The "woke" witchhunt turning on its own.

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I generally support positive outcomes and initiatives even if they're done for the wrong reasons, but in the case of DEI, the fact that some corporations do it for cosmetic purposes has led them to overlook harmful biases and exclude them from DEI programs just because they support or benefit from said biases.

Silicon Valley in particular and the tech industry in general have long had issues with ageist discrimination despite proper qualification of many older job applicants and employees, yet DEI programs of many tech firms like Google and Facebook have barely scratched the surface of that problem. Why? Because those corporations intentionally perpetuate that specific form of discrimination.

This is from over a decade ago:

Special Report: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias

When Randy Adams, 60, was looking for a chief-executive officer job in Silicon Valley last year, he got turned down from position after position that he thought he was going to nail — only to see much younger, less-experienced men win out.

www.reuters.com

And it's still ongoing:

Ageism is forcing many to look outside Silicon Valley, but tech hubs offer little respite

A tech firm's call to hire 'old people' highlights a troubling trend in Silicon Valley

"Unlike Silicon Valley, we do not discriminate based on age," the job listing reads. "Experience matters. We hire old people."

www.businessinsider.com

Silicon Valley Ageism Prompting Increase In Men Seeking Cosmetic Procedures

Ageism is becoming a growing problem in the male-dominated tech industry and some are finding creative ways around it.

www.cbsnews.com

I have said before that many liberals—especially neoliberals—favor style over substance when it comes to sociopolitical issues and critique. I would argue that corporate "liberals" who entrench discrimination while patting themselves on the back for superficial DEI initiatives fall within that category.

But, @Debater Slayer, at the end of the day, what will eventually be achieved by villifying people that a few of your loud customers don't like? And that's a whole-of-life question.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Well, as I said, as humans we'll never achieve perfection. But I continue to think it's not a bad thing to aim for, even if we don't ever get there.

Look, I come from an IT background: I have inventions that earned my companies millions of dollars. I was written up in IBM Solutions magazine twice (not bad, for a Canadian nobody). But guess what? At 75, I'm superannuated -- and frankly for good reason. As smart as I like to pretend I am, I can't keep up with the technology of today.

By the way, I have no doubt that there are 75 year-olds out there, smarter than me, who do keep up. And I get it -- their age (and little else) disqualifies them from contributing to technology.

But this is a truth of humanity. I say again, it would be great if we could work our way through that, too -- but I don't know how we'd achieve it. After all, those old profs in university, relying on their tenure to blather on about stuff the two-generation-difference audience has to listen to -- well, so long as they have tenure, how do you get younger people into their chairs? And those younger people might just have some damned fine ideas we ought to hear about.

Of course, you're right that some positions are best reserved for younger applicants, and I'm not arguing that older applicants must always get the same chance as younger ones. However, the articles I linked mention discrimination even against people in their 50s, and not all roles are affected by an older age either. Some even benefit from the experience, as you well know.

But let's also consider this: the business of a corporation is to increase shareholder value, nothing else. That, too, is going to have an effect on where things go. For a while, companies that paid attention to DEI made more money. What will they do if enough conservatives say, "let's not shop at Chik-fil-A because they support ****?"

Yes, it seems to me that prioritizing profit over ethics is largely enshrined in and a consequence of corporate capitalism. If the market is progressive and pro-LGBT, then corporations will also have to be if they want to have the best PR possible. If the market is anti-LGBT and increasingly theocratic, then corporations may have to stay silent in order to avoid losing money.

 

[Debater Slayer]

But, @Debater Slayer, at the end of the day, what will eventually be achieved by villifying people that a few of your loud customers don't like? And that's a whole-of-life question.

Nothing, except perhaps gaining some market share among those loud and hateful customers. I support DEI in principle; I'm just criticizing what I see as half-hearted and almost entirely PR-driven implementations thereof.

 

[Nakosis]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/02/business/chick-fil-a-fake-controversy/index.html

Thoughts?

With all of this boycotting going on hopefully the US when end up with a better diet.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Yes, it seems to me that prioritizing profit over ethics is largely enshrined in and a consequence of corporate capitalism. If the market is progressive and pro-LGBT, then corporations will also have to be if they want to have the best PR possible. If the market is anti-LGBT and increasingly theocratic, then corporations may have to stay silent in order to avoid losing money.

I really wish I could tell you that you are wrong...I can't.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Bud Light didn't "promote men as courageous women," and labeling a trans woman as a man doesn't seem to me a productive start to a discussion about the issue. The company merely ran an ad campaign with a significantly popular influencer who happened to be trans. I haven't watched all of the ads involving Dylan Mulvaney, but what I've watched contained nothing that purported to represent all women or even touched much on gender.

I think a lot of the backlash was probably a function of the beliefs of many among the audience of Bud Light. They seem to be mostly conservative and rural Americans, so the worst I could say about the ad campaign was that it perhaps didn't read the audience correctly. That's more of a marketing thing than a political or ethical issue, though.

Yep. I see Bud light as focused on profit and not messaging.

It just targeted a demographic for a while in order to make sales of its beverages to a specific market. Namely trans people and their supporters.

If it dosent work, no doubt they will drop it like a hot potato and go on to something else.

 

[Callisto]

Yes, it seems to me that prioritizing profit over ethics is largely enshrined in and a consequence of corporate capitalism. If the market is progressive and pro-LGBT, then corporations will also have to be if they want to have the best PR possible. If the market is anti-LGBT and increasingly theocratic, then corporations may have to stay silent in order to avoid losing money.

I really wish I could tell you that you are wrong...I can't.

While this is true, the execution of a campaign can make all the difference and even contribute to changing attitudes. The problem with a lot of advertising these days is that execs are increasingly dense, this is a perfect example. Bud just went on the words of a couple of activist morons instead of saying adhering to the 101 practice of "Ok, sounds promising ... get us some data, justify this campaign"; compounded by a lack of strategic marketing. When you have a polarized society, it rarely pays to be hamfisted. This should have been a coordinated campaign with multiple influencers ranging from the left to the right and launching simultaneously. Right-wing influencers would be a redundancy but their purpose would be to serve as buffers and worth the expense as that immediately deflates dissent from either side since both are being represented evenly.

Target made an equally insipid mistake with their gay pride/trans campaign and is paying for it now. As the saying goes, there's a right way to go about things and a wrong way. And these companies are excelling at the latter, in part because they don't truly give a rat's arse about diversity but see it as the flavor of the day so that limits their capacity to be effective.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Bud just went on the words of a couple of activist morons [...]

Who would those be?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Yep. I see Bud light as focused on profit and not messaging.

It just targeted a demographic for a while in order to make sales of its beverages to a specific market. Namely trans people and their supporters.

If it dosent work, no doubt they will drop it like a hot potato and go on to something else.

Welcome to being human -- we'll help each other if it benefits us, otherwise....not so much.

 

[Callisto]

Who would those be?

The ones who said "we should do this" and argued that Bud Light needed to address a demographic that they don't appeal to, accompanied by other morons who didn't require research by the first two to support the pitch and form a better marketing plan.

 

[fantome profane]

The ones who said "we should do this" and argued that Bud Light needed to address a demographic that they don't appeal to, accompanied by other morons who didn't require research by the first two to support the pitch and form a better marketing plan.

What are you talking about? Are you saying trans people don't drink beer?

 

[Callisto]

What are you talking about? Are you saying trans people don't drink beer?

Do you think of all the brands out there that Bud Light dominates among trans beer drinkers? If they already had that market, this ad with Dylan would have been pointless.

 

[SomeRandom]

The ones who said "we should do this" and argued that Bud Light needed to address a demographic that they don't appeal to, accompanied by other morons who didn't require research by the first two to support the pitch and form a better marketing plan.

To be absolutely fair, branching out into previously unexploited demographics is a common roll of the dice move companies like to try.

Bud Light probably saw how many followers Dylan had online and wanted to appear “hip” and “cool” to a younger demographic.

Ironically the people crying woke probably gave the campaign far more publicity.
Maybe that’s what they were banking on, who knows lol

 

[fantome profane]

The ones who said "we should do this" and argued that Bud Light needed to address a demographic that they don't appeal to, accompanied by other morons who didn't require research by the first two to support the pitch and form a better marketing plan.

What are you talking about? Are you saying trans people don't drink beer?

 

[Callisto]

To be absolutely fair, branching out into previously unexploited demographics is a common roll of the dice move companies like to try.

That's not what I'm saying, I did say, "there's a right way and a wrong way." And they went about it the wrong way.

Bud Light probably saw how many followers Dylan had online and wanted to appear “hip” and “cool” to a younger demographic.

They were convinced by the two execs who pitched the idea that Bud needed to move away from it's "frat boy" demographics (their words) and really should jump on the diversity bandwagon. Which is fine to pitch but that needed to be supported and, evidently, it wasn't.

Ironically the people crying woke probably have the campaign far more publicity.
Maybe that’s what they were banking on, who knows lol

No doubt Bud Light wishes it was so. Unfortunately, this wasn't simply a miscalculation, it was a colossal f* up because now it's being boycotted by the right and the left (the latter because they're pissed BL backpedaled and "abandoned" Dylan).

 

[Callisto]

What are you talking about? Are you saying trans people don't drink beer?

Didn't you already post this question?

 

[Clizby Wampuscat]

The massive butthurt over the Bud Light thing is embarrassing, however given that most of their customer base were insular inbred rednecks, I suppose they should've expected the spectacle.

Can you explain why you think people are upset about it?

 

[lewisnotmiller]

You know, there might be a bit of truth in what you suggest (that DEI is rooted in PR), but does that really matter? Isn't a positive outcome still positive, even when the motive for the initiative may not be totally unself-serving? Canada's first bank, the Bank of Montreal, was among the first corporations to provide complete benefits to all of its employees and their spouses -- of whatever gender, colour, race or (I think) height. Most Canadian companies now do that -- even the little ones. The result is that many people going though life's ordinary difficulties are no longer burdens on the state (and thus the tax-payer) but are provided for by corporate (private) benefit plans.

What's more (and I can attest to this personally from having been directly involved), DEI and work principles are making companies re-think how they hire -- and that includes allowing hiring managers to see no personal information about candidates than the accomplishments on their resumes: not their names (which could indicate sex, race, country of origin), not marital information (which could hint at non-traditiional orientations). And they are abiding by them.

I grant, these efforts will never be perfect, because humans can't by their very nature be perfect. But I can't see any reason to let the inability to achieve perfection to stop us from at least trying to be better.

I'd push back a little on this, but let me try and explain why.

There are differences between the burgeoning DEI industry, and efforts to improve diversity, equity and inclusion.
If we looked at HR departments, we probably don't say 'Hey, HR departments are good, because we think humans are important'. If we did, I'd push back on that too.

Rather, good HR departments are good. And bad ones are horrible blockers to effective people management (in my experience). I'm lucky in that the current place I work has a HR department which sees themselves as a service within the business rather than gatekeepers. Of course there are some elements of gatekeeping (eg. Ensuring contracts comply with laws)

DEI is much the same. If they are integrated as part of the business, act as a service, raise awareness of diversity, challenge existing processes by pointing out issues and possible corrective actions, I can definitely see the point.

Instead I recently got to sit through the same pre-canned DEI slideshow and quiz as every other manager in my business, which is lazy, shows no connection to the business (which is a somewhat recent amalgamation of 7 businesses, and as such has vastly varied cultural norms around diversity), has no measurable outcomes, and would seem very unlikely to have much impact.

If I tried to talk to our clients in such a cookie cutter fashion I'd rightly cop grief for it. Any cursory measure of our business unit would show rapid increase in gender diversity across the group in the last 3 years, including at management level. My team also has increased diversity across racial and sexuality too. But the DEI team have never spoken to me about that, or even looked. Instead they send me a quiz to educate me on diversity and why it's important. It's frankly insulting.

None of that precludes the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion. But I wouldn't say the DEI industry is invariably a positive factor in that fight.

 

[Father Heathen]

Can you explain why you think people are upset about it?

Because the current witchhunt against the LGBT community, particularly transgendered folks, has witless dopes riled up.

 

[Revoltingest]

Is it ethical for them to operate in the US to begin with when it has been one of the worst actors on the international stage for decades?

Are you really suggesting that large corporations
(only large ones?) should perhaps shut down operations
in USA because of foreign policies you dislike?