In certain departments across corporate, racism is blatantly acknowledged by managers who are at the director level but they do not do anything because it is their boss or a VP who exhibits discriminatory behavior to lower-level employees. I have heard them say (and I quote) to their reports, "White people are treated better and are respected more here", and "I don't have to worry about managing him because he is a white male." They do nothing meaningful to change the status quo for the people who are discriminated against. These managers, who are white women, walk around writing papers on diversity and publicly promoting company values of diversity and inclusion -- which makes their behavior all the more disturbing. HR is no help either because they gaslight you and ask why you didn't talk to a C-Suite executive that you've never worked with. The discriminatory and complicit behavior directly impacts the career paths of people of color. It doesn't matter if you have good experience or worked hard-- you will not be respected if you're not white in certain departments. Your white VP will give credit to your white manager for your work and talk to her about a path to promotion, even though your manager is only months in at Syneos, and even though you've been with the company for much longer.
