I couldn't stop reading this. I considered doing so a couple times but then the very next sentence would send us careering [perfect word] off again, around the slaloms and chicanes and hairpin turns of corporate America, 2022.
Stop me before I read it again. And again.
From Elliott Management-backed (Paul Singer) Washington Free Beacon, March 26:
A terrifying thought occurred to me about halfway through day one of the Bloomberg Equality Summit, an annual gathering of corporate executives, DEI officers, and the actor who played Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma to discuss KPIs regarding CSR and ESG across a variety of GLs. (Translation: Diversity, equity, and inclusion; key performance indicators; corporate social responsibility; environment, social, and governance; global landscapes.) I realized I would rather be watching the Senate Judiciary Committee consider the Supreme Court nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson. If I had to subject myself to a mindless marathon of performative righteousness, I'd prefer the one with fewer Ivy League buzzwords and heaping piles of corporate bullshit. Say what you will about Congress, at least it's not (overtly) sponsored by a woke hedge fund (TPG) specializing in leveraged buyouts.
Nevertheless, I persisted through nine hours and eight minutes of panel discussions and interviews about how "intentionality" is a "core dynamic" of a "deeply matrixed approach" to "driving inclusive change" and "decolonizing thinking" as we endeavor to "widen the aperture" of accountable leadership and "reimagine consumer base experiences" in the digital age. The discourse was nonsensical at times, deranged and terrifying at others. The phrase, "As goes California, goes the nation… You cannot hide from this," stuck out as particularly chilling. The summit was officially titled, "Measuring the Movement: Accountability in Action." Though I think the following phrase, as it appears in the official transcript, provides a more accurate summary: "Advancing equity and inclusion in a deep turd World."
Perhaps I was just bitter about not being able to partake in the remarkable networking opportunities. Day one of the two-day event was an in-person gathering in New York City and included a mid-morning "networking break," lunch in the "networking lounge," and climaxed with a "networking and cocktails" happy hour. I had been looking forward to representing the Washington Free Beacon, a woman-led small business intent on disrupting the alternative media space, and discussing strategies for driving inclusive equity among my peers in the industry. Alas, the host was "unable to approve" my application to attend "due to limited space." In what may or may not be a related incident, my email inquiry about why the Bloomberg summit was promoting "equality" as opposed to "equity"—the preferred term among Democratic politicians and other social justice activists—went unanswered.
Having been relegated to the lowly status of virtual attendee, my networking opportunities were limited to the online chat forum, where other virtual guests, including one very active poster named "Karen," were plugging their LinkedIn profiles and constantly thanking the summit participants for making "OUTSTANDING points!!!" I watched along in the company of some of the industry's leading experts, including a DEI and ESG adviser for Labiana Pharmaceuticals, the Manager of Global STEM Outreach, DEI and CSR Initiatives for Hitachi High-Tech in America, as well as the founder and CEO of Black Women in Artificial Intelligence....
....MUCH MORE
So much more. It's like Ravel's Boléro, it just keeps building and building
First posted March 28, 2022
