People who approach others like this are putting themselves out there. They are just as at risk, if not more, as you would be by expressing your own responses in a non threatening way. If you don't know how to do that, I suggest you learn. It'll give you a voice at work.
Please, people, do NOT be honest about your conservative or non-woke political positions in this industry. You will absolutely be punished for them by your peers. It is not in any situation ever worth it. Clock in, clock out, take the check, and always always always keep interviewing constantly because they will have no issues firing you arbitrarily.
Work at a large enough company and the woke literally have an entire division of the company (DEI) dedicated to finding reasons not to hire you in the first place, reasons to not promote you, and identifying ways in which your opinions make others feel "unsafe", etc. The entire deck is stacked against you unless you blend in.
"Bring your whole self to work" is bait. It's how they identify friend and foe. Do not fall for it. Pretend to be apolitical if you must. It probably won't work 100%, but giving up plausible deniability is not in your interest.
Being honest and disagreeing would not be as heroic as refusing to “just go along with the nazis”, but just ignoring them is also a little harder than ignoring some crazy preacher on the street. It’s an awkward middle ground that just slowly erodes your soul and I find myself looking for friends as outlets to moan to when I hear something particularly ridiculous. But I absolutely hate feeling weak that I need to remain silent, or feeling like I’m in the damn French resistance or something when I actually have pretty moderate views. Worst of all? I say what I think to people who I respect enough as adults to be able to take it. But when I remain silent it’s basically because I think they’re emotionally too immature to take it.
"There are still many of us out there who believe that hiring candidates based on their race is not healthy for society, the company, or any individual candidate. That opinion is largely being stamped out, by design, in management at the orgs I'm talking about.
This has nothing to do with not wanting to step up and manage."
Personally I think I like blind job applications (ie where the name, ethnicity, gender, age etc of the job applicants is held unknown for the interviewers, as long as possible), which it seems to me that you like too
"Oh yeah, I totally know what you are saying"
"mmm hmmm"
"Interesting I hadnt thought about it like that before".
It is your ego or something else that makes it hard for you to do this.
It sucks you feel you have to do that just to survive your job. That's a toxic culture. These woke types feel you should bring your whole self to work, express yourself freely etc. One rule for me, another for thee. Agreeing with someone's worldview everyday when you actually disagree is bad for your ego. What's good for your ego is being authentic. I get what you mean about the need to be right all the time is a sign of a weak ego though. Though I don't have that, which is why I mostly don't bother talking about politics at work.
> "Oh yeah, I totally know what you are saying"
> "mmm hmmm"
> "Interesting I hadnt thought about it like that before".
That's different to actually agreeing. I would never explicitly agree with someone just to placate them at work. How do you think I've survived San Francisco for the last three years? I usually go with agreeing when I actually agree and not bothering to talk about it if I don't think they're mature enough to handle me disagreeing, which is pretty often. But I'm never, ever, going to agree with someone's drastically different worldview just to do my job that's totally unrelated. Nobody should have to put up with that.
I think people can cultivate a "I'm keeping my cover up" mentality that helps, but I really do believe it has more costs than you're presenting, and it's not just about "ego" which is a very negatively loaded phrasing.