Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has found himself unexpectedly fighting racism deep within the bowels of his organisation, pushing him to tackle the issue head-on.
On Facebook’s signature wall, where all employees can scribble whatever thoughts come to mind, there has arisen a disturbing trend where people cross out ‘Black Lives Matter’ and in place scribble ‘All Lives Matter’.
‘All Lives Matter’ is the trend that has arisen, mostly used by people who deny black Americans have any cause to complain, and to indicate that the #BLM hashtag is inherently racist by placing more value on black lives; rather than its attempt to show black lives matter too.
In an internal memo to employees sighted by Gizmodo, Zuckerberg stood firmly with the #BLM camp, explaining to employees why crossing out the epithet was insensitive to the plight of African Americans. He emphasised though, that the company cannot censor the speech of any of its employees.
As Techcrunch notes, Facebook, like many parts of corporate America, is notoriously white and has few minorities.
In the U.S. last year, Facebook hired 36 black people and 73 Hispanic people, compared to 603 white people, according to its 2014 EEO–1 report. In total, only 2 percent of Facebook’s workforce is black, 3 percent of it is Hispanic and — no surprises here — 55 percent of Facebook is white.
Read Zuckerberg’s internal memo to Facebook employees below…