Goldman Sachs Executive Writes To Colleagues Asking For Racial Equality At Lower Levels

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) Managing Director Frederick Baba on Thursday wrote a letter to his colleagues describing his thoughts in the aftermath of George Floyd's death and the resultant protests.

Shares Impact of Racism From Early Life In The US

"To everyone who's asked me some variant of ‘how's it going?' over the past month, I've probably lied. Or lacked the words to articulate it fully, but I'm giving it a shot," Baba wrote in an email, published by Reuters.

Baba shared the impact of multiple racially-motivated shootings, including police brutality, had on him since his childhood.

The Goldman executive's family had migrated from Nigeria to the United States in 1990. Baba recalled the case of police brutality in Los Angeles against Rodney King, that happened a year later and subsequently resulted in protests and riots.

Baba shared a personal experience with police in Chicago in 2011. He said he was "slammed...against the hood of a police cruiser," and interrogated because he matched the description of a "black male in shorts and a T-shirt."

"I went home, and I cried for the first time in years," he added.

The Goldman executive had graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology a year earlier.

Calls For Racial Equality At Goldman

Baba said while Goldman has a "commitment to equality and social justice up top," junior bankers have frequently shared feedback that they lack "commitment and support from their direct managers."

The executive called on his colleagues to reach out to diverse analysts at the bank, and support and fund advocacy organizations.

According to Reuters, Baba's letter was initially shared with a select group of colleagues, but later went viral within Goldman's internal channels, and was read by the investment bank's Chief Executive Officer David Solomon.

Other top level black executives, including Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UBER) board member Ursula Burns, have said that they fear for police brutality despite being financially privileged.

"I am part of the 1%, and I still worry when I'm approached by a police person," Burns told CNBC on Wednesday.

George Floyd, a black Minneapolis man, died following an encounter with the police on May 25. A white police officer, Derek Chauvin, was seen kneeling on his neck for 8 minutes 46 seconds even as Floyd became unresponsive, an official complaint in the matter said, as reported by CNN.

GS Price Action

Goldman shares closed 2% higher at $214.82 on Thursday and were mostly unchanged in the after-hours.

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