Black Girl Gamers has threatened legal action against That Park Place, a news website that covers pop culture.
In their recent article titled “‘Forspoken’ Consultant Black Girl Gamers Appears To Discriminate In Their Hiring Practices While Claiming They Are Being Harassed“, the site alleged that Black Girl Gamers participated in discriminatory hiring practices.
We won’t tell you that they’re being discriminatory, but what we will do is present some facts and allow you to draw your own conclusions (thanks to Mark Kern for investigating on his Twitter).
1. BGG has informally solicited applications while dictating applicants’ race and gender identity
A tweet casting out a net for “Black Women Content Creators” isn’t necessarily indicative of discriminatory hiring practices, but it does cast suspicions on what qualifications BGG requires to be given opportunities.
2. BGG’s “non-discriminatory hiring practices” are not “readily available”
Mark Kern investigated BGG’s website and discovered that job listings are hidden behind a password-protected portal that requires applicants to individually receive access from a BGG “liaison”. This is in spite of the fact that BGG claimed their hiring practices are “readily available”.
BGG goes on to state that evidence of their non-discriminatory hiring practices is "readily available and easily searchable."
So I did some searches for BGG and "hiring policy" or "consultant" and was not able to find anything. In fact, the website has no published hiring policy… pic.twitter.com/tC0nhJEHyM
— Grummz (@Grummz) March 27, 2024
3. BGG claims to be “100% Minority Operated”
Owned is one thing, operated is another. Being 100% minority operated implies that no white people exist in any position within the company. What does the word “diversity” mean again?
4. BGG runs a discriminatory online community
While private online communities are free to set their own requirements and boundaries (especially if they’re self-hosted), it’s likely that BGG privileges members of its discriminatory private community in terms of access to job opportunities.
So Black Girl Gamers also runs a community. But you must apply and cannot join if you self-identify as a man. pic.twitter.com/yZYZLF2p3A
— Grummz (@Grummz) March 27, 2024
On one last note, That Park Place has responded to BGG’s implication of legal action by affirming their commitment to “good-faith journalistic efforts”, saying:
“That Park Place has written about this public interest story involving public entities as part of good-faith journalistic efforts. That Park Place, at time of publication and to the best of our knowledge, has never received any request for edit, redaction, modification or deletion of articles mentioned in this piece. We strive for accuracy within our coverage, even when we are opining in public appearance perceptions.”
You can check out their response here.
