Woke-washing and Whac-A-Mole

I got both the terms in the headline from this article, with definitions including:

• Woke-washing: Appropriating the language of social justice into marketing materials. (See also: “Chasing Insta impressions.”)
• Whac-A-Mole: You know the game, but here’s the quote → Kristine M., Global Operations at a major social network, notes that “companies attack areas of social injustice, diversity, and inclusion like a game of whack-a-mole — reactively addressing specific concerns as they come with no lasting impact.”

I’d say both these things are pretty accurate. While we are here and discussing this, let’s talk for a second about our girl Kelli:

Kelli wanted to be promoted and, theoretically, the promotion was justified. But instead of actually promoting a POC woman, the SVP level was holed up figuring out how they could appear “woke” to the customer market. Seems flawed, no?

The dirty little secret of the Whac-A-Mole problem

I think, sadly, that part of the reason diversity initiatives feel very “Whac-A-Mole” is that executives don’t care about them — they care about money — and as a result, they essentially want that area of the company to be very fire drill-laden. When someone is chasing tasks over the fence all day, nothing big picture or…