The Wall Street Journal Goes Full White Supremacist, Blames Silicon Valley Bank Collapse on “1 Black” and “1 LGBTQ+”

As you’ve probably heard by now, on Friday, Silicon Valley Bank—a lender to some of the most notable names in the tech world—became the biggest bank to fail since the 2008 financial crisis. How did this happen? Not surprisingly, a multitude of factors appear to have contributed to the company’s downfall, including its failure to account for rising interest rates; venture capital drying up; a prevalence of uninsured depositors, who usually ask for their money back when things are looking bad; and a lack of regulatory oversight, thanks to one Donald Trump. One reason SVB probably did not fail? The presence of a few women, one Black person, and an individual who identifies as LGBTQ+ on its board. Though The Wall Street Journal isn’t so sure!

In an op-ed titled “Who Killed Silicon Valley Bank?” columnist Andy Kessler writes: “Was there regulatory failure? Perhaps. SVB was regulated like a bank but looked more like a money-market fund. Then there’s this: In its proxy statement, SVB notes that besides 91% of their board being independent and 45% women, they also have ‘1 Black,‘ “1 LGBTQ+,‘ and ‘2 Veterans.’ I’m not saying 12 white men would have avoided this mess, but the company may have been distracted by diversity demands.”

Sure, Kessler is not flatly, literally saying “12 white men would have avoided this mess,” because even David Duke knows you can’t just come out and say that in 2023. But…he’s basically saying exactly that, hence the claim that the bank might have failed because it was “distracted” by supposedly burdensome “diversity demands.” (Here’s where we’d like to point out that having “1 Black” person on a 12-person board means that that board is still 92% white. The same math goes for that “1 LGBTQ+” person.) Weirdly, Kessler did not note, alongside his thesis, that SVB’s executive team doesn’t appear to have been plagued by “diversity demands.” He also apparently did not feel the need to acknowledge that all of the major banks that failed during the Great Recession were largely run by white guys.

As tech columnist Brian Merchant tweeted Monday, this piece “is basically an argument in favor of racial purity at a bank’s board of directors.” Not surprisingly, others were similarly unimpressed.