if you combine a situation of "i feel this group is suffering and we need to pursue remedies asap" with "this person appears disinterested [from lack of attendance] in discussing the issues facing said group" you can get to places of suspicion and worse. that is, if you feel a group is suffering and it appears someone just doesn't [seem to] care, it's natural to wonder if they're not exactly on the nominally-friendly side of the issue.
this isn't weird or unusual, just ordinary social dynamics.
what if someone's whole team regularly attends these meetings, but that single someone never goes? even if they've never said anything, it doesn't seem unrealistic for at least some of the other teammates to wonder why.
how you get from wondering to suspicions really depends on a person's assumptions, philosophies, politics, etc.
No, it doesn't seem that way to me.
> People at his work had nothing to say about police brutality against black people, so of course they were racist and supporting it.
No, I think he's saying that them having something to say about every news item imaginable except the one that resonated with him in that way (well, other than their dismissal of the protest) was alienating and distancing independent of what motivated it.
Instead, I was merely raising the question about how people who don't attend such activities are viewed at their workplace and if it might negatively affect their standing at work, because I've seen this with other activities.
> Over the last 5 years I’ve heard co-workers spew hateful words about immigrants, boast unabashedly about gentrifying neighborhoods, mockingly imitate people who speak different languages, reject candidates of color without evidence because of ‘fit.’
Not for lack of attending some discussion sessions.
There was no expectation for everyone to show up. The meeting space wouldn't even have facilitated it. It would be unreasonable for there to have been an expectation for that reason alone.
Nobody's going to think your anti-LGBT unless you make comments at work disparaging LGBT people. You don't have to be proactively pro-LGBT in the workplace to be not "against it".