HRD: Adobe says we’re done with DEI

I put in a conceited effort to pay attention to as little mainstream news as I possibly can, but I’m always going to find out about some things here and there, simply by existing.  Among them, I know that DEI is a hot button topic, with the orange clown show in Washington having declared war on DEI, and all sorts of schools, businesses and corporate entities all taking highly-scrutinized stances on it.

Like I know that Target has been accused of turning heel on the liberal-minded by declaring they are not going to continue supporting DEI, and Costco has benefited from it because they have taken the opposite stance, and will continue to do such.  Colleges and companies across the country have scrapped their DEI initiatives because Washington has basically put a gun to the heads of everyone who is too craven to stand against such bullying, and as usual, the world is a worse place than the day before it, like every single day now.

It might be right-wing of me to say this, but I do have mixed feelings about DEI.  In principle, it sounds good, because I’m all for diversity, equity and inclusion.  Everyone should get a fair shake in this world, no matter their circumstances and lifestyles.  It’s just that throughout the rise and existence of DEI, it’s been politicized and implemented completely with the wrong intent and motivation, and when such is the case, it kind of is the detriment that the bozos in Washington accuse it to be. 

I’m not saying that I support it being forcibly removed all over the place, I do believe that the world is a slightly better place with DEI as a concept than not, it’s just that I would like for it to be a thing that comes from a genuine place of wanting inclusion, and not becoming an obnoxious company quota system, like it sometimes feels like it has been throughout the country.

But back to the point of this post and what spurned this diatribe, Adobe joins the camp of companies and entities out there that has publicly declared their discontinuation of DEI practices.  And it’s easy for them to do such, because they’ve hard monopolized the graphics industry, and their existing users will have a real hard time to find alternatives to all the things that they need to do in order to do their jobs.

However, there’s an extremely easy joke in all this, because any graphics or video person in the world who has ever used any Adobe software at all, might remember the days when the splash screens for initializing any piece of Adobe software at all would remember that they used to have credits and acknowledgments in them, and basically every single name listed were people who clearly were not the Ryan Joneses or Jacqueline Kennedys or any names that indicate that a company really needs to hire some more minorities.

And as the joke goes, DEI for a company like Adobe really means that they really actually need to hire more white people.  But now that they’re scrapping their DEI initiatives, that requirement is now dead and out the window, and as much as I jadedly clown on Adobe for their shitty rushed products, I think it’s hilarious the strategy in which they employed with this announcement, that they frankly don’t have to worry about hiring white people in order to meet their quotas.

Frankly, if I ruled the world, I’d institute hiring practices that eliminated candidate names and photos and any other physical indicators out of the equation, until later in the candidacy process.  Let candidates’ qualifications, competencies and perceived ability to do jobs be the determining factor at what gets people in the door of places.  Get rid of Affirmative Action, DEI and any other concepts that have come to fruition solely in order to diversify pictures for the sake of diversification. 

Obviously, such would never happen, but I’m just spitballing here.

Either way, good on Adobe for cleverly stepping away from DEI initiatives when they did, because they’re definitely a company that could probably use some more white folks, but now that they’ve said what they’ve said, they’re not at all legally obligated to hire whites in order to meet any quotas.