Angela Báez, Executive Director of Community and Industry Engagement for Card and Connected Commerce at JPMorgan Chase, was caught on camera during New York's Knicks championship celebration dumping the contents of a promotional trash can onto the sidewalk so she could keep the orange-and-blue bin as a souvenir. Decked head to toe in Knicks colors, Báez shook the can to make sure it was empty before walking off with it.

Someone off-camera yelled, "What are you doing?" A fair question for a woman whose previous job title was Executive Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

The video surfaced on social media on June 19 and spread fast. By June 23, JPMorgan Chase had fired Báez. The Knicks had just won their first NBA Finals championship in 53 years, and the city was celebrating. Báez apparently decided the best way to commemorate the moment was to create her own personal litter zone on a New York sidewalk.

Báez hadn't always been in the "community and industry engagement" business. She'd previously served as Executive Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at The Infatuation, a restaurant review website that JPMorgan Chase acquired in late 2021. She was promoted to her current role roughly a year before the incident. Her official bio at The Infatuation described her as "a vibrant mosaic of Dominican heritage, Bronx roots, and a passion for storytelling, creativity, and culture" who "continues to lead the way towards a more inclusive and equitable future for food media, leaving an indelible mark on The Infatuation and everything she touches."

An indelible mark on the sidewalk, too, apparently.

After the video went viral, Báez posted on social media with an apparent reference to the stolen bin: "Just like … Knicks Trash Bin Souvenir for your home." The tone suggested she didn't quite grasp that the internet was not laughing with her.

Now, JPMorgan Chase is a massive institution. People get fired from massive institutions every day for all kinds of reasons. But there's something unavoidably poetic about a DEI executive — someone whose entire professional identity revolves around modeling inclusive, equitable, community-minded behavior — getting caught on video literally dumping garbage on the community so she could walk away with a free souvenir. The corporate bio writes itself as satire.

The company moved quickly once the video gained traction, which tells you they understood the optics. When your equity-and-inclusion leader is the one trashing the street while bystanders ask what's wrong with her, the PR math isn't complicated.

Here's what's worth noting. Báez wasn't some entry-level employee who made a dumb mistake at a party. She was a senior executive specifically hired and promoted to represent the company's values around inclusion and community engagement. That was the job. The whole job.

Fifty-three years the Knicks waited for that title. One viral video and a stolen trash can, and the celebration's most memorable moment belongs to a DEI director who couldn't be bothered to find her own souvenir without leaving a pile of garbage behind.

The résumé said "inclusive and equitable future." The sidewalk said otherwise.