Our new engineering leader apologized for being a white man

Question

A new executive joined the engineering team at my company. He's a white man. In an engineering meeting to our team, they made it clear that they were committed to diversity, and then apologized for being a white man and not "helping out in that respect."Part of me wants to shrug it off as a flippant personal opinion. But, as an engineering leader, this person plays a significant role in setting the tone for the engineering culture, and normalizes certain expectations. So the other part of me finds it alarming that a leader is normalizing the expectation of being apologetic for existing at the company with an "undesirable" identity. Nobody should have to apologize for their gender nor their skin color.Am I way off base with this? We have yet to have a 1-on-1, and my opinion about this person's behavior is starting to fester to the point where I feel like I have to bring it up. But if I do, how do I do it tactfully? I have a feeling that my position can and will be strawmanned as "oh look, a white man who is upset about losing power." I just don't want the expectation of having to apologize for my immutable characteristics.Help!

vaidhy · Accepted Answer

It seems to me like a poor joke - He likely meant that by being a white male, he is not helping out on the diversity ratio.. not that he has undesirable identity. He could have better phrased it as 'yeah.. I just joined and that did not help the diversity ratio' which would still be funny and will make the same point. I also think you are overly sensitive to race issues and that makes it worse.

slater · Answer

From how it reads from here, he's not apologizing for being white, he's apologizing for on the one hand being part of a company committed to diversity, yet on the other hand it may appear like the company's perpetuating the "all higher-ups and board members just so happen to all be white males" level of "diversity"