Quote:A California judge is allowing a black entertainment group led by Byron Allen to continue their lawsuit against McDonalds for not spending enough money advertising with the network. The lawsuit alleges that McDonalds does not give enough of their advertising budget to black entertainment, therefore McDonalds is racist.

Byron Allen is suing McDonalds for $10 billion, demanding reparations from the fast-food chain for not spending enough advertising with his company.

There’s gold underneath those arches. On its face this looks like the extortion business model of Al Sharpton dressed up in corporate media suits. It will be interesting to watch how this unfolds.

Sept 20 (Reuters) – McDonald’s Corp has been ordered by a U.S. judge to defend against media entrepreneur Byron Allen’s $10 billion lawsuit accusing the fast-food chain of “racial stereotyping” by not advertising with Black-owned media.

In a decision on Friday, U.S. District Judge Fernando Olguin in Los Angeles said Allen could try to prove that McDonald’s violated federal and California civil rights laws by deeming his networks ineligible for the “vast majority” of its advertising dollars.


Allen accused McDonald’s of relegating his Entertainment Studios Networks Inc and Weather Group LLC, which owns the Weather Channel, to an “African American tier” with a separate ad agency and much smaller ad budget, depriving them of tens of millions of dollars of annual revenue.

While not ruling on the merits, Olguin cited allegations that Entertainment Studios had since its 2009 founding tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to obtain a contract from McDonald’s, whose “racist” corporate culture harmed Allen.

“Taken together, and construed in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, plaintiffs have alleged sufficient facts to support an inference of intentional discrimination,” Olguin wrote.

In a statement on Tuesday, McDonald’s lawyer Loretta Lynch maintained that the Chicago-based company viewed the lawsuit as “about revenue, not race,” and believed the evidence would show there was no discrimination.

“Plaintiffs’ groundless allegations ignore both McDonald’s legitimate business reasons for not investing more on their channels and the company’s long-standing business relationships with many other diverse-owned partners,” she said. (read more)

If a black media outlet can sue a corporation for not spreading their wealth, what precedent would this set?