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Bank Of America Pledges $1 Billion To Fight Systemic Racism While Facebook Throws $10 Million At It

Bank Of America Pledges $1 Billion To Fight Systemic Racism While Facebook Throws $10 Million At It

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Bank of America donates $1B to address economic and racial inequality exacerbated by coronavirus in Black communities. Facebook, worth 3x more, throws $10M at it. Automated Teller Machines (ATM) at the Bank of America amid the global coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, Sunday, April 26, 2020, in Monterey Park, Calif. (Kirby Lee via AP)

Bank of America is donating $1 billion over the next four years to address racial and economic inequality exacerbated by coronavirus in Black communities and communities of color.

The money will go to expand health services such as vaccination clinics, support small businesses and recruit new bank employees in economically disadvantaged communities, BofA CEO Brian Moynihan said in a press release.

Facebook too has pledged support — to the tune of $10 million — to fight racial inequality, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a blog.

Moynihan and Zuckerberg are among a number of high-profile CEOs speaking up about racism during the protests.

The social media giant has been trying to fend off criticism for tolerating President Donald Trump’s explosive posts that amount to calls for violence and voter suppression.

In a joint statement on Monday, three civil rights leaders said they were “disappointed and stunned by (Zuckerberg’s) incomprehensible explanations for allowing the Trump posts to remain up.”

The heads of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Color of Change said Zuckerberg “did not demonstrate understanding of historic or modern-day voter suppression and he refuses to acknowledge how Facebook is facilitating Trump’s call for violence against protesters.” 

During protests against police brutality following the death in police custody of George Floyd, Trump threatened protestors in Minneapolis with military action. He said, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” — a line used in the ’60s by segregationists.

By comparison, Twitter hid the MAGA post behind a warning that said the tweet glorified violence, which is against Twitter’s policies.

Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 72: Jamarlin Martin Part 2. J Edgar Hoover, the first director of the FBI, may not be around but his energy is present in new Black politics.

Hundreds of Facebook employees on Monday staged a “virtual walkout” opposing Facebook’s policy decision to defend Trump’s post. Two software engineers said they quit the company, due in part to Facebook’s failure to enforce its own rules when it comes to Trump, Washington Post reported.

Bank of America’s donation of $250 million a year over the next four years is tiny fraction of the $27.4 billion it made in 2019, according to CNN.

However, with a market capitalization of $663 billion, Facebook is worth three times more than Bank of America, whose market cap is $215 billion.

“Underlying economic and social disparities that exist have accelerated and intensified during the global pandemic,” BofA CEO Moynihan said. “The events of the past week have created a sense of true urgency that has arisen across our nation, particularly in view of the racial injustices we have seen in the communities where we work and live. We all need to do more.”

Bank of America has a troubled history with discrimination against African Americans. It was fined $2.2 million in 2013 for discriminating against Black job candidates for 20 years. More than 1,100 African-Americans faced discrimination at the company’s offices in Charlotte, North Carolina, between 1993 and 2005. The U.S. Department of Labor ordered BofA to pay the fine.

The second-largest bank in the U.S., Bank of America has denied that any of its predecessor owners profited from slavery, although some did business with slave owners.

In 2005, reparations proponent Dorothy Tillman challenged the accuracy of an earlier Bank of America filing and accused bank officials of lying about historic ties to slavery, according to a 2005 Chicago Tribune report.