I work for a large trans-national company HQed in silicon valley and I am a middle-aged cis white guy who has helped advocate for diversity, inclusion, and equity in our company. I’m not defending the Bliz/Activision chart, but I can totally empathize how it got to be touted as a good thing. I feel sorry for the POC community and their allies who are probably feeling that they were sold a bill of goods by the executive team and their HR/comms group. I did try to see this as some kind of good intent at some level, but it sure is clunky.
We all need to do better as a society.
I hope that my group I worked with would have shot it down in how it was presented, but it’s hard when as Brandon observed, a lot of this is coming down from the top. “Engineering companies” want “engineering solutions” to social problems. Companies don’t yet understand that you can’t pie chart your way out of implicitly supporting white nationalism because your company line is that saying Black Lives Matter is a political statement. Yeah it’s a political statement, and it’s one we as a company should just agree with on principal!
There really are no easy solutions here and unfortunately, this experience will probably continue to put another barrier up from even trying at B/A which is just a really struggling studio culturally and execution wise.
Personally, I try to openly supporting work colleagues who do not look like me, try to build meaningful working relationships and friendships with people who do not look like me. I try to be explicitly heard as an advocate on issues like how Black Lives Matter is table stakes. How “The Russian Government’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the Ukrainian people is evil” is the way to do this. Even talking about your salary and pay grade openly with your colleagues has an impact because now others have access to information that they can use to take to management and HR and say “equal work for equal pay.”
I hope this post comes across in the constructive and nuanced way it is intended.
