Luke Visconti is the founder and CEO of Fair360, formerly DiversityInc. Although the title of his column is meant to be humorous, the issues he addresses and the answers he gives to questions are serious — and based on his 17 years of experience publishing Fair360, formerly DiversityInc. Click here to send your own question to Luke.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is speaking about race as I write this. Humiliated by his boss, he’s trying his best to sound like a nice guy who doesn’t believe that Nazis and people who oppose Nazis are equivalent. He is going to try a diversity effort at the State Department.
He’s making some classic mistakes. When a white man says “regardless of” race/gender/orientation/disability — look out, they don’t mean what they’re going to say next. If we are addressing existing disparities, it is never regardless of; it is because of. “Regardless of” dismisses the person you’re referring to. It assumes a neutrality a white man like Tillerson simply doesn’t have. Was Tillerson able to become the CEO of Exxon regardless of the fact that he was from Texas, an engineer and a white man? The person who succeeded Tillerson at Exxon is from Texas, has an engineering degree and is a white man, not an Asian woman with a nursing degree. If you cannot start the conversation with honesty, insight and clarity, you will never have the credibility to earn a successful conclusion.
