The lawsuit between Hero Collective and DDB highlights why things have not changed. Black agencies and professionals are expected to stay silent about the abuse, mistreatment, and out right theft of their services and talents.

Feel free to rebut what follows. Fire in the hole.

I never wanted to run a Black focused shop, we're Black owned - I want all the account, not a sliver. I've seen how clients and White agencies treat the minority shops, I ain't wired for that. I've fought the agencies I worked for because they were trying to cheat the Black shops

It is hard enough to grow an agency without having to fight agencies partners and clients to have a larger role in the advertising of a brand. We have not talked about the tremendous weight under which Black focused shops exists. It is amazing that there are any left opened.

Think about how the system of having a "primary" agency and then other agencies under that one actually works. Oh, we claim we work together but that is a crock. It is simply not good business to "share" the account - each agency is trying to make the most money they can.

Of course, minority insights and ideas are going to be less valued. We call the White agency, "primary" or "lead." What agency leader is in their right mind would to encourage a competing agency to do amazing work for a client? No one can expect this system to work fairly.

And someone explain how after @McDonalds told the world that their business is driven by its Black consumers, they hired Wieden to run the majority of the account, while having Burrell working on their account for years! And no one sees anything odd about that?

True, Wieden is a bigger shop, but this is a market space where Burrell has a better understanding. Did @McDonalds even consider them for the "lead" agency role? Not really. Think about how they really see Burrell then. The client is helping to keep them smaller.

Now Wieden and @McDonalds folks are going to object to this characterization, and claim that Burrell is a valued partner. And I've got ocean front property in Nevada, I'd like to sell you. In Burrell's long history with McDonald's have they ever been given the opportunity to lead

No one at Burrell asked me to say this. As a matter of fact, they are probably wishing I had picked another example because @McDonalds is gonna have their undies in a bunch over this, and wonder why I called them out. Come on, anyone can see how this is a mess.

Don't any of the other brands laugh. I could have called out all the sneaker brands ( @Nike, @adidas, @newbalance, @Converse, @PUMA and others) for how they have all these boutique white shops on a product driven by Black and Brown consumers.

The same for fast food ( @BurgerKing, @kfc, @PopeyesChicken, @pizzahut, @dominos, @Starbucks, @ChickfilA), how many of these brands even have a Black agency, let alone let them lead? We can do this all day. Brands do not have room to brag, I see you @unileverusa and @ProcterGamble