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This story highlights the absurdity of white privilege. If being white is such a privilege, why do so many people want to check a box for one of the protected classes?
Senator Warren? Rachel Dolezal?
Instead, it’s a race to see how many diverse hires a company can boast.
People are hired based on identity and not merit and we’re all suffering for it.
Look at the job Mayor Pete is doing as transportation secretary. He was hired for one reason only…he’s gay.
A woman in Philadelphia has put her employer, a progressive social justice organization, in a quandary.
It turns out, she is not the diverse woman she pretends to be. The American Friends Service Committee hired Raquel Evita Saraswati to be an equity and inclusion leader.
But now, Saraswati is accused of lying about her race. Staff members and supporters of the organization wrote an anonymous open letter asking her to step down following the discovery that she is a white woman of European descent.
Saraswati’s mother told The Intercept that her daughter changed her name in college from her birth name which is Rachel Elizabeth Seidel.
The 39-year-old started wearing darker makeup in hopes to change her identity but her mother said, “I’m as White as the driven snow and so is she. I don’t know why she’s doing what she’s doing…She’s chosen to live a lie, and I find that very, very sad.”
Oskar Pierre Castro helped hire Saraswati and feels deceived. He said that she “presented herself as a ‘queer, Muslim, multiethnic woman.'”
He was thrilled that “her diverse identity ‘really touched all the points’ of ‘lived experience’ they were looking for in filling the DEI position.”
He gets an A+ for using all the vogue buzzwords. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have the “lived experience” he was looking for.
“In my mind, it was, ‘Great, a person of color, a queer person of color, who happens to be a Muslim, it’s a woman, all these things, and someone who seemed to get it,” Castro said. “I definitely feel conned. … I feel deceived.”
A representative for the organization said they are looking for “ways to move forward in a thoughtful and humane way.”
“AFSC’s Chief Equity, Inclusion, and Culture Officer is currently facing public allegations that she misrepresented her background and past associations. She assures us that she remains loyal to AFSC’s mission, and we believe her. This is a deeply personal issue and as her employer, we respect her privacy. We do not require any employee to prove their race or ethnicity as a condition of employment. That would be unethical and illegal,” the representative added.
It doesn’t sound like AFSC is going to immediately terminate Saraswati. They are looking at and listening to “multiple perspectives” and plan to “act within their values of ‘kindness, grace, integrity, and care for all individuals.'”
In a statement to Fox News Digital, AFSC reiterated their commitment to equity and ending racism, but they consider this issue to be “deeply personal.”
