82% of black attorneys have had their faces featured in the firm’s marketing or pitch materials for matters/projects in which they were neither involved nor staffed — revealed in a survey by 1844

After reading the above extract, I have to raise a burning question to all corporations and professional firms. When will we wake up to how morally reprehensible it is for companies to find marketing and branding opportunities in their part of the global efforts to end one of the worst human tragedies and the hundreds of years of atrocities that followed.

I am not saying that companies should not publicise their D&I efforts. On the contrary, companies and firms must openly declare their D&I policies and publicise the efforts and the results they have accomplished:

1. every single publication has an essential contribution in raising awareness, evolving cultural perspectives and shifting mentalities.
2. It would cause others (by guilt or inspiration) to follow suit.
3. Visibly genuine efforts and measurable outcomes will give those affected by racism some sense of comfort, confidence, ease in claiming their rights, and accessing what was previously denied.

But the fulfilling the three purposes above and others call for discrimination of information.

Let’s face it; any D&I actions were long owed by humanity to our discriminated peers. When a morally conscious person rectifies a wrong, they feel a sense of duty, pricking of conscience in doing that action.

Step in their shoes, after being deprived of their human rights, the actions being taken to restore what always belonged to them, the act of giving them their birthright is openly considered a marketable action?

As if the discriminated segment of the society has already not suffered enough, the actions taken to rectify the injustices done to them are deemed marketable and self-promoting.

If, from this date, all straight white men were prohibited from attending universities, will a later decision (if and when taken) allowing them access to higher education be PR worthy?

Whatever actions companies take, make sure your heart is in the right place. What we are doing was always our moral obligation and a tenet of the fundamental principle of corrective justice.

And by the way, as a woman, I also want to say that reverse discrimination — is altogether damaging differently. Reverse discrimination only reinforces the idea that I am still not equal; worst of all, it does not let us move on from the past discriminations and obstruct our progress towards building our self-esteem and free identity.

If a company thinks that its equal treatment of specific segments of society should enhance its branding, then the right to equality ha snot yet reached its moral conscience.