Boeing’s CEO vows to hire based on race, not qualifications
The coming dark age: Boeing’s CEO today vowed to raise the number of blacks working at the company by 20%, apparently with no regard to qualifications.
Boeing is seeking to increase black US employees throughout the company by 20 percent and mandate benchmarks for hiring people of color, Chief Executive Dave Calhoun told employees in a memo on Friday reviewed by Reuters.
…The changes at Boeing, a stalwart defense contractor with its corporate headquarters in Chicago and largest factories in Washington state and South Carolina, appeared to mark the first concrete steps by the planemaker to address the issue. “We understand we have work to do,” Calhoun said in the memo, which was released on the 57th anniversary of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech and included references to the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin on Sunday.
Boeing declined to provide its current number of black employees or a timeline for the new target.
The planemaker separately has had to lay off thousands of workers as it grapples with the financial fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and the 17-month-old grounding of the 737 MAX after two fatal crashes.
In the memo, Calhoun said the company would establish an internal Racial Justice think-tank to guide its policies.
As a company, Boeing’s bad performance in almost every area in the last year is bad enough. If they are going to lay off thousands and then replace some with workers based merely on racial quotas the company’s future will be worse, since their ability to produce quality airplanes and spacecraft is certain to go down.
And for those hate-mongers who will immediately try to accuse me of saying blacks are not as smart, go to hell. The goal should be to hire the best, instead of members of a specific race. If you favor one race over another you simply prove yourself to be a bigot, as this company’s CEO is now amply doing.
I also hope a lot of fired Boeing employees sue Boeing for racial discrimination.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The coming dark age: Boeing’s CEO today vowed to raise the number of blacks working at the company by 20%, apparently with no regard to qualifications.
Boeing is seeking to increase black US employees throughout the company by 20 percent and mandate benchmarks for hiring people of color, Chief Executive Dave Calhoun told employees in a memo on Friday reviewed by Reuters.
…The changes at Boeing, a stalwart defense contractor with its corporate headquarters in Chicago and largest factories in Washington state and South Carolina, appeared to mark the first concrete steps by the planemaker to address the issue. “We understand we have work to do,” Calhoun said in the memo, which was released on the 57th anniversary of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech and included references to the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin on Sunday.
Boeing declined to provide its current number of black employees or a timeline for the new target.
The planemaker separately has had to lay off thousands of workers as it grapples with the financial fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and the 17-month-old grounding of the 737 MAX after two fatal crashes.
In the memo, Calhoun said the company would establish an internal Racial Justice think-tank to guide its policies.
As a company, Boeing’s bad performance in almost every area in the last year is bad enough. If they are going to lay off thousands and then replace some with workers based merely on racial quotas the company’s future will be worse, since their ability to produce quality airplanes and spacecraft is certain to go down.
And for those hate-mongers who will immediately try to accuse me of saying blacks are not as smart, go to hell. The goal should be to hire the best, instead of members of a specific race. If you favor one race over another you simply prove yourself to be a bigot, as this company’s CEO is now amply doing.
I also hope a lot of fired Boeing employees sue Boeing for racial discrimination.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Go WOKE, go Broke!
Bob…. I would agree with what you if what you said was “Ethnicity” not “Race”…. We are all the same Race… Regardless of skin pigment…
Your fraudiant slip might expose the problem that these flawed solutions are addressing….
Lee: In this case it is Boeing’s CEO who is clearly determining who he will hire based on race, which in this case they must 20% black.
I suspect our disagreement is entirely semantic, and thus not really very important.
I guess that the quality of employee really means little to Boeing.
Acctually…. The very fact you refer to people of “members of a specific race” says more than I need to qualify…. I always had respect for you Bob… But this fall’s beyond the pail… I banned myself for a while because my left wing anger made me feel unwelcome here, but I still silently visited for the space stuff…
Your blatantly overtly racist post… (And I’m no Snowflake… But “specific race”…) Has done it for me…. I hope it was only innocently made , but jebus Bob…
Airbus is laughing, but no doubt very quietly… never interrupt the enemy when they are making a mistake. And
Lee Stevenson: I have no idea what you are upset about. Boeing is the one who is specifically singling out one race, blacks, for favored treatment, not I. I don’t want anyone treated specially because of their race, whether its white, black, blue, pink, green, or orange. Nor should anyone get special treatment because of their ethnicity or religion.
I am specifically criticizing Boeing for playing racist favorites here.
I’m not complaining that hiring a specific amount of people based on the colour of their skin is wrong … Hiring should be done on ability.
I’m saying that “race” is a term that the owner of this site, and the readers of should be aware that it applies to all of us, we, be you black, white, yellow or pink are the same RACE.. divide us any way you like… Nationality, religion, skin colour if you must… But we are not devided by race…. we are all of the same race…. And to say otherwise is, by very definition, racist.
And I will have no part of racism.
Bob…. Black’s are not a race…
Black’s are people with black skin..
Lee Stevenson: You are apparently attempting to redefine the long accepted meaning of the English word “race” as applied to these issues. All power to you, but you will find yourself in a decided minority (no pun intended).
And if you think my use of the word in this very accepted manner makes me a racist, then so be it. Your definition of racism is quite astonishing.
To quote the article
“In the memo, Calhoun said the company would establish an internal Racial Justice think-tank to guide its policies.”
A ‘Racial’ justice think tank. Not an ethno justice think tank.
Lee Stevenson you need to go back to you BLM movement and act all upset about something not done there.
I understand your nit and your need to pick it but is this the subject you want to get all bent out of shape over?
Homosapiens…… Because Neil Degrase Tyson is a different race than us because he’s a different colour?? I’m no Snowflake… But sometimes words matter… And drunk as I am… And white as I am, I hope I’m his race.
If I have taken the term “race” out of context from you USA’n guys ( which it seems I have!) I’m sorry for my rage :-)
The term means very litteraly “a different race” , over here…. So an extremely different context…. Litteraly a different animal…
Sorry for my anger… We have our own racial conflicts going on over here, and sometimes it’s difficult to parse what’s going on to an outsider…
I genuinely apologize… Thanks for explaining… It’s easy to be triggered when you only get fed the bullcrap from the media…. No offence intended…. And I hope no offence given!
Lee, in March of 2008 Barack Obama made the following statement in his famous “A More Perfect Union” speech.
But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
Notice the word “races”, as used by the noted Constitutional Scholar and later President (D), is a plural word. If you take up your argument with Barack Obama and he issues a retraction and apology for mistakenly implying their are multiple races in his famous speech, I’m 100% certain that Bob and the rest of us will follow his lead and capitulate to your point.
Lee: I suspected that you might be enjoying a bit too much wine during this exchange. (said with a smile and with great good will).
And no offense taken.
Is this quota system to be applied to the company as a whole or to each role within the company?
Given the well deserved beating the repuation of Boeing has taken over the last few years, I’m surprised the CEO is talking about anything other that getting the company back on track. “Get woke, go broke” is meant to be a warning against foolish behavior, not an aspiration.
Lee Stevenson,
Good work on trolling Robert, pzatchok, mpthompson, and now me.
You wrote: “But we are not devided by race…. we are all of the same race…. And to say otherwise is, by very definition, racist.”
You are trying to have it both ways.
Either Robert is misusing the word “race,” which is not a racist action, or the human species is divided by race, in which case it is not racist to point this out.
I know that there is a movement to redefine the word “race” back to its meaning a couple of hundred years ago (or was it just a century ago?), but until Obama (who defined people to be racist merely by their genes), Black Lives Marxists, the Democratic Party, the U.S. press corps, and others choose or invent another term and -ism, then we are stuck with what we have. Usually, however, once a word is misused by the general public for a long time, it is impossible to eliminate its misused meaning.
To all:
I agree with mpthompson. Boeing is distracting itself in a time of crisis.
In business, as in science, engineering, or math, when things get out of hand, return to the fundamentals. Boeing needs to return to the fundamentals, get its house in order, then it can start striking out in new areas such as wokednessism. That the company is spending its time, energy, and resources on frivolous luxuries suggests that it is not serious about fixing its problems. It is like any other entity (or employee) that has lost its focus. As with Lee’s comments, this is a distraction, and it is certain to either delay Boeing’s recovery or will hurt the company further.
What is important for Boeing is the content of its employee’s characters, not the colors of their skin. On the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech, how could they have gotten so wrong MLK’s intent and dream? Especially when his intent is so important to Boeing’s business model and recovery.
Boeing is distracting itself in a time of crisis.
Reminded me of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK0_Ob9qCI0
Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.
Is Boeing going to be more distracted by fighting against the wokeness, or just appearing to surrender to it? I’m skeptical that there’ll be as much effort put into getting every role in the company to a 20% black quota as there will be into selling the narrative that Boeing is doing its bit.
It is time to call for the NBA, NFL, MLB, and all other professional sports endeavors to adopt race/ethnicity quotas as well. This will illustrate the stupidity of such a policy in an instantly visible example, and trigger enormous minority pushback as well because it would massively gore their ox.
Lee Stevenson. Technically you are correct, but as you have learned precision in language is a fading skill in this country.
I agree.
my earliest recollection of the difference between people was watching sunny and Cher show singing “Half breed”… A term no longer used.
“Racist” is a person/Group that thinks everyone who is not like them to be subhuman or a breed of animal. It’s ridiculous but that is intentional to be offensive and demeaning. The miss used term stuck and it’s meaning has changed to the point where official documents “ask for your race” and define it in legal terms of skin color.
Whenever I’m required to check off what race I am, I always write in “human”.
That is as far as my personal nitpick will allow me to go.
If you read between the lines on Boeing’s declaration, it appears that he has created an opportunity to get rid of some deadweight. Laying off people who skills are antiquated? or troublesome union fire starters? To bring in some new blood to fix the problems they’ve been experiencing for many years now.
“Kill two birds with one stone” using a illusion to perform a trick that may lead you in legal trouble if not skillfully done. “What they say” and “what they do” makes the difference.
If you read between the lines on Boeing’s declaration, it appears that he has created an opportunity to get rid of some deadweight.
I have to ask why would a company go about getting rid of deadweight in such a round about manner? Is it supposed to make the people who lose jobs feel better because it is the color of their skin rather than because their skills are no longer in alignment with the direction of the company? If a company cannot be honest with their shareholders, their employees, and their customers then that company is on a death spiral.
I want to redefine ‘minority’.
If you want to claim minority status you must genetically prove you are that minority.
Get rid of the old racist definition of black which according to American racist history is any part, 1 drop of blood, 1%.
I want it to be over 51%.
Boeing is merely mindlessly following the lead of other large companies in publicly declaring themselves enemies of racism, in the mistaken belief that it will make any difference to the Marxists who care about such things. Pointless, spineless, stupid, but that’s where we are now.
Also, Robert Conquest’s Third Law of Politics: “The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.”
Related, and frightening:
https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/08/28/illegal-retaliation-at-sandia-labs-for-opposing-reverse-discrimination/
Lee Stevenson is mixing up the definitions of “species” and “race”. We are all the same species, H Sapiens, as the “races” are inter fertile.
Ford tried this back in early 2000 with Jacques Nasser as CEO, it didn’t work out so well. One big unforeseen problem is it discouraged people when they found out that they couldn’t move up the corporate ladder. During this time people were hired thru companies called Head Hunters, they were only concerned with race, gender, and educational achievements, Working from the ground up and gaining experience over time became meaningless and it began to show on the assembly floor.
Bringing in people with no hands on experience and no idea how a company works is plain old stupid.
January 1 1999 Nasser becomes CEO, At the time Ford was the world’s most profitable automaker, with profits of $7.2 billion on sales of $163 billion.
By 2001 Nasser’s manager evaluation system proved controversial with allegations of Reverse Discrimination. In July 2001 Nasser announced that the system was being change and in October 2001 after a little over a year and a half Nasser left Ford.
Black Americans will not be hired by Boeing. White leftist use black Americans to bring in immigrants from India under the guise of People of Color. Black Americans are used by the left to further the causes of other immigrant groups. Do you all really think Boeing is making a rush to hire black Americans? Black Americans get beat up in the media and message board over quotas and affirmative action but they do not benefit from it. Check out the data from the Ivy League schools on actually how many black Americans were accepted. Check with Boeing in 12 months to see if any black Americans were hired. Those Chinese spies working at government facilities are also considered people of color. Do not get fooled by the bright black shiny object. Whilst black and white Americans are arguing other groups are really doing the serious long term damage.
mpthompson Said;
“If a company cannot be honest with their shareholders, their employees, and their customers then that company is on a death spiral.”
You are correct, my comment was wishful thinking of optimism but not seeing the reality of the situation. Boeing announced that it’s doubling down on its woke position.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/boeing-donates-more-than-10-million-to-support-racial-equity-and-social-justice-nonprofits-and-programs-301120367.html
It includes a list of 20 organizations that will receive the donations through a non profit carrier that seems like a shakedown.
All of these donations will be predicated upon their skin color and not the quality of their character. Social justice runs amok. The end result is what you are currently witnessing in Democrat states and cities. (The beneficiaries of the money)
When you are constantly told that your skin color will never allow you to rise to your potential, it will give rise to hopelessness, rebellion and frustration which leads to hatred and self-loathing. Perfect soldiers to “burn it all down”.
Other companies like Costco, Netflix, Starbucks are also being black mailed. or they will suffer the fate of other businesses burned out.
Like the article says;
“local and federal governments are no longer as effective in dealing with the underlying economic inequalities that are a legacy of long-standing racism.
“People are saying, ‘You’re a major employer in this community, you need to do something, because the community has a problem, and government is not getting it done.’ “
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/local-business/two-of-washingtons-biggest-companies-costco-and-boeing-commit-tens-of-millions-to-social-justice-programs/
Not every employer can be Elon musk who gives California the middle finger and tells them he is moving his company to another state.
Max wrote: “When you are constantly told that your skin color will never allow you to rise to your potential, it will give rise to hopelessness, rebellion and frustration which leads to hatred and self-loathing.”
So, who keeps telling you that your skin color will never allow you to rise to your potential? Is it strangers or is it friends and family? Isn’t it just a “self-fulfilling prophecy?” Isn’t this very problem the reason why Martin Luther King Jr. had his dream? How can others judge you by the content of your character when you make the color of your skin, not your character, your defining feature? Doesn’t the belief that the color of your skin is your defining feature adversely affect the content of your character? Have other people succeeded by making their skin color their defining feature, or have they succeeded by emphasizing their character?
What would it take to stop being told that your skin color will never allow you to rise to your potential and instead be told that the content of your character — your defining feature, just as King had dreamed — drives you to rise to your potential? Do you want to rise to your potential, and do you want King’s dream to come true? What can you do now to make those happen?
It is clear that what has been done in the past and what is being done now are not helping to realize King’s dream. A strategic change is necessary, if you want to rise to your potential. Letting Boeing and others define you by the color of your skin rather than the content of your character harms the dream and hinders your rise to your potential.
Only you can make that day come to pass. It is half a century and two generations later. What are you waiting for?
No, Lee, it’s wrong also in point of fact. According to Linneus, we are not a race: we’re a species (Homo Sapiens); this could be divided further into different races, stil all Homo Sapiens, all with the possibility to mix and reproduce with different races. Like a mastiff can have puppies by intercourse with a German sheperd, but neither with a German, nor with a sheep.
For me, the declaration by the Boeing CEO about hiring, does not change my decision to never fly on a 737Max. I find pandering to racial quotes distasteful. Perhaps the CEO should offer jobs to “People of Color” like the ones who died on both MAX crashes. Boeing’s rollout of the 737Max model was criminal. The FAA should be accountable as well.
Mike Borgelt
Is the term “race” used for any other species besides human?
We do not talk about different races of dogs or cats, or even monkeys or horses.
—
The idealist in me agrees with Lee. It is an invented term, invented to divide.
But the realist in me agrees with Bob. It is commonplace, and used everywhere.
BLM activist will tell you that to act as if there is no difference (“colorblindness”,”We are all human”) is racism. So watch where you say that Lee, you will be hoisted on your own pittard.
(To others: I know I know.. EVERYTHING in racists to them, I am simply making a point).
Bigotry is the evil child of Pride and Envy. All humans are capable of it, and sadly so few are able to rise above it. Most seem willing to wallow in it.
We do not talk about different races of dogs or cats, or even monkeys or horses.
For other species we use words like: Breeds, strains, types, and varieties. And two lines is all this discussion is worth.
That’ll sure take care of those issues w the 737Max, forgotten tools in sealed compartments inside tankers and the Starliner setbacks.
My bet is there are more blunders, those being only the ones that transpired into media.