MultiCultClassics occasionally receives comments—like the one depicted above—from vendors seeking to post links to services. It was surprising to learn that Supplier Diversity Program Management Software exists. Do White advertising agencies and advertisers really need special software to manage heat shields, performative PR, and crumbs?
Yes, white advertising agencies, and especially their white holding company overlords, "need" special software to manage diversity schemes. It's how they fluff up their diversity spending numbers that brands want to see.
ReplyDeleteThe software is almost always a poorly designed, bare minimum job owned on paper by a minority in the US (BIPOC, veteran, disabled, white woman, any or all of the above), but the work on it is done in India. And the sales, which is why you're getting fed that ad.
It's a minimum effort, minimum quality affair. The agency or holding company gets diversity spending points for spending their dollars with the owners of the software, even if that software is riddled with bugs and errors and old information.
Then some of these databases earn more cash on the side by charging any company that wants to be listed there to become "certified" diverse.
Are you a white guy whose best client is telling you they'd love to keep working with you, but they're being pressured to diversify? Pay the database owners and boom, your wife is magically the owner and now you're in the database as certified diverse.
Are you a white woman being told by a client they'd love to keep working with you, but they're being pressured to work with POC? Say your ancestor 200 years ago was a Cherokee princess, pay the database owner, and boom, now you're in the database as certified diverse.
It's all performative and shady AF.