GM’s CEO Mary Barra asked to resign amid racism allegations

GM is facing racism allegations after some Black-owned media companies accused the company's chief executive officer, Mary Barra, of being racist. The head of some of these media firms, including Byron Allen of the Allen Media Group, spoke against the CEO and called for her resignation.

The print ad for GM’s CEO

It was reported that media companies put up a full-page advertisement in last Sunday’s edition of Detroit Free Press, and they have called out GM’s CEO Mary Barra for supposedly refusing to meet with them, the leaders of Black-owned media firms.

In the advertisement, they said that Barra consistently refused to meet them to discuss some issues. Byron Allen made a request for General Motors to grant at least 5 percent of the company’s advertising budget to go to Black-owned media companies. This was due to the claim that GM is only allocating less than 1 percent of its marketing budget for them.

The group wants to have at least an hour-long virtual meeting with Barra, or if she can’t do that, they are proposing an alternative solution which is for her to resign. Based on the ad posted in the newspaper, they have already asked her many times for a meeting, but she consistently turned them down.

Allen added that all those who signed the ad had known each other for years, and in the past five years, they were trying to contact Barra. They have been reaching out to her in an attempt to get more of GM’s advertising and hold a dialogue about racism, but they alleged the CEO doesn’t even respond.

Moreover, prior to the publishing of the ad, about two weeks ago, they emailed the GM chief again, and this time, they got a reply. However, it was the company’s chief marketing officer Deborah Wahl who responded. She suggested that she will be the one who will meet with them instead and Allen said that was the final straw thus, they published the advertisement against Barra.

GM responds to the allegation against its CEO

General Motors issued a response to the ad by saying that it is not accurate. The firm’s representative Pat Morrissey further told Variety that these days, GM spends more than .5% of its media budget for Black-owned firms. He said that it is even going up much higher than 5%.

“We have increased our planned spending with both diverse-owned and diverse-dedicated media across our family of brands,” he said. “Additionally, we continue to develop and advance initiatives like the Chevrolet ‘Real Talk, Real Change’ platform and support projects like ‘More than That with Gia Peppers,’ where we’ve partnered with the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters on a content series for Black American listeners produced and distributed by underrepresented businesses.”

Finally, GM refuted the claim that Barra refused to meet with the media heads. The company said that the CEO has already met with Allen before, and she will continue to have an open dialogue with him.