WTF. Offensive or not these questions are plain dumb. He must have been trying to illicit a reaction from Makinde.
Reminds me of the SNL skit where Richard Pryor is being interviewed by Chevy Chase doing word associations.
I think that gives him far too much credit. It's no different than if you asked someone "Why is it offensive if I grope you, hit on you, and imply that sexual favors will advance your career?" It smacks of complete obliviousness to social issues at best, which would make the interviewer extremely unqualified to screen interview candidates for anything other than pure technical qualifications. Which, in this instance, they were obviously conducting an at least partially non-technical interview.
My suspicion is it's an aggressive move, to make sure that the racially insensitive and/or offensive status quo can be maintained with the interviewer betting heavily that their actions would not be called out post-hoc and that any candidate who was offended would walk away quietly. The people creating such a climate can claim an attempt at stimulating diversity, but that their job offers are turned down.
It's unfortunate that we don't know who did this nor does it appear that their company was contacted/informed about the inappropriate behavior of one of their employees.
Strange. My sense is that the interviewer was fishing to see if he would be politically assertive enough.
Well, if he were truely politically assertive, he would answer smoothly and to the interviewers full satisfaction, take the job, wear a microphone and follow up on the interview questions on tape and then sue the everliving shit out of the company.
It's strategically stupid in addition to being an asshole move.
The only people who really suffer are the ones that you actually want; reasonable, smart developers with options will wisely avoid this company like the plague.
The risk that your manager will continue to act this way or that they will have a deep-seeded bias against black people is high. The chance that they are merely good-intentioned but, inarticulate and socially awkward are low.
Even in that best case scenario, those are terrible qualities to have in a manager.
So there is no claim to make. If he was an employee or didn't get an offer he could get the EEOC to strongarm the company into an OK settlement. Otherwise without a federal agency bankrolling the strongarming, there is no way to make something like an emotional distress claim in state court especially with the lack of proof.
He was probably a lot more diplomatic than I would have been.