> If someone just does their job with people no matter who they are then they are not political.

And what happens when it's not the case? When people don't just treat people of foo group normally, and it's happening throughout the company? What should foo group do?

Ask the company to get to an apolitical state where they can just do their job? Let people in the company know that it's going on? By you definition, that's political and wrong. Or do they just bear the cost of it while others continue doing what they're doing?

> I don't see why this is concept would be so hard to understand

Because (In my opinion) you're starting with a fundamentally flawed premise that there isn't already politics in the work place. There always has been. The important difference is that the only thing that gets branded as "politics" is anything different from the status quo. If it's politics aligned with the status quo it's not seen as politics even when it it.

A similar example. I'm not taking a stand on it in any way here, but kneeling during the national anthem before a football game was considered a political act (which it is). One response was "keep politics out of football" (parallel to our discussion here). But again similar to our discussion here it was glossing over the fact that playing the national anthem before a sporting event is an extremely political action to begin with (ex. Should we play the national anthem before a game of Jeopardy?).

Saying there wasn't politics before / by default, is just turning a blind eye to the existing politics because it's the status quo.

What that person can do in order of difficulty is talk to the person/group that they are made uncomfortable by, approach their manager about the issue, take the issue to human resources, leave for a competitor that will likely win in the long run with a better work environment, or ultimately sue for being discriminated based on a protected class.

None of these options require a company to adopt a political platform.

> playing the national anthem before a sporting event is an extremely political action to begin with

no that's not a political action, because the intent of the song is not to display some political message, but to display a sign of respect to the nation that has enabled the game to exist.

Is it a political action if the happy birthday song is played at McDonalds for a birthday party? It only becomes political when an action has intent behind it to display a message that furthers a political agenda.

The kneeling at a football game is political, because those people who kneel knows that their kneeling is going to be seen by millions, and thus they can leverage their visibility (due to their position as players or at least is on camera). Therefore, it's highly political - they want to send a message out there to as many people as they could that they support a particular cause (and implicitly want an outsider that also happen to be watching the game to also support). Would you declare that it's OK for the same group of people to perform a nazi salute under the same circumstances? If you're OK with that, then I would be OK with "political" actions in my football game.

The problem in this discussion here is that many are unable to separate their own political leaning with the general idea of political expression in non-political settings (such as a football game or place of business). I keep hearing that apolitical stance is not possible - but then if there are politiking that they do not like, then it's not allowed (aka, if a company "forced" their employees to engage in white-nationalist politics).

That's why I take the stance of apolitical neutrality in public places where politics isn't expected (e.g., in a place of business).

My sister's husband is a software engineer at a bank, and the health insurance plan they use specifies that men can have their wife covered under the plan, rather than a gender-neutral spouse and it doesn't count civil unions. Now this has worked out fine for them, but the choice for the bank to use this healthcare plan means that same-sex couples don't have equal access. So just existing as a gay person can be political.

> Being trans is not political.

Until that trans person needs to go to the bathroom.

You don't have closed off bathrooms? Anyway, denying them a bathroom to go to probably breaks some workplace laws. I agree that we need workplace laws, and if a company can refuse to accommodate the basic needs of a worker without breaking any laws then the laws needs to change, which of course is politics.