*As you can tell fro our headline, Facebook has a black people problem. This assessment comes from a man who is now a former employee by the name of Mark Luckie. In his 2,500-word missive, posted on Tuesday, on Facebook no less, points out what he sees as a culture that talks about inclusion, but does not practice it.
As an example, Luckie says that in some buildings at the company, there were “more ‘Black Lives Matter’ posters than there are actual black people”
Luckie, who is black, said Facebook’s population of black employees is not representative of its huge black user base.
“There is often more diversity in Keynote presentations than the teams who present them,” Luckie wrote in the note, which he originally shared with Facebook employees on Nov. 8.
Facebook is failing its Black employees and its Black users. Here’s why: https://t.co/PJSRrFJZrO pic.twitter.com/LeCYxCwBpX
— Mark S. Luckie (@marksluckie) November 27, 2018
“In some buildings, there are more ‘Black Lives Matter’ posters than there are actual black people. Facebook can’t claim that it is connecting communities if those communities aren’t represented proportionately in its staffing.”
Luckie’s note provides an inside look at what it’s like to be black inside of Facebook, but it is not the first time Facebook’s lack of diversity has been exposed.
“You can build something that works, that people want to use, but you can’t actually make all the right decisions if among the builders there’s not enough diversity and perspective,” Facebook’s head of diversity Maxine Williams told CNBC in July.
In another example from Luckie’s note, he writes about how he and other minority employees are treated by other colleagues.
“On a personal note, at least two or three times a day, every day, a colleague at MPK [Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park] will look directly at me and tap or hold their wallet or shove their hands down their pocket to clutch it tightly until I pass,” Luckie wrote.
Meanwhile, another employee who recently left the company and is also a person of color, told CNBC that Luckie’s note was “unfortunately not surprising.”
“Facebook touts diversity and inclusion as though it’s a marketing opportunity, and perhaps it is genuinely meaningful to them on its face,” the former employee told CNBC. “But when it comes to tactical, day-to-day integration of their stock ‘unconscious bias’ training, it proves to still be a group of exceedingly privileged white people making similarly biased and discriminatory choices as other white leaders in the industry.”
Read/learn MORE at CNBC.
We Publish News 24/7. Don’t Miss A Story. Click HERE to SUBSCRIBE to Our Newsletter Now!
