VOTING AGAINST MYSELF

NOVEMBER 10, 2021 – Yesterday I sent a mail-in ballot for three seats on a corporate board. In my pre-evolution years I threw such ballots in the trash (the times having pre-dated recycling as well as evolution). Now “evolved,” I voted against myself . . .

Four candidates are running for three seats. The incumbents are three women, two being of color. The challenger is a white guy with a Swedish last name, no less.  He might well be the strongest candidate from a business perspective—unlike the women, he’s always been immersed in the business establishment.

Why, then, didn’t I vote for someone who looks like me and is a solid businessman? Because he looks like me and is a solid businessman.

One could argue fairly that that’s a dumb way to advance the rights and interests of marginalized Americans; an ill-advised, non-meritocratic method of leveling the playing field. I understand the arguments against affirmative action—except in contexts where traditionally marginalized people are also the superior candidates.

My rationale for “voting against myself” is that it’s an effective way to advance reform that our political system can’t or won’t promote. We’ve seen how long adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment has taken and how civil rights legislation hasn’t eliminated systemic racial discrimination. Change won’t occur within the gridlock of Red vs. Blue in these Disunited States of America. Instead, we need to focus on change inside business, education, and religious institutions.

While meeting with a banking executive yesterday—a fellow white guy with my first name—we talked about a different problem with non-diverse (i.e. old white guy) corporate boards: interlocking directorships, whereby universal issues such as senior executive “over-pay” and compensation disparity—matters contrary to shareholder interests—are never faced directly.  The banker believed strongly that the “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” mentality among corporate directors needs to go the way of Neanderthals.

I remember the Neolithic Age when I was appointed to the corporate Diversity Council at the bank where I worked.  My selection occurred while I was away on a business trip. When I returned, my boss informed me of the “honor.”

“Why me?” I asked.

“Wuhl, you’ve got a beard, so you’re a liberal, right?” said my boss, who’d “volunteered” me.

I was taken aback. My politics in those days were quite conservative. I was also skeptical of the corporate agenda, and initially I didn’t say much at meetings of the fledgling council. It lacked direction, purpose, effectiveness.  Then one day, goaded by his executive assistant—a fearless woman with a British accent—the president announced an all-day meeting of senior executives and the Diversity Council. The top dogs were very white guys, and the venue for the meeting was the downtown, older-than-dirt, white guys’ . . . Club. If anyone in attendance noticed the irony, no one mentioned it.  Three years later I captured it in Chapter Fourteen – The Diversity Club of my novel, Severance Package.

Now, more years later, I’m voting against myself and for the future.

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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson