Former Facebook director, Mark Luckie, appeals to the company for the mistreatment of black employees

Today, Facebook's former director of partnerships, Mark Luckie, has posted an internal memo that was sent to his colleagues on his last Facebook day earlier this month, highlighting the problems of widespread discrimination within the company. The note states that Facebook has a "black people problem" that involves the mistreatment of black employees. He cites incidents in which managers or colleagues described their colleagues as "hostile" or "aggressive", as well as other cases in which campus security gave increased scrutiny to black employees.

"In some buildings, there are more" Black Lives Matter "posters than real blacks," he writes. "Facebook can not pretend that it connects communities if they are not proportionally represented in its workforce."

Luckie then explains how the company's human resources department often protects managers – not people filing complaints. "Facebook's black collaborators know that by raising their voices we risk compromising our professional relationships and career advancement," he said. "Even if we want to convince ourselves that these inconveniences are minor, they continue to gnaw at us and affect our work."

Luckie says that these and other problems have led him to leave the company to devote himself to creating a podcast. Facebook has made minor improvements to diversity in the workplace. The company said earlier this year that black employees accounted for 8 percent of business and commercial positions, while only 1 percent of technical positions were held by black employees, while black employees accounted for only 2 percent of management positions. . Facebook said that he still had "so much to do," and that the focus was on diversity.

In his note, Luckie praises the efforts but says they do not go far enough and that the real problems stem from the culture of the company as a whole. "Continuing to witness and being at the center of systematic disavowal of underrepresented voices, even involuntarily, is more than I am willing to sacrifice personally," writes Luckie. "I lost the will and desire to defend Facebook's interests."

Facebook is already facing many of these same critics coming from outside the company. Colour of Change, an online racial justice group, has asked the company to publish a civil rights audit and the dismissal of global vice president of public policy Joel Kaplan, which has prompted criticism of his support for conservative causes. The group will meet Facebook leaders on Thursday to discuss how Facebook can address "systemic issues on the platform."