Comment by psxdude
5 days ago
What was that agenda exactly? The only ones that come to mind are good, actually: - Allowing more free speech internally and working towards providing a safe space for everyone to provide their ideas. - Investing in under-served communities to try and build talent to hire from.
> Allowing more free speech internally and working towards providing a safe space for everyone to provide their ideas.
As long as your ideas conform with the rest of the group. Don't you start thinking of making this an unsafe space bucko!
> The only ones that come to mind are good, actually
It's funny you say that, because my impression is that DEI allows companies to avoid criticism of their oppressive policies with token investments in a few diverse staff.
- Running sweatshops in SEA [1]? "NIKE, Inc. is building more equitable and inclusive practices to empower our employees and create the workforce of the future." [2]
- Repeated oil spills in Nigeria? [3][4] Shell's vision is to become "a place where everyone—from employees, to our customers, partners and suppliers—feels valued, respected and has a strong sense of belonging." [5]
- Exploiting unaccompanied, undocumented children in factories that make Cheerios? [6] General Mills is "committed to advancing our culture of inclusion, equity and belonging for our people, business and communities." [7] They are also happy to look the other way when their subcontractor Hearthside Food Solutions hires children to work in their factories, as long as they have plausible deniability.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike_sweatshops [2] https://about.nike.com/en/impact/focus-areas/diversity-equit... [3] https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/25/africa/shell-oil-spills-niger... [4] https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/12/21/timeline-oil-s... [5] https://www.shell.com/who-we-are/diversity-equity-and-inclus... [6] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/25/us/unaccompanied-migrant-... https://archive.is/1sDWO [7] https://www.generalmills.com/how-we-make-it/putting-people-f...
I hope that's enough to reveal that a lot of these so-called DEI initiatives are only there to performatively assuage investors and activists, while the companies involved continue preying on the marginalized.