On inequality and inequitable distributions of power

— Posted inPersonal — 3 min read

This is not an analysis of why Kamala Harris wasn’t elected President.

Except, really it is.

Imagine, for a moment, the US was an equitable meritocratic society.

If there was genuine equality of opportunity for people of all races and genders.

According to the US Census, roughly 14% of Americans are Black, and 50.5% are women: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/RHI225223

Around 7% of the US population are Black women.

Conversely, (non-Hispanic) White men make up around 29.2% of the US population,

Now, imagine you were to make a list of the CEOs of America’s 500 largest companies by revenue.

How many would you expect to have a Black CEO?

How many would have a woman as CEO?

How many would have a Black woman as CEO?

If your answer is that around 14% of the 500 CEOs would be Black, then that equates to 70 Black CEOs.

If your answer is that around half of the CEOs would be women, that’s 250 women CEOS.

If your answer is that around 7% would be Black women, that’s 35 Black women CEOs.

And, by that logic, around 29.2% of CEOs would be white men.

Unfortunately, there’s a huge gap between what we’d expect to see in an equitable meritocratic society, and what we actually see in America today.

The total number of Black CEOs in 2024?

It’s eight.

As in, not 8%.

Not 70.

Eight.

That’s not a typo: https://fortune.com/2024/02/09/black-ceos-fortune-500-high-workplace-diversity/

You could comfortably fit them around a 12-seat dining-room table.

And you’d still have empty chairs!

Just 52 out of 500 (that’s 10.4%) are run by women: https://fortune.com/2024/06/04/fortune-500-companies-women-ceos-2024/

Meanwhile, 85.8% of CEOs are White men, and 92.6% of Fortune 500 CEOs are white: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346081966_Diversity_Among_Fortune_500_CEOs_from_2000_to_2020_White_Women_Hi-Tech_South_Asians_and_Economically_Privileged_Multilingual_Immigrants_from_Around_the_World

In a nation where so much power lays in the hands of corporations, this is a massive disparity in power.

It affects which life experiences inform decisions.

It affects the decisions that corporations make, or don’t.

It affects the political candidates corporations support, or don’t.

It affects income distribution. Not just for the CEOs themselves, but in the communities they come from.

Often, discussions about discrimination focus on the beliefs, actions, and words of individuals.

It’s framed as being the moral choices of individuals.

If only the naighty racists and misogynists educate themselves, we’re told, the problems will go away.

This is the comforting, neoliberal analysis of discrimination. The type that fuels social media pile-ons and CNN panel discussions. The type that allows corporations that have never had a female CEO to celebrate International Women’s Day.

But.

The most incidious forms of discrimination relate to power. Who gets to make decisions. Who gets to be CEO and who doesn’t.

The most incidious forms of discrimination are those power structures that protect those who hold power, and hold those power relations in place.

And there’s a world of difference between a politics that focusss on the individual, and the politics that challenges structures of power.

This is not an analysis of why Kamala Harris wasn’t elected President.

Except, really it is.

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