Skip to main content

Former Microsoft employee recounts racism at Mixer

A former Microsoft Mixer employee recounted racism he says he experienced while at the streaming company, which was recently shuttered by Microsoft.

Recommended Videos

In a blog post on Sunday, Milan Lee called his two years at Mixer “the worst I’ve ever had professionally” and claimed the poor experience, which spanned 2017 and 2018, was “all due to racism.”

Lee’s first issue at the company reportedly came after he was hired and someone pulled him aside to say he was only hired because he was “street smart.” Lee, who said he was the only Black person working at Mixer during his time there, said he immediately thought of affirmative action.

“I believed I was only hired to meet a diversity goal because I was Black,” he wrote. “Anyways, I decided to brush it off and let it go.”

In another incident, Lee recounted a time when he was in an internal meeting with his manager, who used a slaveholder analogy to compare Mixer to its relationship with content creators on the game-streaming service.

“That analogy was ‘I’m in between a rock and a hard place. What I mean is all the partners are my slaves, I own their content. I control their success on our platform. For me I am the slave master, I own partners,'” Lee said his manager said at the time.

After telling his manager that he was angry with her analogy, the person, who Lee did not identify in the blog post, “had the nerve to Google that analogy to prove why it was okay.”

Lee said that he immediately reported the comments his manager made to higher-ups, but that person never reported the slavery comments to human resources. He resigned a few weeks later.

Still, Lee asked for the Microsoft legal department to investigate the matter, and it did. However, according to Lee, who by then had moved on to a role at Salesforce, the legal team sided with his former manager.

“The reason my manager was not penalized and the reason she still has her job today is because she CANNOT be racist,” Lee wrote. “The reason she CANNOT be racist is because she hired a Black person.”

Lee’s comments come at a time when millions of people around the U.S. are protesting against racial injustice after the killing of George Floyd. The allegations also came just a day before Microsoft announced on Monday that it would shutter its Mixer streaming service next month and transition its content creators to Facebook Gaming.

In a tweet on Monday, Xbox chief Phil Spencer said that Microsoft did not decide to shutter Mixer because of Lee’s post.

Spencer also responded to Lee on Sunday, asking him to “connect” with him so he could “learn and understand more” about what happened.

“Racism will not be tolerated on our teams or on our services,” Spencer tweeted.

Lee, who said he had emailed Spencer about the problem while working at Mixer, tweeted on Monday that he spoke to Spencer that day, and said he looks “forward to hearing updates about the issue we discussed and the actions you will continue to take for inclusion and diversity at Xbox/Microsoft.”

Microsoft also issued a statement from its Mixer Twitter and thanked Lee for his post.

“Our goal is to build a positive, welcoming, and inclusive team and community,” the company said. “To those sharing your stories; it’s unacceptable that we did not provide that for you. We’ll be vigilant in addressing this more diligently in the future.”

In response to Digital Trends’ request for further comment, a Microsoft spokesperson said, “We do not tolerate any form of discrimination and thoroughly investigate all employee concerns. We do not discuss the details of such investigations.”

Don Reisinger
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Don Reisinger is a freelance technology, video game, and entertainment journalist. He has been writing about the world of…
The best Xbox 360 games of all time
xbox one backwards compatible december 2015 halo reach 360 compatability waypoint featured

The Xbox 360 is a console that defined an entire generation of gamers and inspired some of the best Xbox One games to follow. There was still competition with the best PS3 games and the best Wii games, but the 360 managed to hold its own against those two titans.

Many of the best games of all time appeared on this beloved console, which made narrowing down this list of the best Xbox 360 games a real challenge. Whether you're playing on original hardware or taking a break from the best Xbox Series X games and using backward compatibility, these are the best games you can play on the Xbox 360.

Read more
The best free Xbox Series X games
Spartan on the battlefield

Xbox Series X has built up an impressive roster of games since launching in 2020. From fast-paced first-person shooter (FPS) games to challenging RPGs, Microsoft's latest console has something for everyone. But with most new games clocking in at an eye-watering $70, it's not always possible to play all the best Xbox Series X games. Thankfully, Xbox Series X is also home to a surprisingly deep library of free-to-play games.

While there is some crossover between the best free PlayStation 5 games, that just means there are more players to compete or join up with since almost all of these are cross-platform games.

Read more
The best multiplayer games on the Xbox Series X
Pirates digging up treasure in Sea of Thieves.

We all love a good solo adventure, and some of the best Xbox Series X games are single-player only, but nothing quite captures the same feel as playing with (or against) your friends. Thanks to the widespread adoption of cross-platform games, it has never been easier to connect with your friends and hop into a game. The only real difficulty is deciding what game to play. Obviously, there are a ton of free Xbox Series X games you can go for, but if you're willing to spend a little, these are our current multiplayer addictions on Series X.

Halo Infinite

Read more