B in business equity, and even $1.5 Trillion GDP in “Shared Annual Revenue,” for Black business-owners and workers, as well as Black customers and communities, and for All Americans. One tide truly lifts All boats!

By John Norris, JD, MBA, FDA Former Principal Deputy Commissioner

It’s enough to make you vomit—Well-Known CEOs of $10B or $100B annual revenue companies virtue-posturing or virtue-signaling or defensive-posturing before their employees and before the nation by putting forth a check for $2M (2-10,000th, or worse, 2-100,000th of their annual revenue) from their company’s readily disposable cash reserves, just  to satisfy their alleged commitment to their Black employees and their families, and to their employees’ Black sisters and brothers across America. 

What BS. Symbolic and/or defensive gestures are worse than nothing. All CEOs know well that you can choose to feed a worker or a potential worker or business-owner for a day or you can make huge efforts, take huge steps and endure huge risks to help them in a host of meaningful ways (for example, through creating social, political, educational, and/or financial opportunities) to not just survive physically (which of course is very important) but also to thrive spiritually, self-respectfully, and with a sense of immense achievement, financially and difference-making-wise, for themselves but also for all those they Love or care about.

Like everyone, Blacks seek to be community, US and worldwide difference-makers as independent, self-success-driven individuals, whether it is within a company, large or small, owned by others, or within a business again, large or small, but owned by them. All they require, and all they seek, is a kindly, respectfully and earnestly offered “hand-up.” 

CEOs take notice. A hand-up costs only expenditures of time, energy, and political capital, not dollars, but are worth far more than CEOs can imagine to Blacks. Real hand-ups have thousands of times more true positive impact on the lives of Blacks. They create something real to make Black lives truly matter.

As a matter of social, ethical, and moral justice, and even legal justice (from anti-discrimination legal justice, to OSHA legal justice to fair-lending laws justice), as well as common decency and kindness, every CEO should give not paltry token donations allegedly on behalf of Black workers—but, instead, give them:

-       great and real respect and dignity (two of the most important things to the human spirit, things that all human beings most want, most value and most deserve—as well as most need), 

-       great and real protection (of self and family, of property, especially their homes and businesses, and of their pursuit of happiness), and 

-       great and real opportunity to grow (spiritually, intellectually, and skills-wise), to rise (through the business-leadership ranks)—and be all that they can be (from skilled worker to exceptional CEO to able business-owner). 

From the best paid to the least paid Black workers, all are, undeniably, engines of each CEO’s success. Acknowledging this is the first step. Doing far more immediately after is essential. 

For example, I envision a day, in just a few years from now, when:

-       Black healthcare and wellness opportunities and educational opportunities (from the best grammar schools to the best high schools to the best colleges to the best graduate schools) will be fairly made available on merit (including character, innate abilities, and leadership promise, as well as visions on how to, and passions to, make a difference in peoples’ lives in the US and worldwide) to Blacks in numbers that reflect their potential, true availability and preparations for serving, and capacities to serve, the needs of others.

-       Black job-training, mentorship, and sponsorship opportunities are awarded fairly on the same kinds of merits.

-       Black opportunities to rise through the leadership ranks of corporate America, both large and small, from skilled-workers, to managers, to executives, to CEOs, and/or business-owners, will be fairly made available, again based on the same kinds of merits.

There are tens of millions of Blacks Americans available for (and far more than ready for) a hand-up now. And, soon tens of millions more Black Americans will be available, and ready, when my vision has been fulfilled. These Americans, too, deserve and are capable of filling these growth opportunities. CEOs: America is waiting. But, our patience is quickly depleting. No more BS.

Clearly and increasingly, there thankfully is a great business need, and social demand, today in America for the creation of well-protected, well-incentivized and well-assisted and politically (both “small-p” and “Big-P”) supported workers and business-owners, especially those who are minority workers and minority business owners. Especially Black workers and business-owners, are a long-exploited, long-under-valued, long-neglected and/or long-rejected worker-and-business-owner group—and, they are the worker and business-owner group routinely exposed to the most risks, from the most COVID-spread risky jobs to the most arson-risky and robbery-risky business-ownerships. 

It is not fair (in a country that demands fairness) that Black workers have suffered, are suffering and will continue to suffer the bulk of the ravages of the COVID-19 (and soon, joint COVID and flu) pandemic. 

Plus, it is not fair that it remains difficult, and sometimes impossible, for Black workers to rise through the ranks at their jobs to positions of leadership, and equally difficult and sometimes almost impossible for Black entrepreneurs to obtain investments in their businesses. Loans and grants have been made more readily available, but still represent only a fraction of what is needed to create a Renaissance in Black-owned businesses, and a Black-owned-businesses Renaissance is what is needed, now. Fair-minded Americans yearn for a real and lasting fix to both barriers to success, now. 

Same, too, it is not fair that some of those same Black workers and their sisters and brothers (active workers or not) and Black business-owners have suffered, are suffering and will continue to suffer the bulk of the ravages of a society and an economy that deprive them (some greatly; some less) of the social, political, and educational, as well as safety, business and financial opportunities to rise to top equity positions in US and Global companies.

The attached two short articles, one titled  “To Save Many Black Lives, Should We First Save the Lives of 20 Million Black Workers and Their Families?” written and published recently by me and by Safely2Prosperity, LLC, and the other titled “Building supportive ecosystems for Black-owned US businesses” written and published a few days ago by David Baboolall, Nina Yancy, Kelemwork Cook, Nick Noel, and Shelley Stewart, and by McKinsey & Company, are the first two chapters in this ”major league Black lives matter real best practices playbook” I am compiling for use by thousands more CEOs to find their way out of the dark and into the light. More chapters to come, soon.

A final word for those CEOs who really do care and who really do want to lend a serious hand-up. These first two articles lay out a rough first draft of a blueprint of an initial path for how, right now, you can begin to make a REAL AND LASTING difference in the lives of Blacks both in the US and worldwide—a difference that in your hearts it is clear you want to make, but just need direction and support in doing so. 

And, a final word for all the rest of America’s CEOs. A hand-up? Just do it! It is the right thing to do. Using all of your bountiful leadership opportunities and skills; political and ownership strength; energy and effort—you can perform something that is “twice blessed.” You can make your own direct contribution to fulfilling this need, AND you can lead the way for others to follow. 

For both groups of CEOs, making this critically needed social and business justice campaign a huge part of the difference-making legacy you wish to leave, will be both satisfying and fulfilling. 

It’s the last call! Use your power and your voice far more productively and with far greater rewards for all. Mankind and Womankind are waiting to see what kind of person you REALLY are.

Best,

John

FDA Former Principal Deputy Commissioner John A. Norris, JD, MBA

Harvard Former Health Policy and Management Faculty Member

Chairman, FDTH Regulatory Affairs Strategies LLC, Safely2Prosperity LLC, TestProcessOversight LLC, and Norris Capital, LLC

531 West Washington Street, Hanson, MA 02341

Cell: 617-680-3127

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/johnnorrisboston

Attachments:

A. “To Save Many Black Lives, Should We First Save the Lives of 20 Million Black Workers and Their Families?”

 https://safely2prosperity.com/blog/save-black-lives

B. “Building supportive ecosystems for Black-owned US businesses”

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/building-supportive-ecosystems-for-black-owned-us-businesses?cid=other-eml-alt-mip-mck&hdpid=763d51fd-b037-49e4-b12c-53f40756f348&hctky=2567642&hlkid=a6db6ec765bd4f33933fcb4289ff5621