Byron Allen on Economic Inclusion

Hello everyone, I'm Shartia Brantley, deputy chief of the New York bureau and senior editor at Bloomberg Live. I am delighted to welcome Byron Allen, founding chairman and CEO of Allen Media Group, to discuss his $10 billion racial discrimination lawsuit against McDonald's and his broader push for the economy.

inclusion

welcome

byron

oh thank you, thank you for having me, I really appreciate it, you know what? Before we begin, I want to thank your founder, Michael Bloomberg, for all the incredible work he does to fight climate change and get people to focus on the global. warm us up and help us go green I also want to thank you personally uh because you know a lot of people don't know this.

Michael Bloomberg donated $100 million to educate African American medical students and that is huge and you should be recognized and celebrated for it. That and I just want to say to Michael Bloomberg: I ​​see you, I love what you're doing and I appreciate you. Oh, thanks for that. I hope he hears this himself. Thank you for joining us in your first on-air comment since you applied. Filing your lawsuit against McDonald's, please can you explain to our audience the basis of this lawsuit? You know, look, it's very simple. This goes back to a conversation and friendship with Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King's widow, and she told me.

byron

, as black people, we have four main ch

allen

ges in this country: number one, end slavery, number two, end Jim Crow, which was more harmful than slavery because that's when we went from being active to passive and that's when when the genocide began.

Number three, achieving civil rights and number. four choked and said the real reason why they killed my martin achieve

economic

inclusion

she said byron they did not kill my martin for the speech I have a dream they killed him for the speech he gave at stanford university the speech the other america and in that speech he said that there are two united states, one has access to opportunities, education, jobs, mentoring, capital that is not predatory and the other, no, there are two united states, and two united states will not survive, as the great prophet martin luther king jr. 50 years ago we were going to see the things we are seeing now, the civil unrest, a lot of this, all of this is due to the two Americas and we must become one America, that is what he taught us and that is what we . we are doing, we are achieving the fourth and final chapter, we are becoming one United States, now let's go back to the first civil rights statute in the United States, the civil rights act of 1866, section 1981 in that statute, which is the first civil rights statute that said we need to provide

economic

inclusion to newly freed slaves in both commercial and government contracting because they knew we would be excluded and here we are almost 160 years later and there is no real economic inclusion for black America.

The largest trade deficit in America is the trade deficit between white corporate America and black America and we have to close that trade deficit so that we can achieve one America and what we need to focus on are the four e's and y's. I believe strongly that we need to focus on making sure that we have a great education for all Americans, that we have equal justice for all Americans, that we have economic inclusion for all Americans and a safe environment for all, and if we achieve those four e's and yes we are looking for a real and true In America we can reach a piece of heaven here on earth, so when I filed the lawsuit against McDonald's, as I said in the statement, McDonald's has about 39,000 stores and generates more than 100 billion dollars in revenue, much of which comes from Africa. -American consumers have a huge African-American workforce, yet of their more than $1 billion advertising budget, less than $5 million goes to black-owned media.

That is unfair, it is indefensible. That's wrong when you look at President and CEO Kimczinski. chris kimczinski his personal compensation is close to $11 million his personal compensation is more than double what all black-owned media outlets combined receive that's completely unacceptable that's why we filed a lawsuit and that's why we said come to the table and provide real economic inclusion and we're not just saying that to McDonald's, we're saying that to every American corporation and this is what I want to do here, so yesterday McDonald's presented a four-year plan, a three-pronged approach. whether to announce plans to increase its spending on Black-owned media properties from two to five percent, in addition to creating multi-year partnerships with diversely owned media properties and forming an advisory committee of subject matter experts and marketing and publicity to try to bring down some of these systemic barriers to is this enough? b why did you continue to file the lawsuit?

Well, no, it's not enough and I can assure you that they were very aware of the fact that we were filing this lawsuit because my attorneys were in contact with their attorney, one of America's most prominent litigators, the former attorney general of the United States of America, Loretta. lynch I have personally been on zoom calls with Loretta and we have personally communicated to them that we are not happy with them and that we are going to take action and I have told this to all American companies. I've sat here at this desk in this chair for the last 15 months, 12 hours a day on Zoom calls communicating with all the advertising agency holding companies. of advertising agencies and their clients and i made it very clear that, in the words of muhammad ali, if you even dream of not doing business with black-owned media, you better wake up and apologize because that is economic exclusion, i.e. economic genocide you are in. violation of the civil rights act of 1866 section 1981 and I am going to file lawsuits and if we have to sue every corporation in America to close the trade gap between white American corporations and black American corporations, I am happy to do it and We will take the time to do it and to be honest, we are enjoying the process because we are getting phenomenal results.

We've been in contact with probably about 500 corporations and what I would tell you is that easily 95 of them lean, there's five percent of five five percent of them out there, you know they're idiots and that's fine, that's to be expected, but most say thanks for letting me know about this. You are right, we have not provided it. any economic inclusion for African Americans and we're going to come to the table some of them have said, would you help us do it? like Verizon, they're leaning in, they made a commitment, General Motors, they've committed to eight percent, uh, Proctor is betting big. of people bow like I said.

I've personally been in contact with 500 corporations and they all say let's do it and thank you for telling us about this, but it has to be real, it has to be meaningful, it can't be, my God, we have this problem with black people, how little can we give them, how little we can give them so we can make them leave and go back to our wonderful white, rich, privileged lives, this has to be a real conversation. this has to be real economic inclusion, we must address the trade gap, we will not achieve one America until we do that and what I have always told America is that they are killing us in the classroom by making sure we don't have one proper education and you're killing this in the courtroom by making sure we don't have equal justice and you're killing us in the boardroom by making sure we don't have economic inclusion long before you kill us in the streets and we really need to get there to a point where we have left this behind.

People don't understand how deep racism runs in this country. It is extremely deep. It is much deeper than we all realize. I will share something with you. that everyone needs to know in the year 1966 there was a sorry in the year 1916 1916 there was a book written by a young man named Madison Grant and Madison Grant was a well-to-do kid who went to law school and was walking around New York and he was upset with all the immigration in New York, the Jews coming from Europe, the Italians and he wrote this book about the passing of the great race and in that he said: "Keep America white and pure so he writes this book in 1916 and it says that we have to keep America white and pure and that we have to stop this immigration Well, this book became very popular, it triggered all kinds of immigration laws and unfortunately this young man read this book. this book. and he said this is the best book I have ever read in my life this is my bible and that young man was adolf hitler and adolf hitler took that book and did what he did so we not only created racism but we perfected it we exported it to Europe and came back like the Holocaust.

In fact, Adolf Hitler gave an interview to the New York Times and he said in that interview that I don't understand why America is coming down on me. Everything I learned about immigration control. I learned it from America I hoped America would be my partner this is what Adolf Hitler said In fact Adolf Hitler sent his Nazi lawyers to America and said to study the Jim Crow laws that they are using on the blacks and come back and use them on the Jews, that's how ugly and deep our racism is, it's a cancer that we are all at the table trying to solve and the only way we can really do it is through economic inclusion, I will definitely tell you that you know the events of the last 15 months .

Learn about the dual impacts of a deadly pandemic and the disproportionate impact it has had on Black and brown communities, both when it comes to health and the economy, as well as the reckoning of race, if you will, after the murders of george floyd, brianna taylor and ahmad are barry and more. of almost universal recognition that systemic racism exists, that being said, why do you think you still have to file lawsuits to, I guess, draw attention to what's happening with black-owned media companies? Well, first of all, that's a great question. Here's what I would say: Society has a way of giving us the four D's.

The first time you speak, they dismiss you, you get a little louder, they move on to the second time. They discredit you and then you get very loud and quit. they know that you know, stop being disrespectful, right, they go to that third d, they demonize you and then that positions them to go to that fourth, an inevitable d so that they can be in control with their so-called Christian self, they destroy you, they discard, uh. discredit demonize destroy and that's the matrix and they perfected it on women 500 years ago, those are the same facts that they put on whoever it was and they knew the best way to address the four d's was to use their own system and file a lawsuit. lawsuit you can't dismiss it you can't you know you can't just say "okay", I'm going to demonize that because I'm using your peaceful process and you can't destroy it the lawsuit lives forever and forces us to reach a resolution when we can show the books, the records, the contracts and showing how much you're spending and how little you're spending with black-owned media, it says it all, you know, the numbers don't lie.

It's a way to show the world and have transparency this is what we represent for McDonald's in their business and this is how little we get from McDonald's as black people and that's why we filed the lawsuits. I think it's the best way to bring reconciliation to the entire ecosystem, if we sue over a hundred corporations, you won't have to sue the next 600 corporations, everyone will fall in line and do what they should have done over 150 years ago, so What do you say to the criticism that all these lawsuits and, you know, taking out the GM ad and measures like that, are a little selfish for you, how do you respond to that?

Well, listen, you know, I understand the criticism and anyone who seeks to effect change will be criticized and that's okay, and Coretta. Scott King told me that she said when you push for the fourth and final chapter because I told her I was going to do it and she said Byron, when you push for economic inclusion, they're going to come after you and I'm okay with that, but it turns out they don't. It is true, since you see that other people signed that letter with me and right there it says that it is not true. What I'm doing is I'm looking to make America better.

I'm looking to make America great forever. We are great and we always will be, but we have to lay a foundation where we are great forever, so what I'm asking for is economic inclusion for all African Americans, not just me, that's right, actually. I wanted to sue on behalf of Hispanics, gays, Asians, women, women don't own a lot of media outside of assets, but my lawyers told me you have no standing, you're not gay, you're not Hispanic. You are not Asian You are not a woman You do not have permanent legal status You have to stay in your lane You can sue asAfrican American and I said okay I'll do it as an African American and I hope others do you know pick up and take you know take charge of your own future and we'll work together but I'm doing this so we can achieve one America and by the way at the end of the day no There's nothing wrong with me seeking economic inclusion even if it were just for me, but that's not the case, so how has it trickled down to small, black-owned media companies? years listen since we started addressing this billions of dollars have come into this category billions of dollars have come into this category it wasn't that we didn't have those dollars available to us Weren't they available to us just 30 or 40 ago days?

So you couldn't consume all of that if you wanted to, so we had to create a scenario where we were positioned to be successful. Much of black America is positioned to fail, we are positioned to fail, you have to decode the system and you have to position us to succeed and that is what is best for America. Economic inclusion for all. I want to come in here and talk about you. You talk often about the need to understand the difference. between black-owned media and black-targeted media is part of the problem that there is this two-tier system, so to speak, that you've indicated when it comes to knowing black advertising spending and the overall turn of the market. .

Oh yes, there is a big difference I had. a white guy asks me, va byron, what's the difference between black owned and black targeted and I said, I'm so happy you asked me, I said, you know, I just had my daughter, uh, my beautiful girl, you just to have your daughter, you are beautiful. girl, we had shared that and it's okay, you know, first we started chatting. I said, let me ask you, as a white man, are you comfortable with me having complete control over your precious white daughter's image and how she grows up and sees herself and how the world sees her?

Can I control her self-esteem? Can I control everything she feels about herself? Are you comfortable with me as a black man having that control over your precious white daughter? And he said no and then I said, Why would you wait? I'm comfortable with you having that kind of power over my beautiful black daughter and now that my baby is here I'm not asking for a seat at the table, I'm taking one. I've given you the opportunity to produce me and when you produce me you do talk shows where I'm dancing around saying "Oh my God, thank God, the DNA test came back and I'm not the baby's daddy, that's not me, I'm trying to pass the time with my kids, so no matter how much they're trying to get a restraining order, that wasn't my dad, that wasn't my grandfather, you know, and when I put on television shows, I'm putting on very strong, beautiful, positive images. , African American and Latina, I have five judges on the air Judge Ross Judge Maybelline African American man Judge Ross Three African American women Judge Maybelline Judge Ax Judge Karen and a Latina judge Christina Perez who has won five Emmy Awards I have put in five hours of intellectual capital people who They are incredible pillars of the community five hours a day that's what I want young black and brown people to see I want them to see excellence not people dancing thank god I'm not the baby daddy that's what happens when I let you control my image versus us controlling our image of the black owned media matters and by the way you don't have real democracy unless we all have a seat at the table and you don't have a seat at the table unless you control the media because the media is How we communicate and what you read and what you see and what you hear influences your decisions and your behavior, so we all have to sit at the table to have a true democracy and now that my babies are here I don't ask, I accept it.

So some may say he is being aggressive. I'm not being aggressive. It's years, it's over 400 years of you deciding that black people don't deserve anything and then after we were freed it was basically getting rid of them and we're decoding everything. Jim Crow laws and we are dealing with Jim Crow 2.0 and by the way this is what I find most interesting, no corporation, no corporation has tried to defend their record, everyone has said you're right, go wrong, let's go to the table , let's increase it, no one said oh byron, what are you talking about? I was spending 10 percent on black-owned media 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago and when I tell white corporate America, that's very white of them to conveniently forget about it. us and that's why these lawsuits are helping them remember us and I'm going to sue everyone in corporate America who thinks it's okay not to do business with black Americans and eventually everyone will stop that economic genocide, but Byron, some of the criticism has been , you know, the lawsuits and the agreements that you had with comcast and with charter jeopardized the civil rights act of 1866, how do you respond to that criticism?, you know, listen at the end of the day to the civil rights act of 1866 They decided what level of evidence you have to present, so unfortunately it was the first time that the attorney general of the United States went into the supreme court because I had to go all the way to the supreme court to defend him. and i have invested millions and millions of dollars of my own capital to defend him and it was the first time that acting attorney general william barr sent his best lawyers to the supreme court to limit civil rights, but that's okay.

I am now working with people in the House and Senate to overturn the Supreme Court's decision, and I am very confident with this administration that I will be able to achieve a lower standard to make the law easier to use. They went and took her to the supreme court and gutted him I didn't take him to the supreme court I used the law that was there for our protection they took him to the law they took him to the supreme court to get rid of him and I will never forget this I went to the capitol to visiting friends on Capitol Hill and an old white guy came up to me and said, can I talk to you for a minute?

I said yes and he took me to the corner of my group and he said I just want you to know that I saw you at the supreme court. He says, I want you to know that since that law was put into effect in 1866 there have been people in this building working to get rid of that law and what you're doing is great, you're calling attention to it because most of the blacks didn't even know about it, most blacks never used it and what you're doing you're going to make it finally take root, be there and you're going to have economic inclusion I'm very confident that I'll be able to overturn the supreme court within a year. is going to be announced we have two people in the house two people in the senate are going to support a bill to get it done and write it the way it should be written and interpreted because remember this, some circuits interpreted it one way and some circuits we interpret it otherwise, now we're going to be interpreted in a way that's just one way of looking at it, but at the end of the day I didn't take it to the supreme court, they took it well, well, please keep Bloomberg.

You know, let's stay close and stay informed about that. You mentioned earlier the influence of Dr. King and Mrs. Coretta Scott King on your life and their icons in the civil rights movement, do you feel like you are being supported by current civil rights leaders and their efforts? You know I don't look to them for support. I don't really do it because, frankly, I think a lot of them are co-opted. People make small donations to them and do not report them. They are not held responsible because they receive fifty thousand dollars. chicken dinners and dishes uh, I don't look at them.

My position is that I will deal with black America. How I feel like we have to do it. You know, you have to wonder why they aren't archiving these. lawsuits, you know a lot of the people that I've sued, that they get donations from and they get donations from them so they don't get lawsuits, so you know that was the one thing I loved about Martin Luther King. Coretta told me they hit. martin and they put him in prison two or three times a week and she said that because they couldn't pay him he wasn't corrupt and she said that the only argument I had with martin luther king was when he won the nobel peace prize and he took the bunny from the Nobel Peace Prize winner and he gave it all to the civil rights movement and she said she was upset with him because we had four kids and someone had blown up the porch of our house and we had a big hole in the roof and it was raining in our living room. and he didn't keep enough money to fix the hole in the roof.

Well, I go straight to the people who don't do business with us and I don't accept it. kickbacks and kickbacks either you do business with black america or you don't and you don't listen this is what i would say to mcdonald's go to the table chris talk to me aretha franklin show respect have a conversation let me hear it in your voice let me see it in your eyes you are sincere it's long term no shenanigans look what they try and do is they say it's important that you know they try and when I say black they say minority when I say black they say multicultural and The reason they say minority is because minority is defined as women white so they'll show your beautiful black face and then send all the money to white women so I'm not going to let them filter us because I say look white.

America, you have no problem saying the word black when you talk about a suspect, but when it comes time to talk about money, you can't say the word black, you start saying multicultural and diverse minority, no, you say black, it's black, black, black and more black. It's time to do business with Black America the same way Black America does business with you, it's a simple concept, that's how we're going to achieve one America and that's what's best for all Americans, we have have to balance the system.