Ignorance Carries the Burden
TD Bank’s Racial Justice Propaganda
This past week Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) released what it called “TD meets goal for Black executive representation;” and that the “Toronto-Dominion Bank has doubled the number of Black employees at the vice-president level or higher between mid-2020 and Dec. 31, 2022, meeting a goal the bank set following the racial reckoning of 2020.” Just one small missing detail: TD declined to share the current or former number of Black executives. So unless TD can be forthcoming and transparent with the information, what they say is just self-serving, meaningless propaganda which can’t be believed.
Also, TD hired, paid or participated in KPMG producing a bank-friendly PR survey report/stunt, saying “88% of Black Canadian workers feel companies need more substantial commitments and targets for hiring and promoting Black people.” This “coincidental” KPMG survey timed with TD’s announcement is highly suspect and only fooling the willfully ignorant.
Following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, many of Canada’s financial institutions made pledges related to racial justice. TD announced a public deadline for improved Black representation in 2020 that it would “double its representation of Black executives by the end of 2022 and increase minority executive representation across the bank by 50% by 2025.” But without a legitimate basis for evaluation provided, and proper release of the information to be held up to scrutiny, there is no honest or responsible way to judge if TD is shooting straight or not. Is this real progress or just more tokenism?
Several posts this week on Linkedin related to the TD bank announcement exposed the very important fact; without TD releasing the data, this renders its claims as only self-serving disingenuous PR — absolutely no credibility. So the questions being asked on Linkedin, and mainly coming from intelligent Black professionals and entrepreneurs: “Is publishing the percentages without the raw numbers behind it…[effectively just nonsense?]” “Are we going from one to two…is that the 100% increase?” “TD: we doubled our numbers! Us: what are the numbers? TD.” Another comment stated that so-called Black people lapping this up as some sort of progress is sad, and that would be like TD shareholders applauding quarterly results reported by the bank that had no financial information, and just reading we had a great quarter and met our goals…..what a complete joke?
The long and short is, yes, this is a real joke! But no laughing matter. If you can’t show us the details then something is rotten and stinks up in those towers. Instead, TD puts out distraction flares of token employees with no power, like Al Ramsay, vice-president and head of 2SLGBTQ+ and Black Customer Segments with TD Bank Group. Ramsay highly scripted comments about “The problem [of underrepresentation] was acute to the Black community, and we’ve put an extra focus on that.” So let’s see where the extra focus is then, and through the data.
This fake and fleeting corporate-PR-wokeness is linked to the failed Federal Government’s COVID-inspired Black Entrepreneurship Loan Fund (BELF) announced back in May 2021. This too is another joke as it places Black entrepreneurs in a parallel universe…but one that doesn’t exist in reality. The reality is, however, that White entrepreneurs are pushed towards venture capital while Blacks are pushed and saddled with loans. Don’t know any universe where entrepreneurship growth is achieved through servicing loans, versus proper ongoing equity growth financing. Black entrepreneurs need to be in the mainstream, just like everyone else; there can’t be one stream, the real world, and another stream, the fantasy universe for Black entrepreneurs. The entire thing is damaging to Black entrepreneurs and makes them look less than capable, charity cases. This is segregation of a new kind, cloaked in wokeness!
To make matters worse, adding insult to injury, Black entrepreneurs are directed to a Government handpicked non-profit organization called FACE (Federation of African Canadian Economics.) And yes, the jokes keep coming; in what universe do community activists/non-profit organizations give business advice to entrepreneurs? Can’t make this stuff up, but many Black folks swallow this stuff up whole, nonetheless!
This is also a telling sign that TD may only be announcing that they’ve “met their goals,” only as an excuse to stop hiring or recruiting Blacks going forward. A very recent article by NBC NEWS, titled, Diversity roles disappear 3 years after George Floyd’s murder inspired them, gives credibility to this. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) leaders, who were mostly hired in a PR frenzy after George Floyd’s murder in 2020, are now being phased out, let go! “The attrition rate for DEI roles was 33% at the end of 2022, compared to 21% for non-DEI roles,” according to Revelio Labs, a New York-based company that uses data to analyze workforce dynamics and trends. And Reyhan Ayas, a senior economist at Revelio Labs, said the data also shows the pledge to impact change was not followed by genuine effort. “I always say that it is so easy to make public statements and commitments because no one will eventually check if you’re committed to the things that you committed to,” she said.
Therefore, we can’t blame TD, the banks or the corporate world because their only obligation is to shareholders. So engaging in these types of initiatives or activities for the likes of TD is primarily to score ESG (Environmental Social Governance) points, which can help their PR and stock share price. ESG itself is another fraud, but that’s for another day, or you can kindly check out my article titled:
ESG…Just Another Wall Street Scam — The Truth About ESG Investing https://medium.com/@perry-douglas/esg-just-another-wall-street-scam-f0e408fa3159
So, let’s not fool ourselves about the reality in which we exist. Yes, 100%, these banks have a lot of work to do, but Blacks also have work to do too — stop being ignorant about how the world really works! Apply some intelligence, always be skeptical, and demand to see the evidence/data before making decisions. Most importantly, if people or institutions make claims but are not willing to back them up with factual data on which these claims have been made, then something is defiantly wrong!
We need to see the math!!!
Never be a useful sucker for propaganda!
And in the words of Marcus Garvey:
“Never forget that intelligence rules the world and ignorance carries the burden. Therefore, remove yourself as far as possible from ignorance and seek as far as possible to be intelligent.”
So although we tend to look to institutions to solve our problems or to shoulder the blame for those problems, institutions are merely extensions of human systems, where power plays out through real people in these operating power ecosystem environments. Human nature and hierarchical power structures remain steadfast. The nature of the universe revolves around small groups of individuals or corporations having a significant amount of power, this power essentially acts as an arbiter over people’s lives. Black people then, need to understand reality and develop winning playbooks, and in the mainstream, not some nonsense alternative construct of reality.
No one is coming to rescue you, no one, absolutely no one!!!
This is simply the Sophistication of Self-Preservation | SSP.
Understanding human interactions on the micro level while being hyper-conscious of the overriding macro environment; is essential to getting what you desire out of life. Which requires the application of applied intelligence thinking, and not emotion or intuition, leave that at the door. The better you understand nature, and self-interest, the better will be your chances of succeeding within it. Therefore, if Black people continue to behave naively, dependent, and sitting there believing or waiting on others — financial institutions like TD to help them, or worse, waiting on Government programs to get them equity — they will be waiting a very long time — like never!
So in the end, where Black people are concerned, progress is less about fighting racism and more about understanding the Sophistication of Self-Preservation | SSP. Life is what you make of it, and the biggest challenge we face is overcoming ourselves. There must be no boundaries in the mind; but first, we must understand the true nature of the universe and how it works.
So let us apply our intelligence and stop carrying the burden of ignorance.
