This past summer, the chief executive of Wells Fargo said something controversial:
“While it might sound like an excuse, the unfortunate reality is that there is a very limited pool of Black talent to recruit from,” he wrote in a company-wide memo.
If only the C.E.O. had remembered the following scene from Aaron Sorkin’s T.V. show, the West Wing:
LEO
There are people out there.
TOBY
There are not people who... You’re like the guys who say, “Are you telling me you could only find one African-American speechwriter good enough to work at the White House?” I’m amazed I found that many. “Good enough to work at the White House” is a pretty small population to begin with. And guys who can write entire sections of a State of the Union? I’d be as surprised if there were as many as nine of us.
In other words: It’s not what you say. It’s how you say it.
Also, while we’re quoting the West Wing, here’s another fantastic line that Charles Scharf would do well to remember:
TABITHA
I’m sorry, but I tell the truth.
TOBY
Not every minute of the damn day, Tabitha.
