Sony Corporation of America, Sony Electronics Inc. and Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc have donated $1 million to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF).
This donation is part of a more extensive social justice campaign through Sony’s s $100 million Global Social Justice Fund on behalf of Sony Group Corporation.
Since the summer of 2020, many big corporations have made diversity and inclusion a priority. Brands are keen to remain on the right side of their consumers.
“Since its founding in 1940, LDF continues to use litigation, advocacy, and public education to drive groundbreaking work in the areas of civil rights and equality,” said Karen Kelso, Senior Director, Corporate Social Responsibility, Sony Corporation of America. “Our contribution will support LDF’s attorneys, staff and programs as they continue to work to protect voting rights, reform our criminal justice system, achieve education equity, and ensure economic justice for all.
To learn more about the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) please visit www.naacpldf.org.
The relationship between Sony and the NAACP has come a long way.
In 2006, the Silicon Valley chapter of the NAACP condemned the company’s “white ads.”
One of the ads depicts a blonde woman dressed in white squeezing the face of a Black woman dressed in dark clothing. The image is captioned, “PlayStation Portable White is Coming.”
“The days of blacks being portrayed in minstrel shows are long gone, and with good reason,” chapter president Rick Callender said at the time.
“The minstrel show was an awful chapter in history and this ad smacks of that age and time. It is even further unacceptable that some corporations still think it is okay to use racially charged media images. The latest Sony ad conjures up bad memories of when stereotypical and offensive images of people of color were accepted means of selling a product. Sony should immediately apologize and discontinue these archaic, advertising tactics.”
A Sony spokesperson told Gamesindustry.biz, “All of the 100 or so images created for the campaign have been designed to show [the] contrast in colours of the PSPs , and have no other message or purpose,” he explains.
