New Website IDs Corporations Profiting From the Abuse of Communities of Color

By Sameer Rao May 05, 2017

A coalition of advocacy groups is making it easier to know which major corporations stand to profit from the Trump Administration‘s multifaceted attacks on communities of color. 

BackersOfHate.org launched on April 27 and highlights nine companies—JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Boeing, Disney, IMB, BlackRock, Uber and The Blackstone Group—with ties to the president, his advisors and enterprises the Administration supports. Five of the companies’ CEOs sit on Trump’s business advisory council. Four have money in private prison and immigrant detention center construction. One finances the Dakota Access Pipeline. The site breaks down how deep the ties run with each corporation. For example, The Boeing Company donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee, and Wells Fargo services $1.2 billion in loans for 45’s businesses.

The Center for Popular Democracy and Make the Road NY developed BackersofHate.org in partnership with more than 20 community organizations including Presente and The Partnership for Working Families. It hosts the coalition’s "Corporate Backers of Hate" campaign, which builds on member organizations’ existing work against these corporations and plans direct actions to highlight their investments. One of these actions took place this week on May Day (May 1), as 500-plus protesters marched to Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase’s New York City offices to push leadership to stand up against Trump’s policies.

Asya Pikovsky, the Center for Popular Democracy’s communications manager, tells Colorlines that the campaign will organize more actions against the companies in the coming months.