It begs the question of whether some companies believe that having a diversity, equity and inclusion position, and having a Black person fill it, addresses the DEI issue in its entirety.

A person can have Black friends, live in a diverse city, go to lunch with their Black co-workers, be hugged on stage by a Black woman, and still harbor racist views, whether they know it or not.

If young boys of color never see men of color in any of these roles – in life or in media – it forfeits them the opportunity to see what they could be as they progress into adulthood.

For your commitment to social justice to be real, genuine and believable, it CANNOT exist only when there is conflict. 

At the risk of referencing an overused phrase, this first full year of running the My Brother’s Keeper Scholarship Endowment Fund certainly pays homage to the “If you build it, they will come” philosophy. 

It gave the notion that not only was being White the golden ticket to paid work, but that the corporate world viewed White employees as a better investment for their dollar.

As much as I like to view myself as self-made and that I was single-handedly responsible for my achievements up to this point, the fact of the matter is that my success is deeply and unbreakably bound to the opportunities I have been provided.

Far too often we allow the circumstances of our birth to decide our own future goals.

In an era of record-level powerhouse donations to academia, we hope to debunk the notion that educational philanthropy is limited to the old, the wealthy and the corporate-funded.

If young Black males have never met another Black man who was an engineer, a doctor, a physicist or mathematician, it narrows their level of perceived possibility. 

Imagine if I walked you into a room, and it was of a major corporation like Exxon Mobil, and every single person around the boardroom were Black. You would think that was weird.