Comcast Promises to Fight Against Injustice and Inequality 

This morning, Brian Roberts published a blog post detailing his multi-year plan to focus on social justice for employees at Comcast and NBCUniversal as well as small businesses, awareness, and education efforts all around the nation. In this post, he details his proposed plans for each part of the initiative. When talking about how this plan will help employees, he states:

"We will accelerate our efforts in all areas of Diversity & Inclusion, including advancement, hiring and training. We will educate everyone across the company to better understand race-related issues and have the important conversations – however uncomfortable – through Town Halls, speaker series and mandatory anti-racism and anti-bias training. We will provide additional financial support to our Employee Resource Groups and invest in our diverse talent, providing them with visibility, opportunity and sponsorship, while continuing to strengthen our diversity recruiting strategy. Together, we aim to encourage racial sensitivity and eradicate explicit and implicit bias in the workplace at all levels across Comcast, NBCUniversal and Sky."

In explaining his plans for supporting education and awareness, Roberts shares:

"We will put the full weight of our company's media resources behind highlighting Black voices and Black stories and educating our viewers on diverse and inclusive cultures, perspectives and experiences, by making anti-racism education and inequality awareness a Symphony priority. We will use our platforms across the organization to continue to shed light on societal issues related to race. NBC News will host a series of Town Halls, similar to their 'Can You Hear Us Now' special that aired this past Tuesday, and we will use the X1, Flex, Peacock and Sky platforms to promote and amplify multicultural content."

On Roberts's mission to help small businesses nationwide, Comcast will commit to main street:

"We will commit funds to help small businesses that have been affected by extended closures in the wake of COVID-19, allocating a substantial portion of those funds to businesses owned by people of color. Comcast Business and Effectv will support businesses impacted by the events of the last few months and provide airtime and commercial production when they are ready to open. Additionally, we will create new LIFT Labs programs for Black founders, invest in diverse entrepreneurs through Comcast Ventures and our accelerators and expand the Catalyst program, which focuses on investing in Black, Latinx and female entrepreneurs."

The blog post also addresses how the initiative will contribute to promoting digital equity, meaning that Comcast plans to connect communities of color to cable services as they are disproportionately affected by digital inequity. Going even further, this investment plans on providing skills to young girls of color to become leaders in the STEM fields as well as BUILD, which highlights the potential younger people have in under-resourced communities.

Amid all the events that have happened this year, the company will center its investment into helping out individuals who have been most affected. Whether its small businesses that are vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic or black and brown communities hit hard by police violence and racism, this three-year plan will assist in empowering these groups and educating others to advocate for equality among all social groups.