Did I Sin Against Brian Lamb?

Maybe the market understands the power of the Magical Negro

In my recent article on the pushback to university radicalism in Tablet, I opened with the story of Brian Lamb, a former college point guard who was appointed by DeSantis to the University of Florida board of regents and then demanded DEI initiatives. Someone who knows Lamb sent me this DM through Twitter, which I reproduce here with permission.

Your use of Brian Lamb as an example of a woke/DEI admin type made me more optimistic about the state of things.

I worked with Brian at the bank he worked at before JP Morgan. He was one of the most inspirational leaders I have ever worked for. His ability to mix in folksy examples from his Tallahassee upbringing and his high level sports career made for an engaging presentation style. He was able to work with people like me (analytical finance types) plus salesy Midwestern middle market commercial bankers plus even-more-salesy South Florida investment advisors, and everyone loved working for him. And it was banking, so it was him leading a bunch of us white dudes.

He ran our Florida operations before heading to corporate in Ohio to run a major line of business. It was a shock when he left for JP Morgan because everyone viewed him as a future leader of our company. But you can’t begrudge a guy for leaving the #15 bank for #1. He took a DEI-sounding job at JP Morgan, I can only assume, because that was good PR for them, and that was an easy role to ease him into the business. He now runs a major unit in their Northeast footprint.

I still text with him for advice and wisdom. I still use examples from him almost weekly when leading my team. I’ve since left that bank for a Fortune 20 company far more outwardly woke than banking was. I run a Data & Analytics team, and we sort of ignore the woke messaging, it doesn’t noticeably have an impact on us, maybe we will look back at being naive later on.

Anyway, I know Brian Lamb personally and he is far from woke. When I worked with him in the mid-2010s, I’d put him in the conservative Democrat, possibly even Republican camp. So if he is an example of a woke DEI admin, I think we’ll all be fine.

(I guess the counterpoint to me, if woke messaging can happen to him, it can happen to anyone, maybe we’re all doomed, but I don’t read it that way.)

While writing the original piece, I was thinking about the ways in which a black college basketball player can be used by liberals and corporations for PR purposes, flattening his entire personality into a one-dimensional caricature.

Brian Lamb showing determination while driving to the paint, before a shoulder injury dashed his hopes of playing in the NBA and put him on the path of inspiring white Florida investment bros.

This message brought home to me that I was doing pretty much the same thing. Brian Lamb was in my mind a symbol of the kind of empty suit that gets promoted to a position of power and influence in our society due to woke ideology and white guilt. But Brian Lamb is an actual human being! And apparently a very competent, nice, and inspiring one, if this message is to be believed. Let’s take the message at face value and set aside the possibility that it is actually part of a genius PR operation run by Brian Lamb to win over any public critics he might have.