Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump are Twins with the Same Problem: They Haven’t Learned to Play Nicely
The article on LinkedIn by Jessie Hempel analyzing the virtual protests of Facebook employees is symptomatic of how fed up everyone is with arrogant power — even Millennials .
Hempel’s posting reveals that while today’s white entrepreneurs may be different in age from their corporate predecessors, in attitude, they simply reproduce the same white male privilege arrogance that produced a Donald Trump.
This reproduction of white male privilege is reflected in the lack of gender and racial diversity in Facebook and other similar companies started by entrepreneurial young white men — e.g., Mark Zuckerberg — a Trump wannabe in Millennial clothing.
Dr. France Winddance Twine, Professor of Sociologist at UC Santa Barbara, and anthropologist by training, takes note of why diversity efforts have failed in Silicon Valley and in tech organizations like Facebook. In one article, coauthored with Lauren Alfrey, “Gender-Fluid Geek Girls: Negotiating Inequality in the Tech Industry,” the authors contend that,
“Although white and Asian women successfully navigated workplace hostilities by distancing themselves from conventional heterosexual femininity, this strategy reinforces inequality regimes that privilege male workers.”
Without a doubt, Black and Latina women are seriously underrepresented in the technology field. Winddance, at 2019 Duke University talk, stated
“Black women comprise 1% of the Silicon Valley workforce. Between 2015 and 2018 several major technology firms made ‘diversity pledges’ yet these diversity initiatives have failed to produce any significant increases in the number of Black women in the technology industry.”
And, white women in Tech are not too far behind white men in exclusionary practices. Once, they get the key to the Tech (white) boy’s bathroom, white and Asian women have become as entrenched gatekeepers as the white men they once challenged.
The shame of it all. In this pandemic moment, when the world is relying heavily upon technology as the primary means of work and communications, the disparities of who gets to work and lead in the technology industry are also being revealed, alongside chronic disparities in every social and employment sector of this country.
Hence the protests by Facebook workers about how their platform is being hijacked by President Trump advocating violence against protesters and other conservatives. As Hebel points out in her analysis of the FB virtual walk out,
“Our country’s polarization is amplified by our interactions on Facebook. And the Facebook employees voicing dissent are worried that bad actors are deliberately feeding the protests, cementing institutionalized racism, and inciting violence.”
Whether this virtual uprising by Facebook workers will have any impact on Zukerberg’s decision not to censor inflammatory postings, especially those by President Trump, remains to be seen. And, we don’t know yet if there will be any repercussions for the actions they took.
But Mark Zuckerberg & Donald Trump are like twins; they share the unmitigated character trait of white privilege arrogance. Both believe they are above any rules or regulations, critiques, or anyone putting conditions on them. And, if Zuckerberg follows Trump’s playbook, he may just fire the lot of his employee protesters, and replace them. But despite the availability of a diverse workforce, his hiring will continue to reflect his limited and very white “rolodex of inequality.”
Lord help us in the future, because Zuckerberg, like Trump, will use the power of his assets (currently set at $54.7 billion — down from previous $73.4 billion) to get his own way and garner political power alongside his financial power.
My advice? Send both Zuckerberg and Trump back to kindergarden and take their financial toys away.
They haven’t learned to play nicely yet!
© 2020 Irma McClaurin
