After a period of operation, they found that the parent company of McDonald's retaliated against those African-American franchisees who refused to open stores in high crime areas. At the same time, it refused to provide African-American franchisees with the same financial support as white franchisees, and misled African-American franchisees to buy assets from poor areas to carry out business activities on the grounds of unfairly giving low marks to black-operated shops and expelling black shopkeepers in internal ratings. All the above behaviors led to the average annual revenue of the stores operated by African-American franchisees from 20 1 1 to 20 16, which was only $2 million, $700,000 lower than the national average in the same period and $900,000 lower than the national average in 20 19. Due to poor business performance, a large number of African-American franchisees left. From 1998 to 2020, the number of African-American franchisees has dropped from 377 to 186 in 22 years, almost shrinking by half, while the number of white-owned stores is gradually increasing.
Response of McDonald's Parent Company Chris Kempczinski, CEO of McDonald's Company, said in a program on NBC Financial Channel that McDonald's may have created more African-American millionaires than any other company. With the announcement of the lawsuit, McDonald's also responded in a statement to Forbes:? Not only do we absolutely deny that those franchisees can't achieve economic success because of any form of discrimination in McDonald's, but we are very confident. Facts have proved that McDonald's system, including franchisees, suppliers and employees, has always supported diversity and equal opportunities. ?
This passage also shows that the official attitude is that there is no discrimination in the company, and the poor operation of these African-American franchisees has nothing to do with the company's strategy. Objectively speaking, Kempinski's speech did reflect some facts, that is, McDonald's did make an important contribution to the economic development of African-American groups. However, it does not mean that the unfair treatment suffered by black franchisees can be put aside, and the complex relationship between whites and blacks still needs more fairness to maintain.