An undetermined number of employees from tech giant Cisco have been fired after comments made about the Black Lives Matter movement during a video conference involving the company’s CEO and other top executives.
In recent times, support of the Black Lives Matter movement has been suggested from the biggest corporations in the United States and beyond – including Cisco, the world’s largest networking company.
These campaigns have even been extended to large companies, who seek to support the causes with monetary contributions or by increasing job opportunities for minorities.
According to a report made in 2019; only 3.8% of Cisco’s employees were black and the company recently announced a decision to change that.
To demonstrate his commitment to change, Chuck Robbins, Cisco’s CEO, convened a video conference with Ford Foundation President, Darren Walker, and Equal Justice Initiative attorney and founder Bryan Stevenson, to discuss the country’s racial problems and indicate to employees what the position of the company is.
This conference was broadcast to more than 30,000 company employees. In it, Robbins announced a donation of $5 million and full support for the Black Lives Matter initiative. However, some employees expressed dissatisfaction with this decision.
Most of the complaints from employees were on the basis that “All Lives Matter” is a better sentient to express than “Black Lives Matter”. In one of the screenshots obtained by Bloomberg (which they haven’t published), a worker could be seen saying that the label “Black Lives Matter” only serves to promote racism, while another stated that the people who currently complain about racism are very likely to have been racists at some point.
Employees suggested that promoting Black Lives Matter “reinforces racism.”
These comments caught the attention of Cisco’s top executives who, without hesitation, began firing the workers.
Given this, many people apologized for their comments, while others attacked Cisco alleging that the company was repressing the voice of those who did not agree to support the causes.
The ex-Cisco employees find themselves in a growing pile of people who were fired for saying All Lives Matter or criticising aspects of the Black Lives Matter movement in recent times.
MORE: Those who were punished for voicing their opinions on Black Lives Matter protests or riots
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