Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently expressed his dismay about incidents wherein Facebook employees crossed out "Black Lives Matter" and replaced it with "All Lives Matter" on the walls of the company headquarters located in Menlo Park, California.
Facebook said that the act that defaced the movement's slogan is racially motivated and that the perpetrators should be justly disciplined for their actions.
In a statement acquired by USA Today, Zuckerberg said, "There have been several recent instances of people crossing out 'black lives matter' and writing 'all live matter' on the walls. Despite my clear communication at Q&A last week that this was unacceptable, and messages from several other leaders from across the company, this has happened again. I was already very disappointed by this disrespectful behavior before, but after my communication I now consider this malicious as well.
It is a well-known tradition in Facebook that employees can write on walls, message boards and chalkboards as much as they would virtually on their Facebook wall.
The Black Lives Matter slogan began as a hashtag on Facebook following the acquittal of George Zimmerman after he was accused of killing Trayvon Martin. The issue was very controversial as video evidence showed Zimmerman attacked Martin even though the latter was unarmed. The issue also precipitated a huge racial debate since Martin is African American.
Analysts agree that there is an unrecognized racial divide in the tech community. Facebook reports that only two percent of its staff is African American. Moreover, only one percent of all venture-capital-backed startup companies are headed by African Americans. It is also important to note that less than one percent of general partner at major venture capital firms in Silicon Valley are African American.
In Facebook, 54 percent of its employees are White, 36 percent are of Asian descent and only two percent are Black, according to NPR. This racial disparity is widespread among top tech companies including Intel, Apple, Microsoft and Google.
Facebook has been working on to improve the racial disparity ration among its employees. Some race advocates agree that racial diversity in Silicon Valley companies had a lot to do with the industry's reliance on recruitment through referrals.