Less than a year ago, some African American employees at Google joined a class-action lawsuit, headed by famed attorney Ben Crump, making the accusation that racism permeates the culture of tech goliath Google against Blacks, minorities and women in terms of hiring, promotions and the fostering of an overall hostile work environment.
Despite high-tech companies boasting that they’ve invested tens of millions of dollars to promote and maintain some semblance of diversity, equity and inclusion — Google in particular is accused of maintaining a “racially biased corporate culture” where Black people comprise only 4.4 percent of employees and about 3 percent of leadership and its technology workforce, according to Reuters.
Prospects have not gotten better for Black employees and those aspiring to work at places like Google. The search engine company just laid off 12,000 employees in January 2023, according to TimesNowNews.com. Google has also frozen or eliminated many company perks and just announced in March 2023 a great reduction of promotions for the foreseeable future.
Worse, according to FastCompany.com, since Blacks and women were the last to get hired and promoted at Google, they were reportedly the first to get fired or laid off among the scores of layoffs at the Simi Valley, California-based company. Research proves that Black employees are laid off at higher rates than their Caucasian counterparts during a downward spiral in the overall economy, according to American Progress.
Nevertheless, the tech giants that were surveyed by FastCompany.com. indicated they have committed a reported total of $3.8 billion toward DEI in 2020 and 2021. A vast majority of the funds have been appropriated towards Black-owned businesses and a substantial portion earmarked for racial justice organizations and educational initiatives.
Fast Company, however, says that while that seems like a lot of money devoted to diversity, it may be misleading to some degree. For example, the publication states that while Apple reportedly gave $100 million toward their inclusion efforts, the company will make that money back in profits in less than 24 hours.
Other companies that committed even greater sums to DEI such as Alphabet/Google (a reported $347M) and Microsoft ($772M) will recoup their investments in profits in three to six days. Notice that the publication stated profits and not just overall revenue.
In short, surveillance expert Chris Gilliard, who was a Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center Visiting Research Fellow in 2021, surmised to Fast Company that the money these mammoth tech companies reportedly devote to DEI is tantamount to pocket change.
“It’s not even couch-cushion money to them,” Gilliard said. More importantly, Gilliard added the “platitudes they preach” and investments the tech companies publicly boast about do not align with their actual day-to-day business practices.
