A Small Matter of Diversity and Inclusion
After going through a generation (baby-boomers) of supporting equal rights for “all” which includes women (later in the effort), Corporate America (in this case John Deere) is reversing its course. The stance is a “whatever will be, will be” and we will not make an effort to level the playing field.
I was working on a cable scaffold about 20 stories up. A 20th floor window opened up and another worker with his canvas bag of tools stepped on the scaffold. About that time, Marty (foreman) let loose with a lengthy list of explicatives at the new worker including “nigger.” This was 1967 and equal rights was still a dream and racial tension was high.
If they can not work as an equal in capabilities, how can you hold them responsible? Marty left the scaffold out of the window the Black man exited from and still yelling. In a matter of minutes, the Black tuckpointer went to the same window he entered from and left. While leaving, he looked at this almost 19-year-old man-boy and left. The hurt in his face was evident. I still remember the look.
John Deere is reinforcing similar action by no longer sponsoring social or cultural awareness.
Today, John Deere’s position is a matter of silent contempt. Read on . . .
John Deere ends support of ‘social or cultural awareness’ events, AP News
SUMMARY: Farm equipment maker John Deere says it will no longer sponsor “social or cultural awareness” events, becoming the latest major U.S. company to distance itself from diversity and inclusion measures after being targeted by conservative backlash.
In a statement posted Tuesday to social media platform X, John Deere also said it would audit all training materials “to ensure the absence of socially-motivated messages” in compliance with federal and local laws. It did not specify what those messages would include.
Moline, Illinois-based John Deere added . . .
“The existence of diversity quotas and pronoun identification have never been and are not company policy.”
But it noted that it would still continue to “track and advance” the diversity of the company, without providing further details.
The move from the company known on Wall Street as Deere & Co. arrives just weeks after rural retailer Tractor Supply ended an array of its corporate diversity and climate efforts. Both announcements came after backlash piled up online from conservative activists opposed to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, sponsorship of LGBTQ+ Pride events and climate advocacy.
MY TAKE: This is bad news for America, not just because it shows a weakening of our commitment to support diversity and inclusion at a time when systemic racism is increasing, but it also shows a lack of moral commitment by corporations to embrace American ideals.
John Deere’s faltering means that either they were bullied by public sentiment to show “social or cultural awareness,” or they actually cared but are now being bullied by the conservative climate to abandon “social or cultural awareness.” Either way, they certainly don’t represent the American idea of standing up to bullies—or standing for anything. Instead, they embrace the corporate amorality of whatever brings the most profit. This indicates their corporate policy goes whichever way the political wind blows, which makes them as empty and inconsequential as that wind.
What jumps out at me is the claim that systemic racism is increasing in year 4 of the Biden administration. Systemic racism is not so well defined that I am aware of widely accepted, reliably tracked data on it, but it still is a puzzle that whatever it is has increased.
Eric:
I do not hear Biden promoting racism. On the other hand, trump and his father were not keen on minorities. You should already know this. And it carries down to the trump supporters.
@Bill,
Looks like “DEI” is replacing “woke” as the latest right-wing dog whistle for the n-word.
Exactly.
Bill re Eric
do make it explicit Eric apparently has a blind spot as big as half his brain. He apparently hasn’t noticed Trump giving the racists permission (and cover) to act out their their racism. it reminds me of a patient whose brain was damaged in such a way that even though there was nothing wrong with his eyes, he could look in a mirror and shave only half his face because he could not “see” the other half.
you never know what is walking the streets in front of you.
Bill
try to understand i am not even disagreeing with you, buch less attacking you. this is just my perception of the issue.
first, it is not clear to me from your description of the window-scaffold issue what exactly happened.
second, “equal opportunity” policies are better when not officially adopted or enforced, but just a private recognition of the need for equal treatment as well as positive effort to promote opportunities for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Deere may be doing this, or just backsliding into racism… I don’t know. But “in your face” equal opportunity decisions don’t play well in Peoria.
first, it is not clear to me from your description of the window-scaffold issue what exactly happened.
Exactly what needs to be made clear? Based on your comment, using the N-word can be justified. Please explain those circumstances so we are clear.
second, “equal opportunity” policies are better when not officially adopted or enforced, but just a private recognition of the need for equal treatment as well as positive effort to promote opportunities for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Better for who? In your utopian world, maybe that is possible, but in reality, people will not overcome their biases and prejudices without being forced to. We tried your way for over a hundred years after the Civil War, and Jim Crow was the result.
But “in your face” equal opportunity decisions don’t play well in Peoria
Maybe not, but they play well with those who still believe the American dream should be available to all.
Turtle:
To be fair. I did alter this comment a bit so as to make if clearer about how Marty was yelling. This occurred after Dale made his complaint. It was by itself self-intuitive as you point out.
At almost 19, I was taken back. After serving with Black Americans, native Americans, etc. I am still struck by how amazingly ignorant and bigoted Marty was. However, I was not working with college grads. This was Labor in its rawest form. And it was the late sixties.
I did consult at the Caterpillar facility for weeks in manufacturing systems. Very interesting. I walked through many of its buildings on site and saw a lot of history.
Thank you for your comments.
Turtle
intolerance and bigotry are not good for either “side.” you don’t know what i meant but you feel sure i should have known what Bill meant. I have to suppose that I have been in many more situations than you so I learned that I don’t always know what someone else meant, and can see a number of possibilities where you only see the movie you have been running in your mind since someone told you what to think about everything.
forced “equal opportunity” has not worked so well that we don’t have to face a Trump backlash. to be fair to you, it has woked well enough to make a difference for the better …discounting the backlash.
as for the N word. I can say it without blushing, or feeling any animosity or contempt for people whose skin is darker than mine. but i can’t use it in front of people like you who seize any opportunity to feel morally superior to someone else.
you talk about the American dream as if your version of it was the all and everything. try to believe if you can that other people have other ideas, not all of them any more narrow, if not evil, than yours.
i faced guns to help black people in the South to secure their civil rights. what have you done besides sowing hate where you don’t need to?
just to be clear
“in reality, people will not overcome their biases and prejudices without being forced to.”
this is the most ignorant, if not most evil, belief that destroys the happiness of man.
i doubt very much i could force you to give up your biases and prejudices.
“But “in your face” equal opportunity decisions don’t play well in Peoria
“Maybe not, but they play well with those who still believe the American dream should be available to all. “
Yep. As someone who grew up in the South at the end of American apartheid, I recall that LBJ’s civil rights legislation didn’t play well in the solid Democratic south (don’t know about Peoria). But Johnson believed the American dream should be available to all, so he did the right thing, not the expedient thing. That enabled the Nixon Southern Strategy, and now the South is solidly GOP. I believe some things are bigger than Peoria. So did MLK.
Joel
all true enough…but there is still that backlash “lost the South for a generation” now going on three generations.
my point was not “do nothing” but do it in a way that doesn’t create resentment.
Eisenhower was the master at this. Faubus (was it?) forced his hand at Little Rock, but Ike pulled it off in a way that made most people agree that segregation was bad. On the other hand forced school busing angered most people to their core. There would have been no problem with equal opportunity if a President talked quietly with industrial and educational leaders and told them we have a serious problem with inequality, do what you can to recruit and hire black people. This without announcing publicly mandatory (or extorted) “equal opportunity” and giving some white moron who wouldn’t have made the cut anyway the opportunity to claim that he was discriminated against by giving his place to an unqualified black person…and setting up the next Supreme Court to find that “reverse discrimination” was unconstitutional.
In another lifetime I studied the effects of force and punishment on behavior. The science of that time and this found that they are counterproductive.
and long before that, the North discovered that two new england farmers could do in a morning what a southern overseer with twelve slaves took a week to do badly. the evidence was clear to any northerner who visited the South.
and much longer than that a wandering preacher in Palestine tried to point out the same thing. of course the Romans didn’t believe him and showed the world what force and punishment could do. it worked for them… for awhile.
animal trainers know this too. the smart ones do. the bad ones know that force and punishment get quicker results, but they do not know that they do not get good results.
Joel
I think that if you read your own comment closely you will see that you are agreeing with me” “that enabled the Nixon Southern Strategy, and now the South is solidly GOP.” hope i got those quotes close enough for you.
MLK did not use force.
“play well in Peoria” is an expression referring to theater pieces that may appeal to New York intellectuals but fail with general (paying) audiences.
try not to take figures of speech too literally
by divine coincidence Lincoln gave a speech in Peoria which you may find by google if this link doesn’t work’
https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/peoriaspeech.htm#:~:text=In%20this%20speech%20Abraham%20Lincoln,Ordinance%20and%20the%20Missouri%20Compromise.
the speech bears on the present question. you might learn something from it. or might not.