We Tried to Tell You

I was at the gym one day, and like most gyms, they have television screens playing the news.

One had CNN on, and the headline was as follows — The “Co-CEO [founder] of LinkedIn said that CEOs [and people in power] are afraid to speak against Trump” .

You can find the video here. While this man was speaking about the possibility of retaliation if 45 regains his position, to say the least, this is not about politics, but about the culture that CEOs — and LinkedIn — have perpetuated for years, if not decades.

Any attempt at working toward an equitable world in white collar work, on LinkedIn, was met with starving people out.

After all, if you’re starving, desperate, or dead, you’ll stop saying “Hey, we can improve. We can stop doing racist things”, and the status quo can continue.

Need another example?

I’ve seen multiple people in private Slack channels be surprised that speaking against genocide means they lose their job. That LinkedIn has gotten “more racist”.

I have a revelation for you —

Lot of people fighting for equality were always losing their jobs.

Lot of people on LinkedIn were always publicly bigoted — and employed.

A lot of CEOs wanted to keep “politics” out until they saw how it could affect them if a certain person won.

Some of us were raising the alarm for ages.
Maybe, spurred by passion and fear, we didn’t do it “right” all of the time. Maybe our approach could have been better (We have to meet people where they are at).

Maybe you felt comfortable because, back then, in 2020, you had a paycheck that could cover 80% of your bills, instead of 54% today.

But we saw what was happening, we rang them alarm — and we were rewarded with unemployment for our concern for your company, your work life, your life, period.

So, now that you see what we’ve seen for years, we can work — together this time — to fix it, and make a society that’s truly equitable.

This is a kind space — you don’t have to solve all the problems.

If you were approaching someone in your previous position — “It’s not bothering me, I have money and a job, I’m just not knowledgeable enough” — what would you tell them to pull back the curtain, to show them that their security and comfort is tentative at best, but permanent if we work together?

I do tech work over here. Always for hire.