…which is that this woman should never have been hired to fill a responsible position, and deserved to be fired.
Angie Báez, 40, was caught on video emptying a full special New York Knicks public trash can on the street during the Knicks championship parade and then stealing it. This was all caught on camera, as was the idiot on the subway as she brought her souvenir home, grinning happily…
She was the Executive Director of Community and Industry Engagement for Card and Connected Commerce at JPMorgan Chase, but is no more. The bank’s leadership investigated the incident after the pictures hit the web. A bank spokesperson told the media, “This employee is no longer with the company.” Good.
Still, I don’t understand what the woman was thinking. She made a mess, and stole city property. The amazing arrogance and sense of selfishness behind such public behavior is hard to comprehend, as is the fact that such a creep could get hired in a succession of executive positions. She previously served as Executive Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at New York-based review website The Infatuation, which Chase acquired as part of its expansion into lifestyle and experiential content. Earlier in her career, Báez worked as Diversity & Inclusion Program Lead at Squarespace and also held positions as diversity and inclusion chief at Saks Fifth Avenue, Hudson’s Bay, and Saks Off 5th.
What does a DEI executive do? What qualifies someone for such a job? Professional discrimination experience? Baez also co-founded a queer and black, indigenous and people of color-owned talent agency. That figures, I guess. Her bio on The Infatuation’s website says that “dedication to making a positive impact shines through in every aspect of her work…Angie’s efforts have helped position [The Infatuation] as a trailblazer in the pursuit of a more equitable and relatable food media industry….As a vibrant mosaic of Dominican heritage, Bronx roots, and a passion for storytelling, creativity, and culture, Angie continues to lead the way towards a more inclusive and equitable future for food media, leaving an indelible mark on The Infatuation and everything she touches.”
Like that trashcan, I guess.
There is a sense of entitlement that the whole DEI delusion creates within people who are not as special as everyone keeps telling them they are. Baez decided it was okay for her to steal city property because 1) she is a Knicks fan, 2) is “of color,” 3) is represented by one of the letters LGBTQ and 4) is a “vibrant mosaic of Dominican heritage, Bronx roots, and a passion for storytelling, creativity, and culture.” She dumped trash on the street and stole the receptacle while bystanders watched. No shame, no sense of embarrassment.
Nobody in her career noticed the character deficiencies that were behind this conduct, or did they just not care? I don’t understand…
Ethics Alarms 
What, the regular souvenirs were too expensive? This is something 20-year-olds do so that they can put something to brag about in the frat house. I for one don’t even know where I’d put something like this. It just takes up space. I can’t imagine thinking you have the right to simply dump trash on the street and steal the trash can as a souvenir. It’s not yours to take. Then again, 6 years ago more than a few dozen statues got yanked down and some got destroyed because people ignored that they weren’t theirs to take down.
This is just another part of the idea that has slimed its way into society that if you feel strongly enough about something the rules don’t apply. The thing is if she’s 40 that means she was born in or about 1986, when standards still matter. Then again, she graduated college in for about 2008 where hatred of George w Bush was at its height and Obama was preaching hope and change although without any specifics. She’s spent the last 18 years getting paid for quoting slogans and preaching bumper sticker thoughts. I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that she should behave like this.
While not disagreeing with what you said, I don’t think you can leave out everything going on around her. People were rioting, burning and smashing stuff because their team won. That aspect of fan(atic)-dom has never made a lot of sense to me. In that mob mentality, stealing a trash can makes perfect sense, and is relatively harmless.
-Jut
Straight Outta Central Casting…
PWS
Jack, haven’t you heard? NYC is communist now. That’s *her* trashcan.
I think the basics are that some sports fans, especially in large cities, believe that they are entitled to celebrate by trashing the place, vandalizing property and taking things that don’t belong to them, such as street signs, banners and anything team related.
I don’t know that DEI has anything to do with it because this type of thing happened even before the DEI fad. I think that the DEI positions she’s held (and, oh, how many positions she’s held in the relatively short time that DEI positions have existed) are just confirmation bias here. There were plenty of people in NYC causing problems that don’t have DEI jobs. She was just unlucky enough to 1) get caught and 2) have an employer that recognizes a PR problem when they see it.
Until the culture recognizes that there is an appropriate way to celebrate and an inappropriate way to celebrate, we’re going to continue to see vandalism and theft being rationalized as exuberance.
And we’re going to see an increase in the crime involved in such demonstrations because opportunists are going to use these spontaneous celebrations to wreck havoc.
Your theory is defensible, but I’d like to see evidence of any other 40-year old women with management jobs behaving like that. You seem to have a low opinion of sports fans: that kind of rioting is not common, and it is based on both the culture of the city in volved, the demographics of fans, the particular sport (baseball fans don’t riot) and respect for law enforcement.DEI translates into entitlement, and New York is currently a culture that holds that “BIPOCs” should be a immune from prosecution as possible. I do think someone spending a career in this unethical field is prone to arrogance and feelings of immunity, the rationalization of #14 Self-validating Virtue.
No doubt, DEI culture is one of entitlement.
I don’t really have a low opinion of sports fans, but I do have a low opinion of sports fans who behave like this. You are correct in that baseball fans don’t do things like this. Basketball and Football fans seem to think so and do this occasionally when they didn’t do it before.
Frankly, I think that there were opportunists in the crowd that were looking for an excuse to cause trouble. Some footage I saw included a Palestinian flag being waved so I’m guessing certain demographics did decide to usurp the celebration for their own ends.
But Baez was wearing Knicks colors and stole a Knicks trash can so I believe she thought grabbing a unique souvenir was okay.
Again, there are 3 basic types of people; good people, bad people, and people who think they are good. She is almost certainly someone who thinks she is good. Such people do what is socially acceptable, not because they really believe in it, but because they are cowards and bow to peer pressure. When it becomes temporarily acceptable to do thinks like loot and riot, they will loot and riot. The truly good people leave when that starts happening (there are no truly good people in a riot). She is probably shocked that she lost her job over this, ‘everyone else was doing it’ is probably what she is saying and thinking.
The image shows she is physically capable of lifiting trash cans. More likely than not, Mamdani will offer her a job in the Department of Sanitation.
“The image shows she is physically capable of lifiting trash cans.”
IMO, this gal doesn’t appear to have had physical activity/work comprise any part of her upbringing, much less her current…I mean previous…situation.
PWS
Ouch.
jvb
The deep absurdity of someone like this being in charge of anything is deeply depressing. I see people work hard and make little progress at times, and then you see someone like this getting a cushy salary in a completely made up job that she probably couldn’t even be good at based on the delusional standards.
We have gone too libertarian if this is what the market produces.
The market didn’t produce this, social regulation did. Do you think companies wanted to hire an army of DEI people who did nothing but disturb the companies work culture, schedule mandatory meetings that cut into productivity and depressed morale, and forced them to hire a bunch of useless employees into make-work positions all in the name of diversity? No, they were forced into this by official and unofficial regulatory agencies. Once illegal racial discrimination was ruled impermissible by the supreme court and Trump administration recently, a large number of minority employees have been fired by companies because they were in these useless positions.
You either have government regulatory bodies or judicial entities requiring such policies. If you just have merit-based hiring, you could get sued for discrimination, you could have a government regulatory body investigate you for discrimination, you could have a boycott that would exclude you from suppliers, or you could have a state pressure banks to not let you have a bank account.
“The deep absurdity of someone like this being in charge of anything is deeply depressing.”
The reality ist that she has absolutely no power over anything. D.E.I. initiatives merely tick off an HR box as a defense against hostile workplace claims” “Hey! We don’t approve of sexual harassment in our office! Look at our D.E.I. officer in charge of this! S/He wrote a cool manual. Let me show you . . . . now, where is it . . . oh, yeah! Right here! See?”
jvb
I don’t feel sorry for JP Morgan at all. They finally have a bona fide reason to eliminate her employment, and probably her position. They are probably celebrating.