A former CMO in Boston is hosting free office hours for the public, but in the name of increasing diversity in his industry, he's limiting the number of office hours that White Men are allowed to take. This is spelled out pretty blatantly in the two buttons on his page, "Office Hours for White Men" and "Office Hours for Everyone Else": http://www.mikevolpe.com/office-hours
I get it, we need to increase diversity in the workplace. That's one of our noble causes right now. But how is this not even remotely seen as blatant discrimination? How is this so widely accepted in our country that a high profile CMO feels completely justified in doing it? Those buttons so closely resemble the iconic "Colored Water Fountain" images from the MLK days that it's almost laughable. Seriously, can you see the resemblance? What's even weirder is that articles have been published praising his decision to stand up for women and minorities.
I can't help but think that this kind of discrimination is just as dangerous as discrimination against women and minorities. Either way, you're excluding or limiting specific groups of people for reasons that are out of their control and have nothing to do with their professional abilities. Shouldn't everyone have equal opportunities and be judged on their own individual merit? Not race, gender, sexual orientation, etc? Or is it impossible to discriminate against White Males?
Is the solution to discrimination against women and minorities to discriminate against another group (in this case, White Males)? Or is it to stop discriminating period? This seems like a very flawed ideology to me.
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[–] SFLemonade [S] 0 points 4 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago
I have to agree with you. We should be hiring based on individual capabilities, regardless of race or gender. It's odd how in the fight to treat everyone equally, we just start treating a different group unequally instead.