Corporations have long been co-opting radical and countercultural features of the cultural left. Every new form of rebellious aesthetic innovation is swiftly packaged and sold, every 60’s slogan about freedom or being yourself soon winds up on designer goods. The Paradox Of The Mass-Produced Che T-Shirt is a very old cliché by now. Still, one can remark at the sheer speed with which ideas, trends and terminology can move from anarchist bookshop obscurity to academic respectability to dominating the language at major monopolistic global corporations.
In particular, the language of “
intersectionality” (the theory that different people are oppressed in different ways, and that these differing oppressions compound and intersect differently) has been keenly embraced by elements in the corporate world. Once confined to activist and academic discourse, intersectionality is now being used by some tech companies as a way to publicly demonstrate their liberal credentials. Tech risk assessment and management consultancy Deloitte’s web magazine asked “
What if the road to inclusion were really an intersection?” (Even accepting the premise of intersectionality, this question makes no sense.) Deloitte urged its clients that an “intersectional approach that reaches all facets of corporate life is often more fruitful.”
Fortune offered similar advice, under the headline “
Tech Companies Shouldn’t Treat Race and Gender Separately,” and the originator of the term, Kimberlé Crenshaw, gave an enthusiastically received TED talk on “
the urgency of intersectionality.” Corporations have long since absorbed progressive language about diversity and inclusion; the
website of missile defense system company Northrop Grumman offers a detailed celebration of racial and gender diversity, with the weapons manufacturer boasting that it observes seven different pride and heritage months, contracts with minority-owned small businesses for drone parts, and hosts an annual Women’s Conference featuring field trips to the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial.
One can also hear echoes in the
annual diversity report of corporate messaging platform Slack, which releases its employee demographic figures with an apology and promise to do better if the figures fall short (“We are going to keep talking about it. Of course, talk is not enough. We will continue to regularly report on our status so that we can be held accountable.”) This kind of “
simultaneously self-flagellating and self-flattering apology” for failures on race and gender issues has become a standard part of progressive “call-out culture” online, with the “promise to do better” becoming a ritualistic public performance.
So, too, the infamous “safe spaces.” Business magazine
Inc. explained “
How to Create a Safe Space for Your Employees,” while Greg Cunningham, the new Vice President of Global Inclusion & Diversity at U.S. Bank,
advised business leaders: “You have to create a safe space… encouraging people to take their masks off… You have to be willing to create an emotional space for people to talk…”
