During 2020, most Americans were impacted in some way by events related to COVID-19 or social injustice. Black Americans were disproportionately affected by both. The confluence of these two crises has exposed the huge health, education, and wealth disparities that have plagued Black communities for centuries. Academic research on these topics primarily addresses health and economic concerns (e.g. Hill et al. 2020). This project answers the call for investigations related to COVID-19 and social injustice in other domains (Crockett and Grier 2020). Herein we probe the impact of message framing about COVID-19 and social injustice on employee stress. Initial results suggest diversity-related messages may have unintended negative outcomes in general and on White employees in particular. It is important to expose the effect of these messages as they may add to the overwhelming stress communities are experiencing and lead to downstream, negative consequences for well-meaning firms. This is the first investigation of the effect of COVID-19 and social justice in this context. It adds points to a varied pool of solutions to address this critical topic.