So Much For Inclusivity, Asian Woman Investor Steps Down After Email Leak Of Her Calling BLM ‘The True Racists’

After a leaked email revealed her dismissive attitude toward the Black Lives Matter movement, a major Asian American investor in Silicon Valley has resigned from the board of directors of her business less than a week after the email was released.

Veronica Wu was on the board of directors of VF Corporation, which is one of the world’s biggest clothing businesses and is responsible for brands such as Dickies, Supreme, The North Face, Timberland, and Vans, among others. Having been elected in March of this year, she has been allocated to two committees: finance and nominating and governance, and human resources.

On Thursday, Axios published an article that revealed an email Wu had sent in June 2020 to an office manager at Hone Capital, a venture capital firm she had founded in Silicon Valley in 2015. Wu had sent the email to an office manager at Hone Capital, which she had launched in Silicon Valley in 2015. Of the time of her nomination to the VF board of directors, she was a managing partner at Hone & Associates.
Wu claims that the office manager informed him that they will observe Juneteenth,  as a corporate holiday after their conversation. In response to Wu’s response that she was unaware of it, the manager stated that they were doing it in accordance with the country’s increased emphasis on racism, which occurred as a result of the killing of George Floyd.

In reaction, Wu said that she is “particularly not supportive” and that she thinks the United States is not racially discriminatory. Although she acknowledged her gender and ethnicity, she expressed gratitude for the country’s reputation as a meritocracy, which she said enabled her to “get opportunities to compete as fairly as I think.”

“If people are truly color-blind, they would just stop talking about color and pay attention to the quality of work. If we judge racism by requiring every job to be based on a racial proportion vs. merits, then the NBA should not have so many Black players,” Wu wrote, adding that she does not see people “complaining about that.”

Wu went on to criticize the “Black Lives Matter” movement, referring to its followers as “the true racists.”

“I don’t believe in ‘Black Lives Matter.’ If anything, I think they are the true racists trying to stir up things to make this country go to socialism, or even communism potentially,” Wu wrote. “I am a patriot. I appreciate all this country has given me and I believe it is a place where meritocracy thrives… I don’t appreciate those who try to weaken it by undermining meritocracy principles and those who try to stick to some race quota.”

Wu concluded her answer by stating that declaring Juneteenth a holiday is not something she would want to do. The China Science and Merchants Investment Management Group (commonly known as the CSC Group), which is the firm’s owner, she said, was responsible for the decision.

According to Axios, VF Corporation conducted an investigation into the email exchange early this year and determined that its contents were genuine. According to her LinkedIn page, Wu is no longer employed at Hone Capital.

Since her email was made public, Wu has not issued a comment on the matter. While VF Corporation did not give a reason for her departure from the board, the firm said that her departure was “not the result of any disagreement.”

“VF Corporation today announced that Veronica Wu has informed VF of her decision to step down from the company’s Board of Directors, effective immediately. Ms. Wu’s decision to step down from the Board was not the result of any disagreement with VF on any matter relating to VF’s operations, policies or practices,” the company said in a statement.

Wu graduated from Yale University with a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics and from the University of California, Berkeley with a master’s degree in industrial engineering operations research. As stated on her LinkedIn page, she co-founded First Bight Capital, a biotech venture capital company, where she has served as a managing partner since April of this year.