(4) BLUFs: Reach Out and Touch Someone

These BLUFs are chock full of examples of positive outcomes, or at least a greater potential for them, when you raise your voice in the face of all the obstacles and bullshit that might make you think there’s no point. Lift every voice and sing. Speak to power. Like Sam Cooke said, “Change is gonna come.”

#1 BLUF: Diversity and Inclusion. Don’t just talk about it, be about it. Get REAL results.

I have strong feelings on Diversity and Inclusion. Frankly, believe it or not, the U.S. Army is by far the most diverse and inclusive culture I’ve ever experienced professionally.

I’ve found that observation ironic as I have visited all around the Bay Area and Silicon Valley (seemingly the mecca of D&I corporate cultural do-goodedness and big $ investment in it) in interview processes and networking contexts professionally… and been told things like:

“Oh we’re very military friendly! Our whole security team are veterans!” by HR people.

Made me wonder if they only hire black people for the company sports team, or something, too. Get my meaning?

I’ve gotten plenty of opportunities, I’m not complaining. Most folks can’t even get in some of the rooms I’ve been in at all.

My point is, don’t believe the hype. Like the authors above point out. A lot of the most “progressive” and loudest virtue signaling corporations out here spend more time self-felating than actually getting shit done.

Making a black person head of D&I for your company, for example, doesn’t all of a sudden change culture. There’s a lot of talk and money going around, but the actual culture and understanding of diversity is lost among the values in many of the “best” environments.

Just cause companies talk the “woke” talk, doesn’t mean they are actually “getting it” for real, nor accomplishing anything toward D&I outcomes in practice.

If you’ve never lived in NorCal some of the furthest lefties are the most elitist, judgy, karenist fucks you ever met. Just sayin. Faux woke. Psuedo intellectual.

Now, I’d say the upside is that companies have shown they’re willing to invest money in D&I. Part of the problem why we’re not seeing results is that companies are too shy to really address race and racial issues in the right ways within their culture: head on.

Ya can’t tip toe around stuff and think tokens = culture.

Shameless plug, I wrote a whole piece on this topic last year. Companies need to be less talk, more action. More transparency. More results oriented around their D&I goals and clearer on their metrics and rationale behind their initiatives.

More courageous and genuinely invested in their moral fortitude… and OUTCOMES based focused.

I acknowledge without better legislation there’s only so much employers can do to be forward moving D&I aggressively without lawsuits. I believe we need larger federal initiatives to help enable and require corporations to truly advance D&I outcomes in practice.

However, short of that hope, I submit that reckonings are gonna come one way or the other to stick up against shitty culture and toxic behaviors in corporate America. It’s only a matter of time. Google Google’s cultural woes. Hey Google, holla at cha boy, Josh.

The MOST forward thinking companies should advance D&I aggressively to help FORCE the lawsuits that will cause legislation. THAT’s the way companies can join the people in advancing long lasting holistic nationwide corporate D&I.

#2 BLUF: California is acting unAmerican. Fuck AB5 as written. Speak Up!

If you’re not aware of what AB5 is, it is a law that went into effect here in California this year. As I understand it, California is the first state to pass such a law.

WATCH OUT FOR SIMILAR TYPES OF LEGISLATION COMING TO YOUR STATE!!!

Basically it requires businesses who meet certain criteria to classify labor as Employees rather than compensating them as Independent Contractors. I am totally behind the sentiment of this measure that is intended to benefit workers from predatory employer practices.

Some people need the protection and I want them to have it!

However, as written AB5 is a terribly unconstitutional double edged sword. Meaning, the second and third order effects of AB5 has stripped rights away from enterprising individuals who don’t want the restrictions that the employee classification would put on them. It’s taking away many livelihoods.

AB5 is taking food off the table, so to speak, without any justification for many families in California. It may end up taking food off of mine, literally.

In case you don’t know, I wrote a whole long piece about DooDashing awhile back. I predicted DoorDash was gonna get sued. If you’re interested in my fuller thoughts on AB5 they’re way towards the last section of it.

However, in short it’s this: I don’t mind the requirements on companies, but give the workers the ultimate choice.

When it comes to protecting people from predatory employers and considering their individual constitutional entitlement for free enterprise, it can (and MUST!) be this AND that, not an either or law.

If Joe or Jill want to be classified as employees, so be it. They can work for DoorDash in that fashion along with the constraints that come with it. I’d prefer to remain an Independent Contractor and do my business Dashing in that fashion. I am entitled to that right.

If DoorDash loses this fight it could really fuck me and many others over, just sayin. There are practices DoorDash should change, but a new requirement that I be their employee if I wanna Dash would economically limit me unjustly.

What’s more, is that, constitutionally, the government shouldn’t constrain businesses from employing ANY OF US as Independent Contractors in ANY industry or capacity if that’s the way we’d prefer to work, as Americans, if the businesses are agreeable to terms we’d accept.

Is there a law suit against the State of California yet?

If you’re a lawyer wanting to make a pro bono name for yourself gimme a holler an let’s go to the Supreme Court, yo.

As long the work itself under contract is not illegal (i.e. hitman, etc), Uncle Sam’s only business in mine are my duties come tax time. Fuck AB5 as written. If you’re a California resident speak up and help protect our rights!

#3 BLUF: Hell yes, bring in the U.N.! Call US out, world!

The more forces of positive change getting involved the better. I’m really excited to see what the U.N. Human Right Council will conclude. I wonder if they will provide recommendations. I really hope so, and that they take a holistic, candid, and objective look at us as a nation and truly show the mirror to our countrymen.

There’s still too many who don’t get it. Maybe this will help them, and all of us.

We have never been the America we profess to be. The world wants us to be the moral authority we have always claimed we are. We’ve imposed our will and idealism onto other nations, and supported the exact same ideals the U.N. is upholding to take a look at US. Let’s drink this all the way in.

What’s so uplifting to me here is how powerful George’s brother’s message is, and how powerful of a positive result it is that the U.N. is taking this stand. This should speak volumes to the American “Imperial Samaritan” ideology.

I’m rooting for something historical here. Go team!

#4 BLUF: Have empathy for Karen, but no sympathy.

This is nothing new. Perhaps all that’s notable about it, in a way, to some, is that it’s in SF… not NYC, or in the South, or something.

If you didn’t read earlier about D&I, I’d bet Lisa would not describe herself as racist, and probably not right leaning – that’s just my guess. My guess is she’s the type of progressive I described above. Check me on that?

Now, to be clear, I don’t point that out to assert any right agenda at all. Fuck Trump.

However, I point it out because I see an insidious frame of mind out there that somehow the “right” is all the racists and this notion that the left is “morally” elite or something in a lot of rhetoric.

Lefties not acknowledging how they alienate support with hypocritical behaviors may leave the party stumped with another election to Trump. Complacency kills check your privilege.

It blows my mind these people in the video somehow thought they had the authority to bother that guy at all. It sucks her and her husband lost their jobs, I wish they could have learned their lesson some other way. Guilty via internet isn’t due process…

… but then again, their companies don’t have to agree their behavior is purely (or intentionally) racist to have a good reason to fire them based on this video.

I mean, let’s say the artist was a white armed criminal they had walked up to who decided he was gonna murder anyone who questioned him while he chalked “Black Lives Matter” there…

…and let’s assume it is indeed not his property…

….and these two clown shoes come walking up to question him about what he is doing…

What were this lady and her husband going to do? What were they thinking as they walked up? What was their plan? Did they already have 9 and 1 dialed as they approached?

Doesn’t look like it… they are definitely not respecting the artist’s social distancing safety with no masks in the video.

Did they have it all figured out?

“If he pulls out a gun let’s run to the car.” “Ok!”

Did they agree on that before approaching him?

Or was this a legit vigilante fantasy where if it wasn’t the nice man’s own house he was decorating, the couple was going to reveal that they were actually Batman and Batwoman and serve up justice?

Think before you speak people. You don’t have to agree this lady and her husband are racist intentionally, but I think we can all agree they’re prone to making stupid decisions without thinking them through. Fire them for that instead, if you like, I suppose.

I hope that this couple and all of us can grow in some ways closer to shared understanding as a result of Lisa and her husband’s example here, and how it worked out for them.

Thanks for your time and headspace!

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