by Special Correspondent Adina Ba

Luke Visconti is a partner and co-founder of DiversityInc Media LLC. He is a recognized leader in the publishing field and diversity, often appearing on Fox, MSNBC and CNBC, and regularly quoted on diversity issues in publications such as The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, BusinessWeek, Fortune and The Wall Street Journal. You can find more Race in the Workplace interviews in our archives.

What led you to found DiversityInc?

Basically, my motivation comes from my experiences. I was in the US Navy as a helicopter pilot. On my last tour of duty, I volunteered for officer recruiting. They asked me to be responsible for minority officer recruiting and I was assigned to my home state of N.J. There was an African American pilot already in the office and I asked him for help. We worked together for over a year and half, and became good friends. He helped me become aware of things I had not been aware of before, the levels of racism and bigotry that previously had escaped my world as a white man.

Later on, I worked in publishing, at McGraw Hill and at Fortune Magazine. I met Foulis Peacock, my business partner, at Fortune Magazine. We left Fortune with the intention of launching a magazine. We started our own company and created a robust revenue stream as ad sales reps. We tested different ideas. DiversityInc is the one we both really loved. We abandoned other, very profitable aspects of our business to focus on DiversityInc. The website is 10 years old and the magazine, five. It is a labor of love for both of us. We have no outside investors and no debt. There is no board of directors.

Do you feel that people are surprised when they find out that you, a white male, has immersed himself in work around diversity issues?

Typically, people are very surprised that I, as a white male, am involved in diversity efforts. What many don’t understand is that our country has a long history of white people being very involved in civil rights; that fact suprises white people as well as people of color. However, I think it’s true that most people involved in this subject are not white.

There are two kinds of people involved in diversity issues. There are people who fight for their groups’ specific interests, and there are people who fight for all people. I am striving to be in the group that fights for all people. DiversityInc is an American centric publication, however, this subject affects the rest of the world.

Tell us more about the “Ask the White guy” column. This column deals with pretty sensitive current media topics related to race and diversity. Did you anticipate it to be this popular?

I thought we would have a very good chance of this column being very popular because I get very good questions at my speaking engagements. The title, of course, is satirical. I got the idea from a diversity executive’s experience of being selected to be the diversity executive because he was the only person of color at his company’s headquarters. Our audience is very interactive and not afraid to express themselves so I knew that I’d get good questions. It all worked out, and it is very popular.

Do you think that some people feel more comfortable asking a “white guy” about diversity issues?

In person, white people are generally more comfortable asking other white people about diversity issues. When they feel I am one of them, they feel more comfortable, especially with my life experiences – being in the Navy and a successful business man, these add stature. Most white people will tell me that they’re not white, they’re German American for example, and they deny their whiteness and the white culture of this country.

I don’t think that’s the case online. In that platform, I get hostility from many white people. In my column, Ask the White Guy, I take their statements, break them down, counter ignorance with facts, and try to bring them up to speed. On the other hand, people of color often ask questions that are driven by pain, humiliation, discrimination, from how they’ve been treated. I would say that 90% of the comments I receive from the “Ask the White Guy” column are negative, but some are very kind and curious. It’s worth pointing out that for most people, diversity is something they deal with at work, but when they go home, they go back to people who look just like them. The “Ask the White Guy” column is a safe environment for people to ask questions they may not feel comfortable asking anywhere else.

In one column, a reader asked Why Are Sports Dominated by Blacks? I answered this sarcastic question as if the person was being sincere. That enraged the person even more; I got more hate mail for this column than any other. White people hated my answer. Many white people think that cultures and nuances of different races should go away. There are many more ways than one to look at things. Some perspectives are much better than the ones you have, you can absolutely prove diversity; the more solutions, the more potential solutions for the best possible solution.

Have you experienced any extreme reactions (positive or negative) to any parts of your website or magazine?

I get extreme reactions fairly regularly, some resent that I’m white; some virulently disagree with me over GLBT issues. I have a rainbow flag in my office just to make everyone aware of what I believe is a human rights issue. Sexual orientation is as natural as anything else we do. In our society, being heterosexual is normal and allowed, and nothing else. But no one is abnormal, people are people. During speaking events, I remind my audiences that if there are 50 people in the room, a few of them will be gay. Everyone in the room knows someone who is gay and I point out that if they don’t think they know someone who is gay that it only means that their behavior causes the gay people around them to choose not to be themselves in their presence.

Most of my business contacts are African American women; from this, I have formed close friendships over the years. It’s great to be the recipient of such grace and empathy and courtesy and respect and generosity, really humbling. I know these women don’t get the same respect in their offices full of mostly white men. They’re often working three levels below their talents and experiences, which is a truly amazing waste of talent.

If people could understand what civil rights advocates bring to the table, most people would be one. It’s a nicer world. When you meet another person on the right path, there’s an immediate kinship. Our world situation would look different if government officials had some grounding in diversity management. I do get hostility and love at the same time from the fact that DiversityInc exists. Our advertising comes from people at companies who have conviction that their companies will absolutely benefit from advertising in DiversityInc. Conviction creates momentum for our growth and in relation, diversity as a whole.

I think this subject has longevity because I believe that that human DNA is wired to want us to be free. When you serve an issue which lowers oppression, you tap into something much greater, the sum of the parts. MLK said “The ark of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Civil Rights will continue to expand. Human beings don’t live that long, so our perspective is that change has been slow, but if you look at history, the pace has actually been very rapid..When you serve this subject which is deeply wired inside each human being, you can’t even begin to fathom the strength of it.