Uber has suspended its longtime head of diversity, equity, and inclusion, Bo Young Lee, after Black and Hispanic employees complained that an event she ran — titled “Don’t Call Me Karen” — was insensitive to people of color.
According to The New York Times, “Employees’ concerns centered on a pair of events, one last month and another last Wednesday, that were billed as ‘diving into the spectrum of the American white woman’s experience’ and hearing from white women who work at Uber, with a focus on ‘the Karen persona.’ They were intended to be an ‘open and honest conversation about race,’ according to the invitation.”
Uber’s Black and Hispanic employees, however, felt lectured-to on the difficulties experienced by white women. They are 100 percent correct. I don’t think it’s possible for an event the focuses on the feigned offense of “Karens” to be an “open and honest conversation about race.”
