Part of the obligation to shareholders is to ensure that what sells continues to sell. Comics need to remain relevant.

Then I can't think of anything worse than the current trend in absolutely terrible writing & silly pandering in opposition to the actual desires of the readership; including the minorities in that readership who may also be sick of bad writing getting a pass because "diversity."

I mean just look at a book like Captain Marvel as an example. Sales figures have been in the toilet for two whole volumes now, it's been on editorial life support since issue 1 & an overwhelming amount of long term fans lamenting the death of an interesting character to make room for her evil PC twin.

some of the best works of comics have involved seeing familiar characters grappling with contemporary issues.

As have some of the worst.

Racial diversity is a contemporary issue

It sure was.... In the 1970's, not so much so in the year 2015, when comics were already more diverse than literally any other narrative medium.

Now all we've got is the idea that diversity is the same thing as quality of writing, which is clearly not the case.

part of maintaining a theme of relevance at present is to address the presence of diversity both on and off the page... a world where every superhero is a white guy and everyone drawing and writing the comics in which they appear are also white guys really doesn't match the world where their stories are taking place.

Except that you've already had that for the last 40 years both on and off the page.

People would be more likely to believe you had this push for "diversity" wasn't in execution simply removing characters people already like & replacing them with PC re-educated drones.