Letters

As I was conversing with a stranger at a restaurant a few weeks ago, he asked what I had done for a living. When I said I had worked in HR for a major corporation, his response was, “You weren’t one of those DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) guys were you?”

Even though my leadership role encompassed a broad range of HR responsibilities, I simply replied that I was, but followed it up with the question: “Why, are you a racist?” He said that he was — but then added he’s not really a racist, it’s all just a matter of opinion.

The fact that somebody would readily acknowledge to a complete stranger that they are a racist tells you just how much we have backtracked as a country over the past 20 years — but that’s not the point of this letter.

The real problem is that racism is not just a matter of opinion, it’s how we view those around us and impacts our behavior. Whom you choose your non-work friends to be is one thing, but how you treat people you manage and work with is a whole other matter.

DEI efforts have been much in the news the past year as one of conservative’s favorite targets, even though similar efforts have been going on for many decades by different names. The U.S. Army was one of the first to recognize the importance during the Vietnam War, when working class white and Black kids who didn’t have student deferments were thrown together in integrated units, and they needed to be able to count on each other.

It’s not just a matter of U.S. military readiness and unit cohesiveness. Corporations began to treat the issue with increasing importance in the late 1980s when there was realization that the demographics of the talent pool were changing, as more women and people of color were pursuing college degrees, and there was a looming shortage in the engineering workforce.

As I heard our CEO say at a national minority engineering conference in 1990, he wasn’t backing it because it’s the right thing to do, but rather because it’s good business.

In today’s environment of social media, those companies that work at providing a work atmosphere where all people of different backgrounds feel valued and included will quickly develop a reputation that recruits want to be a part of, and employees will commit to.

How these concepts are being applied in different organizations is up for debate, but the basic commitment to them impacts our ability to compete as a nation.

Whenever I hear politicians and media disparage the principles, I always go back to that restaurant conversation and question their true motives.

Ron Schaefer

Hampton Bays