Many people are trying to rationalize the "anti-racist lens" remark as a simple post-hoc analysis to make sure there wasn't racial bias. (This seems plausible,

Many people are trying to rationalize the "anti-racist lens" remark as a simple post-hoc analysis to make sure there wasn't racial bias. (This seems plausible, and I don't think many people would have an issue with that, in theory.) However, if this is what the CEO did, then he did not use an anti-racist lens -- merely a "not-racist" lens. Kendi is explicit in his book, "How to be an Anti-Racist", that there is no neutrality. You simply cannot say "the layoff is not racist". You can either have the layoff be racist, or antiracist, there is no middle ground. DiAngelo agrees in her assessment. She says that people should not ask, "Did racism occur", but rather, "How did racism occur?" When looking at the roster of layoffs, one must come to the conclusion that racism occurred, no matter how unbiased the results appear. How does Kendi say anti racism rectifies past prejudice? Present prejudice. How to rectify present prejudice? With future prejudice. If the CEO actually used an anti-racist lens in the layoff decisions, then by definition, he used prejudice based on race.