Another tech diversity report, another ridiculously misleading headline. Here's the headline on Victor Luckerson's writeup of Apple's tech diversity report in Time: "Apple Is Mostly White and Male, According to Its First Diversity Report." I'll leave aside the "mostly male" part and instead focus on the "mostly white" part. Because, once again, when you look at the actual statistics you see that Apple, while technically more than 50 percent white, is actually disproportionately NOT WHITE. From Luckerson's report:
Apple, the latest tech company to reveal its workforce demographics, said Tuesday that its U.S. staff is 55% white, 15% Asian, 11% Hispanic and 7% black. Two percent of workers are multiracial, and another 9% did not declare their race.
According to the Census, America is 62.6 percent white, 5.3 percent Asian, 17.1 percent Hispanic, 13.2 percent black, and 2.4 percent "two or more races." In other words, Apple is not as white as the rest of the country. And it is insanely misleading to imply that the tech giant is some sort of bastion of non-diversity.
So, Apple, I salute you for your commitment to diversity! You are a shining example for those who insist that "diversity" means "the correct percentages of nonwhite skin pigment" in the office. If only they would realize it.