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They’re making a lot more than just soap.
P&G has released its 2019 Citizenship Report, which highlights the company’s efforts in what they term their “citizen priority areas” of diversity and inclusion, gender equality, community impact, and environmental sustainability.
There’s an impressive amount of material, beautifully presented as one would expect from the world’s biggest advertiser.
For the raceAhead crowd, there are three things to note right away:
- They’re starting to think differently. The company established pilot programs for neurodiverse adults at their U.K., Boston, Costa Rica, and Cincinnati offices to better learn how to hire and develop employees on the autism spectrum.
- They went all-in on Pride. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, P&G became a Platinum sponsor for World Pride activities around the world. This included Manilla, Philippines, and marked the company’s first foray into Pride in Asia.
- They’re gunning for another Emmy. P&G has followed up on their Emmy Award-winning film “The Talk,” which showed Black mothers having “the talk” with their black children about their safety and beauty in a world defined by white values and fear, with “The Look.”
“The Look” is both a film and website designed to help anyone feel what it’s like to be a Black man in the U.S. P&G worked with Saturday Morning, a unique creative agency that makes digital campaigns designed to “shift perceptions” on pressing social issues like racial bias, injustice, immigration, and environmental sustainability. In an extraordinarily quiet way, “The Look” explores the kinds of implicit biases that are baked into everyday life—being Black while shopping, parenting, swimming, working. Each vignette, inspired by historical events, draws a line from segregation to today.
It is the rare sequel that fully delivers, including a deeply satisfying twist at the end. Enjoy.
In other news, I’m currently on site in Laguna Niguel, Calif., where I’m joining the entire Fortune MPW/Broadsheet team for the Most Powerful Women Next Gen Summit, which kicks off later today.
Check out the entire line-up here—it’s an embarrassment of riches from Microsoft U.S. president Kate Johnson, Ankiti Bose of Zilingo (about to be India’s first female-founded unicorn startup), to runner and equity champion runner Alysia Montaño, and in a much anticipated session, Know My Name author and sexual assault survivor Chanel Miller.
In addition to raceAhead’s coverage, you can watch Fortune’s livestream, but by all means, stay tuned to Broadsheet for all the inside juice.
Ellen McGirt
A note: Last week, we started using a new newsletters platform. Our newsletters are experiencing some formatting bugs. Thank you for your patience as we work to resolve them.
On Point
GV spins out a new venture fund to focus partly on companies founded by women and people of color Plexo Capital, a “hybrid” venture capital firm, announced a $42.5 million inaugural fund last week. Plexo was spun out of GV (formerly Google Ventures) and counts Alphabet, Intel Capital, Cisco Investments, Kapor Capital, the Hampton University Endowment, and the Ford Foundation among its early investors. Founding managing partner Lo Toney is already a venture success story: He incubated the firm in 2017 as part of a GV initiative to “foster diversity in venture capital.” They’ve invested in 19 venture funds and directly into 14 companies. “Plexo was built around the hypothesis that women and people of color have a non-direct path into VC,” he says. “As a result, they are able to provide a different lens with which to be able to evaluate deals and a different lens with which to evaluate founders as well.”
Crunchbase News
Two senators launch probe into biased algorithms in medicine and ask the five largest health companies for answers After a recent study revealed potential widespread racial bias in medical software designed to prioritize which patients receive health care, Senators Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have asked the Federal Trade Commission and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services to investigate whether biased algorithms are in use in government health care. They sent similar letters to Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna Corporation, Humana, Aetna, and UnitedHealth Group. “In using algorithms, organizations often attempt to remove human flaws and biases,” they wrote. “Unfortunately, both the people who design these complex systems, and the massive sets of data that are used, have many historical and human biases built in.”
Wired
Kid Rock is leaving the restaurant business after backlash from his drunken rant against Oprah Kid Rock’s Made in Detroit restaurant, a sports and entertainment venue, will not renew his licensing agreement in Detroit’s Little Caesar’s arena next year. Kid Rock, whose government name is Robert James Ritchie, has been taking some heat since he drunkenly trash talked Oprah Winfrey, The View’s Joy Behar, and Kathie Lee Gifford at his Nashville bar. (I don’t know why.) In a snippy Facebook post, Ritchie says that he won’t be investing any more money in the Detroit area and blamed the National Action Committee in Detroit for threatening him with protests at the venue. “I guess the millions of dollars I pumped into that town was not enough. I will let the NAN network and others go ahead and take the wheel now. Good luck.” He then said some other things and called Al Sharpton a race-baiting clown. But the venue had mixed reviews from the start.
Detroit Eater
Russian trolls targeted Black voters in trying to influence the 2016 election These trolls used Facebook and Instagram to spur racial tensions and tried to convince African Americans, according to a Senate Intelligence Committee report that reviewed the 2016 presidential election. "By far, race and related issues were the preferred target of the information warfare campaign designed to divide the country in 2016," says the report.
CNBC
On Background
Why your kid loves the garbage truck Anyone who’s lived with a kid knows it’s true. The delight isn’t limited to race, gender, or neighborhood, and the phenomenon is well documented by waste management companies around the country. One child development expert thinks it’s the closest thing that little kids with short memories have to a routine, with the magical benefit of dumping things and making a lot of noise. Trucks are just cool, says Rene Vesi, a Waste Management driver who became Portland, Oregon-area famous for his friendship with a kid with autism who lives on his route. “They love the lights and all the moving parts,” he says. “For a toddler, it probably feels like a Transformer has come to visit.” He reports a real connection to the people on his route, and has whole families who wait for him and wave. “It makes you feel like a rock star.” Awww.
The Atlantic
A report from Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week Streetwear is the new twist, says Vogue, and a rising category from Indigenous fashion brands. It’s a natural platform, they say. “Emerging street-focused brands are using bold graphics and logo mania to draw awareness to their culture’s history, teachings, and adversities,” writes Christian Alliare. “These talents are using punchy clothes to reclaim their heritage—and given streetwear is often used for political, social, and cultural statements, it serves as a surprisingly effective medium.” Says, Jared Yazzie, owner and lead designer of OXDX (Diné/Navajo), “We want people to know that Native artists exist, that Native designers kill it, and that we deserve the same opportunities as others. Collaborate with us.” They’ve profiled three other amazing designers, and I gotta say, it’s nice to see this coverage. Enjoy.
Vogue
Black women cheerleaders have a long history of demanding to be included This is a fascinating look at the history of cheerleading in the U.S., and the late-in-the-game inclusion of Black women among cheerleading ranks in schools. For the most part, cheerleaders took it upon themselves to demand to be considered in integration protest movements of the ‘50s and ‘60s, partly for their right to expression, and partly because it gave them access to sports and physical education. But it was more complicated than that. “First, this critique targeted the gendered constraints of integration that valued Black male athletic bodies and created early avenues for school integration that were rarely open to Black girls,” writes Amira Rose Davis, a professor at Penn State and co-host of the feminist sports podcast, Burn It All Down.
AAIHS
Tamara El-Waylly helps write and produce raceAhead.