Amazon removed statements advocating for LGBTQ rights and racial equity | Hacker News Reader

Amazon removed statements advocating for LGBTQ rights and racial equity

irishstar.com

64 pointsbelter53 comments

Whether you think this a bad thing or a good thing it certainly proves most large companies stand for little more than shareholder value.

If it's advantageous to raise a LGBTQ+ flag they'll do it, if it's advantageous to burn one they'll do that as well.

I guess the proper way for the movements is to not make it advantageous then. Because it’s a well-known phenomenon and forcing a change this way never worked, despite all the make believe.

How was shareholder value affected positively or negatively by LGBTQ support internally? I don't understand the connection. Prior to the president change, I don't feel there was much influence for or against, other than attracting worker talent.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental,_social,_and_g...

Blackrock investment money affect share value, if they invest in you for supporting LGBTQ then supporting LGBTQ is the most direct way to increase shareholder value.

We've been calling this "rainbow capitalism". The sneer is implied

It’s most commonly called pink money too.

Pink money is a marketing term, it's attracting sales from gay men. Rainbow capitalism is pro-LGBTQ virtue signaling in order to make your company more palatable to investors and/or the public

The only people who thought companies were sincere in their support for LGBTQ rights or black rights or anything else were right wingers who thought it meant every corporation was run by "woke" Marxists. Everyone else knew it was a cynical marketing ploy at best, but there would still be little if any visibility for these groups at all if they didn't represent a market segment that could be exploited by capitalism. It was better than nothing.

I thought it was at least a good sign that /that/ was the "cynical marketing ploy" they felt was what people wanted to see, and which had the broadest appeal. Maybe it actually reflected, or at attempted to pander to, a broad cultural ideal. Now it's not.

I think it’s more that they understand which side their bread is buttered on and are sucking up to the new admin. It isn’t like the political demographics of the United States magically changed on Inauguration Day.

The demographics haven't changed, but the power center has. Previously, business was pandering to the masses, now it's pandering to power.

The left wing also has enough followers who thought that yet another corpname “adopting” the idea was a real step towards it. A little wishful to claim that crazy believers exist only at one side of the fence. It’s actually hard to make demographics that different at the scale of what we are talking here, so that it would exclude particular statistical segments.

>The left wing also has enough followers who thought that yet another corpname “adopting” the idea was a real step towards it. A little wishful to claim that crazy believers exist only at one side of the fence.

That isn't crazy, though, that's just naive.

Believing that American corporations - especially tech companies - are controlled by an organized cabal of Marxist elites engaged in a conspiracy of white genocide and oppression of Conservatives through the use of "wokeness" and "DEI" is crazy.

Companies obeying new laws is one thing, and of course they don't really have much choice about that if they want to stay in business.

But companies changing stuff just to cozy up to a new president without there being a law forcing them is quite another thing.

I think this sets a dangerous precedent, regardless of the stuff being changed.

The executive order instructs the federal government to look at private sector D.E.I. initiatives: Each federal agency, it says, will identify “up to nine potential civil compliance investigations” that could include publicly traded corporations, nonprofits and large foundations, among others.

“That discrete number is a way of striking fear into organizations’ hearts,” said Kenji Yoshino, a constitutional lawyer at N.Y.U. who advises some Fortune 500 companies on D.E.I. “They just don’t want to be one of those nine. Until those nine are announced, it’s going to cause others to be risk-averse.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/business/trump-dei-corpor...

There's an easy legal argument to make that discrimination in hiring, or otherwise, on the basis of race is illegal.

So I'm not surprised that companies with policies promoting specific subgroups are worried about legal consequences.

e.g. from the article

[Amazon] "The deletion of previous statements pledging to commit to “equity for Black people”"

These policies are in compliance with 60 years of US federal law. These policies are in compliance with 60 years of US federal case law.

There policies are in compliance with 60 years of executive branch policy/guidance.

The executive branch can not change established law nor case law. The executive branch can not change executive branch policies in an 'arbitrary and capricious' manner.

These are the guardrails to stability that allow our nation to function, our stock markets to attract overseas investment, and our currency to be the worlds reserve currency.

That these 'executives' would rather jeopardize all of the above for expediency/deference from a newly elected President says quite a lot. There are no guardrails when everyone abandons them proactively. And when there are no guardrails there is not stability. And when there is no stability there is no business investment.

This internet comment has a lot of conviction, but my experience differs.

A company I once worked for "asked" me and others EM's to fast-track hiring African American engineers to meet an internal diversity quota. The company didn't write this policy on paper and kept it strictly verbal for fear of legal consequences.

In any case, Affirmative Action has recently been struck down by the Supreme Court so I doubt similar racial-discriminatory policies will hold up.

Everything I wrote is true and is how our nation works, both legally and as a successful country. It is what has lead to us being the number one economy on earth.

But I see instead of facts you went with the old in 'my experience...' internet comment. Did you challenge them in court? Or did you just give up in advance? You saying these written policies should be given up because of secret policies used nefariously (not the ones in question)? Shouldn't it be the secret policies that are challenged? Should we get rid of Trump because he said no project 2025 yet in the first few days implemented a crap ton of project 2025 appearing to have 'secret policies'?

There is nothing to hold up in court if every company just gives in and leaves 60 years of norms behind in one day. If you don't see that or don't care you are putting politics over what has made the USA great. No tyrants jerking policy at their whims. Instead established and protected norms providing a stable country. Look at successful software frameworks and how they are maintained. Much differently than how a company is operates. Frameworks (including social frameworks) need stabilit to work.

Instead, those companies are going to promote specific subgroups and not admit it. After all, you can always claim that it's a coincidence that the only qualified people were straight white men. It's only discrimination if you write it down.

Assuming equal skill distribution among subgroups, an unbiased hiring process would end up with employee demographics matching 1:1 with the demographic make of the talent pool.

What do you think is the gender split in the tech hiring pool?

What do you think is the racial split?

So that is what Amazon wants to do, but the only thing stopping them before was a diversity statement?

It's what individual people want to do. The diversity statement says "no, that's not what we want as a company."

It's not sufficient. It also requires someone looking at the hires and seeing if it looks like it's being carried out. Those were the people Trump just fired from the government.

Lot's of 'Obeying in advance' going on right now.

https://youtu.be/9tocssf3w80?si=ltWWWbZVzHjeBa7i&t=159

Amazon may have done so as a gesture to avoid antitrust scrutiny from the new administration, but I know from friends there that they are still subject to a lot of pressure to meet DEI targets behind closed doors. Executives are given target numbers based on race and gender for hiring and promotion that determine their own performance. It’s illegal but that’s why they do all this only verbally, to avoid litigation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loose_lips_sink_ships

I wish there was a single leader in big tech who had the backbone to say "actually, go fuck yourself" to the fascist Trump administration. Crickets.

We have no leadership or morality in our industry anymore — only sick profiteering.

"Leaders" of industry no longer have to adhere to arbitrary racial/gender compliance just because someone decided there needs to be "x" number of "y" people working there.

I would question morality of person supporting such policies.

This sounds like a kind of progress. Companies today don't explicitly affirm school desegregation or interracial marriage. That's because they're settled and social progress issues like these inevitably win in the long run. Progress can't be stopped but there is a ceiling on how much progress that can be made in one era, it takes a few more generations of people who can't accept new ideas to die out. Amazon couldn't rush history if they wanted to.

That perspective would be more reassuring if this didn't coincide with a new president promising to roll back LGBT rights, and Bezos being a guest of honor at his inauguration.

Bezos is chairman, but not CEO. Does he still have that much influence within the company?

I would agree if this happened organically and not all in lockstep with an excutive order from the government demanding to shut down all federal diversity initiatives.

> Progress can't be stopped but there is a ceiling on how much progress that can be made in one era

There's a particularly evocative line this reminds me of in Mississippi, Goddamn.

> Don't tell me, I tell you

> Me and my people just about due

> I've been there so I know

> They keep on saying "Go slow"

Progress wasn't made on interracial marriage and desegregation because black people waited patiently for the natural course of societal evolution to take place. Progress had to be forced upon society against its will, sometimes with guns. And even today there are plenty of people who would resegregate society and outlaw interracial marriage if it were legal. Racial realism and white supremacist ideology are becoming normalized in American politics. Even on HN you'll find people stating matter of factly that people black people have a higher genetic predisposition for criminality and lower IQs, and that slavery and colonization were the best thing to ever happen to them. This shit is not settled.

I disagree that "there is a ceiling on how much progress that can be made in one era" and I vehemently disagree with the implication that the government should determine how much progress is allowed.

"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."

from MLK Jr. of course, while he was locked up in a jail in Birmingham for protesting.

It is revisionist history to think that civil rights were brought about by the barrel of a gun, and that there are no limits on the methods of direct action.

MLK Jr. is not saying there are no reasonable limits on methods of direct action. He is not saying that every goal is justified by any means.

Desegregation literally required armed troops escorting black students into white schools.

And there are no limits on the methods of direct action, certainly none dictated by the oppressors. If you believe otherwise, I will remind you of the pride Americans take in the violent revolution that founded their nation, and why the Second Amendment exists.

You cannot found a nation on the premise that political violence is necessary for a free state and then claim that there are limits to what those seeking freedom can do to achieve it. These are the rules to America's game.

You are missing the forest for the trees. Armed troops were used a handful of times in the entire country. Those troops weren't forced to act by radical black militias. Brown v. Board of Education wasn't decided at gunpoint.

It is legitimate to apply scrutiny to what causes are just, and what is a legitimate use of violence.

We have heard this before - in Soviet Union. The progress and overcoming capitalism was inevitable. It ended up well

AI will end capitalism in its current form this century. Though what comes after is still an open question.

Sure, the same way printing press, electrification, education and what not did.

Did the printing press eat all creative seed corn and completely ossify business? Because that is what AI is going to. No new creatives other than influencer creators. No new programmers other than hobby programmers who learn from influencers. No teachers just influencers. No people rising up through the different areas of a business with that kind of domain knowledge. Just CEOs, AI, and social media influencers.

The printing press predates capitalism.

But its usage to “enlighten the masses” - does not.

I think you are misunderstanding my reasoning then. I'm not saying AI will enlighten the masses or anything.

The current system is based on capitalists employing workers. But with AI there will not be a need to employ workers. Goods and services can be provided without human labor. From the worker's perspective, currently they perform a job and get money they buy the things they need. The question is then, if the job disappears how will they aquire the things they need? Basic income? Charity? We shall see.

From the capitalists perspective if they forgo workers then there is no need for their goods and services.

It's odd to me that the current thought is that this idea is lost on them because they want nothing more than to get rid of workers? They want more productivity from their workers for the same or slightly less cost, which they are hoping AI can squeeze out of them. Eliminate too many workers and you have to pay the ones left more as they are now specialist, and productivity gains from AI only brings production back to when they had more workers without AI and paying less for them bringing it to about even. They gain by keeping around the same amount of workers (maybe a few less--that amount to a rounding error, but not the doom being predicted), at their current job title paying the same scraps and using AI to get more productivity out of them. And in which workers will now turn around and spend their check buying said goods at a higher cost than they were paid to make them.

Unless UBI becomes a thing, capitalists know they need workers who will buy their goods and services.

> then there is no need for their goods and services.

Would still need to produce goods for the shareholders.

Without the worker bees being able to participate in the buying of goods there's not enough profit for the shareholders to gain enough to buy the goods. The whole thing collapses. And capitalist know this and is against their best interest.

Capitalism is “capitalists employing workers” only in Marxist doctrine. Capitalism is free market. And that will not disappear because AI displaces workers.

>Though what comes after is still an open question

I'm seeing a lot of people yelling that what's coming after is a technologically advanced form of feudalism. It doesn't seem like that much of a question.

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