Does Toyota Ignore Black People?

by Hardy L. Brown

The Toyota automobile company has implemented a worldwide recall of many of its cars with the company reaching out to its customers saying stay with us. Bring your cars in for repair and be careful while driving until you can get it repaired. The executives have been on television, radio and even put paid advertising in major daily newspapers nationwide to inform their customers of the sticking gas pedal and to stay with them. General Motors and Ford have begun advertising the message, bring your Toyota product in for trade to our products. They are doing all of this while ignoring the owners of Black newspapers and radio stations which is an issue for me.

They are aware that we’re here because they have invited us to drive their cars so we could write about how they drive and the quality of their products. They even send us company press releases to publish for our readers.

So they know we are here as a viable business and credible resource to our communities. Yet, when it comes to spending money with any of us, they stop. The same is true with other companies but this article is focused on Toyota from my perspective.

Over the past decade, I would take a quick count of the makes of Toyota autos in the parking lot of St. Paul AME Church on any given Sunday morning. I was doing it because I had a Black owned Lincoln Mercury/Volkswagen dealer advertising in my paper.

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