But when the company was depicted as having a low number of minorities, blacks’ trust and sense of belonging were more conditional. Diversity policy became critical. Interestingly, the color-blind policy—perhaps America’s dominant approach to these matters—didn’t work. It engendered less trust and belonging. It was as if blacks couldn’t take color-blindness at face value when the number of minorities in the company was small. But importantly, and just as interestingly, blacks did not mistrust the company when it espoused a valuing-diversity policy. With that policy in place, they trusted the
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