Mcdonald Trump

January 30, 2025

Share
Mcdonald Trump

Image: Will Novosedlik/Midjourney


The Official Death Of Dei Prompts Us To Reflect On Mcdonald's Difficult HISTORY With Black America

By Aria Novosedlik

 

On January 6th of this year (irony alert!) McDonald's sent its employees and operators an email with the headline 'Everyone is welcome under our Golden Arches'. 

Nothing out of the ordinary. Just a routine internal memo, right? But then came the real message: an email that quietly announced rollbacks of McDonald's DEI program, introduced in 2021 after a flurry of sexual misconduct and discrimination lawsuits. 

 

Byron Allen, McDonald's
Media owner Byron Allen (Getty Images)


One of the 2021 discrimination lawsuits was filed by Byron Allen, a media mogul whose company Allen Media Group took issue with the fact that McDonald's only spends roughly 6% of its media budget with black-owned media groups. This might sound trivial but take a moment to reflect on this: even though 40% of McDonald's customer base has historically been Black, the marketing strategy towards Black people has been woefully white in its complete misunderstanding of Black culture. 

 

“These ads kinda read like they were written by a bunch of white people trying to sound like Black people.” – Garrison Hayes

 

YouTube creator Garrison Hayes has pointedly exposed McDonald's misguided marketing over the past half century with his video, ‘McBlackface’. He very eloquently runs through decades of racial stereotypes used in McD’s ads. They’ve got everything from a gospel choir singing about how “mama just wants to get to church” (right after going to McDonald’s) to how young Black gang members can finally break free from the streets and make a buck serving fries at McD’s. Hard not to cringe at the thought of McDonald’s creative agency trying to determine how many tired old Black tropes they can squeeze into a 30-second spot.

 

McDonald's Ads from the 1970's

McDonald's ads from the 1970s aimed at Black consumers. The lame appropriation of Black language by dropping the final ‘g’ from ad copy (e.g., “ridin’ ‘n rappin’”) is a sure sign that these were made by white people


Byron Allen's $11 billion lawsuit is the first of its kind. It took three years for approval to be granted for the suit to move forward. It claims that Allen’s media company was partnered with Mcdonald's black-only creative agency, whose budget was significantly smaller than those given to firms who were used for ‘general’ ads. In a 25-page ruling, Judge Fernando Olguin of the Central District Court of California denied McD's motion for a summary judgment in its favour. 

 

McBlack, Garrison Hays

Title image from Garrison Hayes’ ‘McBlackface’: Hayes’ observation is that by perpetuating stereotypes, McDonald's unwittingly continued the tradition of blackface.


 

The case will proceed, but its approval was back in December before Trump’s inaugural signing of several extremely regressive executive orders. He’s made it abundantly clear that he will, in fact make ‘good’ on his campaign promises – which may, in the end, make Allen’s case null and void. Trump’s swift retraction of all DEI initiatives has caused companies other than just McDonald's to bow down and kiss the ring. There appears to be a line forming.

Robby Starbuck, a Cuban-American music video director turned right-wing activist has made it his life’s mission to bully corporations until they shut down their DEI programs. He’s got the ‘Donald’ method down to an art: play the victim while being the bully. Everyone from Harley to Walmart to Nissan has caved to his tactics. Seems Starbuck – tapping into MAGA’s love of bizarre conspiracy theories – has successfully convinced the public that any company that continues to enact DEI is going to castrate your children. He takes the credit for McDonald's DEI rollbacks, claiming in a post on x that it only took 3 days for the company to acquiesce to his demands.

To deflect unwanted criticism, McDonald's officially claims that they no longer need DEI anyway because they’ve ‘hit their aspirational targets’. Maybe they should change their name to McDonald Trump


Aria Novosedlik is a Toronto-based designer, writer and researcher

Share