Tag: inclusion

Equality Is a Lie

~ Vadim ~ 3 Comments

Screen Shot 2017-09-10 at 11.04.06 AM (1) (1) (1).pngDo you think that people of different races are born equal? What about people of different genders?

I’m asking this because we’ve been talking a lot about equality lately, especially in the wake of the Google fiasco — you know, where that engineer was fired for writing a manifesto about gender roles. He said that women are biologically less suited for tech roles, and as a result, some of Google’s gender diversity efforts are misguided.

Except, he’s misguided. But not for the reasons you might think.

To understand why he’s wrong, it’s important to ask a larger question: What do we mean when we talk about equality? What should we mean?

Separating Wrong From Reich

To find out, everybody, hop on the bus! We’re going to take a road trip, y’all! We’re heading to Charlottesville, where I’m going to say something that only a “fine person” from Charlottesville would say: Black people are biologically dumber than white people. The most classically racist line there is, right?  Continue reading “Equality Is a Lie” →

The Diversity Paradox No One Talks About

~ Vadim ~ 1 Comment

artistic-2063__340I recently read an article in which AT&T Chief Diversity Officer Cynthia Marshall said, “It makes good business sense to have an employee base that looks like our customer base.” I suspect most of her peers agree. Her statement is exactly what you’d expect a diversity and inclusion leader to say. It’s about as controversial as what I ate for breakfast. Probably because it intuitively makes sense.

It made sense to Pepsi. Years ago, the company realized that women and minorities drink soda, so it launched a major campaign requiring that half of all new hires be women and minorities. Business improved.

Causation? Correlation? Does it matter? No corporation will claim that its diversity efforts aren’t valuable. Neither will any argue that hiring for diversity actually hurts business—nor am I insinuating that it does.

But here’s the problem: If what Marshall and other leaders say is true—that your workers should reflect your customers in order for your business to thrive—then they create a twisted paradox that scrapes at the core of diversity and inclusion. What if most of your customers are women? Or black?  Continue reading “The Diversity Paradox No One Talks About” →