Corporate Race Theory: CRT in Fortune 100 companies

[Occam's Banana]

[RELATED: Critical Theory threads]

https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...23013395484673

INDEX OF UPDATES
COMPANY	STORY
American Express	POST #1 (below) POST #13
AT&T	POST #25
Bank of America	POST #14
CVS Health Corp.	POST #21 POST #49
Disney	POST #29 POST #50
Google	POST #19
Lockheed	POST #30
Raytheon	POST #31
Verizon	POST #16
Walmart	POST #24
OTHER ITEMS
Best Buy	POST #45
Boeing	POST #48
Chevrolet (GM)	POST #39
Coca-Cola	POST #38 POST #40
IBM	POST #46
Levi Strauss & Co.	POST #34
Wells Fargo	POST #42

---

American Express

Lie of credit — American Express tells its workers capitalism is racist
https://nypost.com/2021/08/11/americ...ism-is-racist/
Christopher F. Rufo (11 August 2021)

American Express, which made a $2.3 billion profit last quarter, invited the great-grandson of the Nation of Islam’s founder to tell its employees that capitalism is evil.

It was part of the credit card giant’s critical race theory training program, which asks workers to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities, then rank themselves on a hierarchy of “privilege.”

According to a trove of documents I’ve reviewed, AmEx executives created an internal “Anti-Racism Initiative” after George Floyd’s death last year, subjecting employees to a training program based on the core CRT tenets, including intersectionality, which reduces individuals to a tangle of racial, gender and sexual identities that determine whether he is an “oppressor” or “oppressed” in a given situation.

In a foundational session, the outside consulting firm Paradigm trained AmEx employees to deconstruct their own intersectional identities, mapping their “race, sexual orientation, body type, religion, disability status, age, gender identity [and] citizenship” onto an official company worksheet.

Employees could then determine whether they have “privilege” or are members of a “marginalized group”: White males presumably end up in the oppressor position, while racial and sexual minorities are considered oppressed.

In a related session, trainers instruct employees how to change their behavior in the office based on their relative position on the hierarchy. The trainers provide a blue flowchart with specific rules for interacting with black, female and LGBT employees: If members of a subordinate group are present, workers should practice “intersectional allyship” and defer to them before speaking.

In another handout, the instructions for white employees are even more explicit: “identify the privileges or advantages you have”; “don’t speak over members of the black and African-American community”; “it’s not about your intent, it’s about the impact you have on your colleague.”

Even common phrases are subjected to race-based regulation: White employees are told not to utter phrases such as “I don’t see color,” “We are all human beings” and “Everyone can succeed in this society if they work hard enough” — all categorized as “microaggressions.”

At one high-profile “anti-racism” event, AmEx execs invited Khalil Muhammad — great-grandson of Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad — to lecture on “race in corporate America.” He argued that the system of capitalism was founded on racism and that “racist logics and forms of domination” have shaped Western society from the Industrial Revolution to the present.

“American Express has to do its own digging about how it sits in relationship to this history of racial capitalism,” Muhammad said. “You are complicit in giving privileges in one community against the other, under the pretext that we live in a meritocratic system where the market judges everyone the same.”

Muhammad then encouraged executives to begin “the deep *redistributive and reparative work” and to “lobby [the government] for the kinds of social policies that reflect your values.”

More, Muhammad argued, the company should reduce standards for black customers and sacrifice profits in the interest of race-based reparations.

“If American Express cares about racial justice in the world, it can’t simply say the market’s going to define how we price certain customers, who happen to come from low-income communities,” he said. “If you want to do good, then you’re going to have to set up products and [product] lines that don’t maximize profit.”

Finally, in the flagship Anti-Racism Initiative training module, AmEx recommends a series of resources for employees to, quoting Ibram Kendi, “learn about covert white supremacy” and dedicate themselves “to the lifelong task of overcoming our country’s racist heritage.”

Employees are encouraged to listen to the “Beyond Prisons” podcast, which advocates for “prison abolition,” a movement committed to “eliminating imprisonment, policing and surveillance” altogether. Workers are also *directed toward a series of articles that promises to “force white people to see and understand how white supremacy permeates their lives,” demonstrate that white children become racist before they can speak and persuade employees that Congress should pass legislation for race-based reparations.

Last October, AmEx announced a $1 billion “action plan” to increase diversity, invest in more minority-owned businesses and donate to nonprofits that promote “social justice.”

Whether the company will forgo profits or abandon capitalism, as it encourages its employees to do, remains to be seen.

---

Original Source Documents (PDF): https://s3.documentcloud.org/documen...-documents.pdf

(via https://christopherrufo.com/intersectional-amex/)

Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...85418187816961

[kahless]

If anyone needs a reason to default on their Amex bill here you go.

[TheTexan]

Lie of credit — American Express tells its workers capitalism is racist
https://nypost.com/2021/08/11/americ...ism-is-racist/
Christopher F. Rufo (11 August 2021)

---

American Express gets woke ...

[tweets hidden to save space]

 

https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...85880660140036

https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...86490822344704

https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...87213794496515

... American Express goes broke ...

https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...89644288761860

https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...90736946966531

lol "belief in the myth of meritocracy"

[Occam's Banana]

// moved to OP

[Brian4Liberty]

https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...23013395484673

Same old story. A company believes it has to do something for PR purposes. They hire a diversity VP of some kind, who is usually a closet Marxist like the women who started BLM. They hire a whole department of Marxist agitators. None of them can be fired because of threats of lawsuits. Company-wide training is just them pushing their agenda even farther.

[TheTexan]

What the $#@! did Obama even get elected for, I thought the whole point was to finally a put a cap on this black oppression argument

How many black presidents do we need before its enough? How many black astronauts?

Of course there could be 1000 black astronauts and that would not be enough

[TheTexan]

[enhanced_deficit]

Lie of credit — American Express tells its workers capitalism is racist

Wait, this is no longer capitalism?

Low Interest Credit Cards | American Express
..a variable APR, 13.99% to 23.99%.

Going by claims while back in social media, Jesus allegedly had thrown out from the Temple folks charging lower interest rate than this.


In any case, actions speak louder than words as Ben n Jerry recently showed by stopping enabling of racially/greed motivated occupations of people of non-chosen races. B & J founders had also opposed racism motivated Iraq war too back in 2003, did Amx founding fathers join them then?


Ben n Jerry Ice Cream:

Words: yada yada...

Actions:
Ben & Jerry's withdraws sales from Israeli settlements
nbcnews
Jul 19, 2021 — Ben & Jerry's released a statement announcing that it would stop selling its ice cream in the occupied territories.


Amx:

Words: "Lie of credit — American Express tells its workers capitalism is racist"

Actions:
American Express Signs Up With Leumi

Banks Profit From Settlements | Human Rights Watch
hrw.org
May 28, 2018 — Bank Leumi, Israel's second largest bank, is partnering with an Israeli construction company to build five new buildings in this settlement ...
Banks involved in financing illegal settlements
Bank Hapoalim, Leumi Bank...

[GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged]

Why don't the executives just step down and let the ghetto street thugs with zero experience take the reins?

[Anti Federalist]

Was just discussing with Mrs AF about closing an old AMEX account she hardly uses anymore.

Answer received.

[Occam's Banana]

Same old story. A company believes it has to do something for PR purposes. They hire a diversity VP of some kind, who is usually a closet Marxist like the women who started BLM. They hire a whole department of Marxist agitators. None of them can be fired because of threats of lawsuits. Company-wide training is just them pushing their agenda even farther.

HR departments are the soft underbelly. Once the Woke sink their hooks into that bottleneck, its only a matter of time until all the other dominoes start to fall - and by the time the infection gets bad enough to notice, it's already too late. /end-mixed-metaphors

[CaptUSA]

How are these not like Mao's Struggle Sessions?? I'm not sure I can see the distinction any longer.

[Occam's Banana]

https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...70554603384833


[images hidden to save space]

 

[Occam's Banana]

Bank of Amerika — Bank of America’s Racial Reeducation Program
The financial giant teaches that the United States is a system of “white supremacy” and encourages employees to become “woke at work.”
https://www.city-journal.org/bank-of...cation-program
Christopher F. Rufo (18 August 2021)

Bank of America Corporation has implemented a racial reeducation program that claims the United States is a system of “white supremacy” and encourages employees to become “woke at work,” instructing white employees in particular to “decolonize [their] mind[s]” and “cede power to people of color.”

Earlier this year, Bank of America’s North Carolina and Charlotte market president Charles Bowman announced a new “equity” initiative called United in Action, in partnership with the United Way of Central Carolinas. According to documents I have obtained from a whistleblower, BOA executives launched the initiative by encouraging employees to participate in their “Racial Equity 21-Day Challenge,” a race-training program funded in part by the bank and built on the principles of critical race theory, including intersectionality, white privilege, white fragility, and systemic racism.

On the program’s first day, Bank of America teaches employees that the United States is a “racialized society” that “use[s] race to establish and justify systems of power, privilege, disenfranchisement, and oppression,” which “give[s] privileges to white people resulting in disadvantages to people of color.” According to the training program, all whites—“regardless of one’s socioeconomic class background or other disadvantages”—are “living a life with white skin privileges.” Even children are implicated in the system of white supremacy: according to the program materials, white toddlers “develop racial biases by ages three to five” and “should be actively taught to recognize and reject the ‘smog’ of white privilege.”

Over the next three days, Bank of America teaches employees about intersectionality, unconscious bias, microaggressions, and systemic racism. “Racism in America idolizes White physical features and White values as supreme over those of others,” the program asserts. As a result of being part of the “dominant culture,” whites are more likely to “have more limited imagination,” “experience fear, anxiety, guilt, or shame,” “contribute to racial tension, hatred, and violence in our homes, communities, and world,” and, subsequently, “react in broken ways as a result.” People of color, on the other hand, cannot be racist, because “racism is used to justify the position of the dominant group . . . and to uphold white supremacy and superiority.” Therefore, the discussion guide claims, “reverse racism and discrimination are not possible.”

On days five and six, Bank of America encourages white employees to confront their “white privilege” and “white fragility,” in order to “discover where [they] are on the privilege spectrum” and “if [they] exhibit ‘white fragility’ traits.” As part of the program, Bank of America employees take a series of diagnostic tests, in which they assess their racial and sexual identities, check a series of boxes to identify their “white privilege,” and probe racist attitudes that could contribute to their “white fragility.”

In days seven through sixteen, Bank of America covers a laundry list of progressive concepts and policy priorities, including “microaggressions,” “racial trauma,” “the abolishment of the police,” “the school-to-prison pipeline,” and “environmental justice.” The training program claims that racist microaggressions can contribute to post-traumatic stress disorder in black Americans and that “racism can be just as devastating as gunfire or sexual assault.” America’s economy is described as a “caste system” with “African Americans kept exploited and geographically separate.” The American policing system, according to the materials, was founded on “slave patrols whose task was to capture, control, and brutalized enslaved people”; this system is “woven into the DNA” of American society and, according to the activists in the training module, can be solved only through “the defunding and even the abolishment of the police.”

In the program’s final days, BOA encourages employees to become “woke at work” and practice “allyship.” Participants must admit that “[their] words and actions are inherently shaped and influenced by systemic oppression” and must commit to doing “the inner work to figure out a way to acknowledge how [they] participate in oppressive systems.” After they have addressed their complicity in racial oppression, employees are encouraged to engage in the actions of “building a race equity culture.” A worksheet provides specific instructions, including: “decolonize your mind”; “accept that white supremacy and institutional racism are real”; “challenge white dominant cultural norms”; and “cede power to people of color.”

In its very name, the Bank of America Corporation claims to represent the United States. Yet instead of promoting American ideals, the company’s executives have adopted the radical, pseudoscientific concepts of critical race theory. They are pushing intensely ideological messages on their employees, from race-based collective guilt to abolishing the police. Let the American public know and judge accordingly.

---

Original Source Documents (PDF): https://s3.documentcloud.org/documen...-materials.pdf

(via https://christopherrufo.com/bank-of-amerika/)

Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...83882490875906

[Anti Federalist]

How are these not like Mao's Struggle Sessions?? I'm not sure I can see the distinction any longer.

While not as violent, yet, in spirit they are exactly the same.

Struggle Sessions.

[Occam's Banana]

Critical Race Capitalism — Verizon’s Critical Race Theory Training
Verizon teaches employees that America is fundamentally racist and promotes a variety of left-wing causes.
https://www.city-journal.org/verizon...heory-training
Christopher F. Rufo (25 August 2021)

Verizon has launched an internal program teaching that the United States is a fundamentally racist nation and promoting a variety of left-wing causes to employees.

According to documents that I have obtained from a whistleblower, Verizon launched the “Race & Social Justice” initiative last year and has created an extensive race reeducation program based on the core tenets of critical race theory, including “systemic racism,” “white fragility,” and “intersectionality.”

In the flagship “Conscious Inclusion & Anti-Racism” training module, Verizon diversity trainers instruct employees to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities and, according to their position on the “privilege” hierarchy, embark on a lifelong “anti-racism journey.” Employees are asked to list their “race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, religion, education, profession, and sexual orientation” on an official company worksheet, then consider their status according to the theory of “intersectionality,” a core component of critical race theory that reduces individuals to a network of identity categories, which determine whether they are an “oppressor” or “oppressed.”

In a video presentation featuring a full-screen title card reading “Let’s talk about privilege,” then-Global Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion officer Ramcess Jean-Louis (who has recently moved to Pfizer in a similar role) says: “As a black man in [America], we are viewed as less than. We are viewed as inferior. We are viewed that our life is not as valuable as anyone else.” Set to dramatic piano music and intercut with footage of the “Central Park dog walker” Amy Cooper, the video states that “weaponized White privilege” causes grave “danger” to African-Americans. Jean-Louis, speaking dramatically, to the point of nearly crying, concludes: “If we are not being viewed as humans, if we’re not being viewed as whole people with souls, these things happen and they will continue to happen.”

After establishing the intersectional hierarchy and threat of “weaponized White privilege,” Verizon instructs employees on the firm’s elaborate racial-etiquette system, which provides specific rules for engaging in “conversation about race.” The diversity trainers explain that employees should not commit “microaggressions” and “microinequities,” defined as “indirect expressions of racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, or another form of prejudice” that are “seemingly innocuous” and often “unconscious or subtle,” but make members of certain racial and sexual classes “feel different, violated, or unsafe.” Members of the privileged classes must instead engage in the “lifelong process” of demonstrating “accountability with marginalized individuals.”

As part of the company’s “antiracism” education series, #Next20, Verizon vice president David Hubbard interviewed Khalil Muhammad, great-grandson of former Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad and newly minted professor of race at Harvard. During his presentation, called American History 101, Muhammad argued that America is fundamentally racist and needs a “new origin story,” replacing the narrative of “American exceptionalism” with the narrative that America was founded on “systems of racism” that remain at the root of our society. Muhammad argued that the Founding Fathers built a slave economy and that “this early version of global capitalism” produced the “economic incentives” that prevail to this day, with modern corporations “exploiting poor people in low-income communities” in a similar way to the slaveowners of the past. “This isn’t just Marxist talking points,” Muhammad said. “It’s just the fact.”

Later in the discussion, Muhammad claimed that the current American police force is designed to maintain a “two-tier society,” enforce geographic segregation, and protect the “wealth gap” between white and black Americans. The raison d’être of policing, Muhammad said, is to “make sure that kids are locked up,” “make sure that people stay in their communities,” and “make sure that they’re criminalizing poverty”—what he called “the bread and butter of systemic racism.” Black crime statistics showing that black Americans commit crimes disproportionately, Muhammad contended, “are themselves an expression of systemic racism,” used to establish “the collective guilt of black people” and to “[justify] inequality and racism and discrimination.”

What should be done? In another #Next20 conversation on “criminal justice reform,” Verizon hosted an activist named Adrian Burrell who openly advocated for “defunding the police.” As Burrell told Verizon employees: “I feel like over policing doesn’t work. And I feel like those same resources that are aimed towards hiring [police officers] with racist biases . . . need to be aimed at bringing more resources to the community at a at a root level, and then you just won’t need so many police.” Burrell added: “If you want to call that ‘abolishing the police,’ or if you want to call that ‘defunding the police,’ so be it.”

Verizon claims that this conversation, and its broader antiracism program, will “accelerate systemic change.” In reality, however, the company is promoting the conventional wisdom of the academic Left and the American bureaucracy. Diversity lecturers such as Muhammad, pretending to bring radical insights, have simply commodified critical race theory and sold it back to Fortune 100 companies—ignoring how fashionable ideas such as “defunding the police” are deeply unpopular with voters, including the majority of African-Americans.

Verizon’s corporate slogan is “Built Right.” If Verizon executives want to live up to it, they should scrap their antiracism program.

Editor’s note: this article has been slightly revised in response to Verizon’s statement that the company does not support defunding the police.

---

Original Source Documents (PDF): https://s3.documentcloud.org/documen...-documents.pdf

(via https://christopherrufo.com/critical-race-capitalism/)

Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...23070671101957

[Occam's Banana]

I have included an "Index of Updates" at the top of the OP.

I will to try to add an entry to that index for each of Rufo's stories as they come out.

[Occam's Banana]

Still waiting for Rufo's next exposé.

But here's an update on the American Express story:

https://twitter.com/piv4law/status/1433850517948485632
// tweet no longer available

[Occam's Banana]

Don’t Be Evil — A Radical Racial Reeducation Program at Google
A Google employee program claims that America is a “system of white supremacy” and that all Americans are “raised to be racist.”
https://www.city-journal.org/a-radic...gram-at-google
Christopher F. Rufo (08 September 2021)

Technology giant Google has launched an “antiracism” initiative that presents speakers and materials claiming that America is a “system of white supremacy” and that all Americans are “raised to be racist.”

I have obtained a trove of whistleblower documents from inside Google that reveal the company’s extensive racial-reeducation program, based on the core tenets of critical race theory—including “intersectionality,” “white privilege,” and “systemic racism.” In a foundational training module called “Allyship in Action,” Google’s head of systemic allyship Randy Reyes and a team of consultants from The Ladipo Group train employees to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities, and then rank themselves on a hierarchy of “power [and] privilege.” The trainers then instruct the employees to “manage [their] reactions to privilege”—which are likely to include feelings of “embarrassment, shame, fear, [and] anger”—through “body movement,” “deep breathing,” “accessing [their] ‘happy place,’” and “cry[ing].”

The program presents a series of video conversations promoting the idea that the United States was founded on white supremacy. In one video, Google’s former global lead for diversity strategy, Kamau Bobb—who was later reassigned to a non-diversity-related role at the company after being exposed for writing that Jews have “an insatiable appetite for war and killing”—discussed America’s founding with 1619 Project editor Nikole Hannah-Jones. Jones claimed that “the first Africans being sold on the White Lion [slave ship in 1619] is more foundational to the American story” than “the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock.” She claimed that she led the New York Times’s 1619 Project—a revisionist historical account of the American founding—to verify her “lifelong theory” that everything in the modern-day United States can be traced back to slavery. “If you name anything in America, I can relate it back to slavery,” Jones said in the video. At the end of the conversation, Jones concluded that all white Americans benefit from the system of white supremacy. “If you’re white in this country, then you have to understand that whether you personally are racist or not, whether you personally engage in racist behavior or not, you are the beneficiary of a 350-year system of white supremacy and racial hierarchy,” she said.

Next, Sherice Torres, Google’s then-global inclusion director (now a vice president of marketing at Facebook Financial), hosted a video discussion with Boston University professor Ibram X. Kendi about racism in American life. Kendi argues that all Americans, including children as young as three months old, are fundamentally racist. “To be raised in the United States, is to be raised to be racist, and to be raised to be racist is to be raised to almost be addicted to racist ideas,” he said. “The youngest of people are not colorblind—between three and six months, our toddlers are beginning to understand race and see race.” The solution, Kendi claimed, is for all Americans to admit their complicity in racism and “respond in the same way that they respond when they are diagnosed with a serious illness.” Denying one’s complicity in racism, Kendi argued, is only further proof of a person’s racism. “For me, the heartbeat of racism is denial and the sound of that denial is ‘I’m not racist,’” he says. Ultimately, Kendi argued that policymakers should deem any racial disparities the result of racist policies—and work to undo the deep-seated racism that permeates every institution in our society. “Certainly, it’s a critically important step for Americans to no longer be in denial about their own racism or the racism of this country,” he said.

Finally, employees at Google created an internal document called “Anti-racism resources,” which contains reading lists, graphics, and racial-consciousness exercises. The document contains a disclaimer that it was “not legally reviewed” and, therefore, not to be considered official company policy—but it was created by Google diversity, equity, and inclusion lead Beth Foster, hosted on Google’s internal-resources server, and made available across the company. One graphic in the document claims that “colorblindness,” “[American] exceptionalism,” “Columbus Day,” “weaponized whiteness,” and “Make America Great Again” are all expressions of “covert white supremacy.” Another graphic, titled “The White Supremacy Pyramid,” advances the idea that conservative commentator Ben Shapiro represents a foundation of “white supremacy” and that Donald Trump is moving society on a path toward “mass murder” and “genocide.”

When reached for comment, Shapiro blasted Google’s depiction. “All it would take is one Google search to learn just how much white supremacists hate my work, or how often I’ve spoken out against their benighted philosophy,” Shapiro said. “The attempt to link everyone to the right of Hillary Clinton to white supremacism is disgusting, untrue, and malicious.” Google declined to comment on this story before publication.

In 2015, Google quietly ditched its corporate motto, “Don’t Be Evil.” Maybe the company, which has now become the world’s library, should revisit that decision. There is no doubt that racism is a social evil, but instead of tackling it head-on, some employees at Google appear to have succumbed to the latest pernicious academic fads, including “antiracism.” The reality is that a company like Google could only have achieved such success in the United States and that, whatever its flaws, America remains the most tolerant, welcoming, and diverse society in history. Google, which has attracted the best and the brightest from around the world, should know better.

---

Original Source Documents (PDF): https://s3.documentcloud.org/documen...-documents.pdf

(via https://christopherrufo.com/dont-be-evil/)

Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...96884513861632

[PAF]

What the $#@! did Obama even get elected for, I thought the whole point was to finally a put a cap on this black oppression argument

How many black presidents do we need before its enough? How many black astronauts?

Of course there could be 1000 black astronauts and that would not be enough

I support black markets

Gubermint don't like bilateral agreements.

[Occam's Banana]

True Privilege — Inside CVS Health Corporation’s Racial Reeducation Program
CVS launches a program that forces hourly employees to discuss their “privilege.”
https://www.city-journal.org/inside-...cation-program
Christopher F. Rufo (22 September 2021)

Last year, CVS Health Corporation—the largest pharmacy chain in the United States—paid then-CEO Larry Merlo almost 618 times the median company wage, while simultaneously launching a mandatory “antiracist” training program for hourly employees to deconstruct their “privilege.”

I have received whistleblower documents from inside CVS that reveal the company’s extensive race-reeducation program, which is built on the core tenets of critical race theory, including “intersectionality,” “white privilege,” and “unconscious bias.”

As a keynote for the initiative, Merlo—who has since retired—hosted a conversation with Boston University professor Ibram Kendi, who told 25,000 CVS employees that “to be born in [the United States] is to literally have racist ideas rain on our head consistently and constantly.” Kendi argued that Americans are “walking through society completely soaked in racist ideas,” including children as young as two to three years old. “Our kids are basically functioning on racist ideas, choosing who to play with based on the kid’s skin color,” Kendi said. The solution, in part, is to “diagnose” employees as “racist” in order to help them become “antiracist” and “stop hurting somebody else.”

A series of related training modules instructed employees to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities, then rank themselves according to their “privilege.” The exercise is grounded in the theory of intersectionality, which holds that individuals can be reduced to a network of overlapping identities that determine their position on the social hierarchy, with privileged groups occupying the “oppressor” role and unprivileged groups in the “oppressed” role. The training asked CVS employees to circle their identities—including race, gender, sexuality, and religion—and then reflect on their “privilege” during the discussion. Examples of privilege, according to a checklist, included “celebrat[ing] Christmas,” “hav[ing] a name that is easy to pronounce,” “feel[ing] safe in your neighborhood at night,” and “feel[ing] confident in my leadership style.”

Another exercise, called “Say This, Not That,” provided employees with detailed racial etiquette “reference cards” to reorient their speech to the values of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Employees were told to cease using “problematic phrases,” including “I’m colorblind,” “I grew up poor,” “peanut gallery,” “I’m not racist,” and “we must stand up for minorities.” All these phrases, according to the training program, are racist microaggressions that minimize the existence of “systemic racism,” have a “racist history,” and “could be seen as discrediting the experiences of Black people and their culture.” The goal of the training, documents say, is to create “psychological safety” for underprivileged and historically oppressed groups that might feel endangered by phrases such as “sexual preference,” “grandfathered in,” and “off the reservation.”

The irony of these “privilege” programs is inescapable. In recent years, Merlo, enjoying the highest executive-to-employee compensation in the United States, was called “the most obscenely overpaid CEO in America.” Last year, Merlo earned $22 million in total compensation—compared with the median CVS employee salary of $35,529—yet still lectured his 300,000 employees about their “privilege.” Far from being a bottom-up program of empowerment, the new ideology of “antiracism” allows elites such as Merlo to assuage their guilt and shift blame to average Americans.

Predictably, the program has provoked dissent. One CVS worker, who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisals, blasted the new program. “I have worked at CVS a long time, and we have never had a problem with discrimination or division. Quite the opposite: people of diverse backgrounds always have pulled together to solve complex problems,” said the employee, arguing that the politicized training program will ultimately undermine the company’s prospects. “Long-term, talent will drain, morale will suffer, and resentment will spread. This will contaminate our culture and threaten our long-term success.”

Unfortunately, CVS has shown no signs of backing down. Merlo retired at the beginning of this year, cashing out on a long career at the pharmacy. Meantime, executives continue to push the “antiracism” and “privilege” initiatives, hectoring employees to make a “personal commitment” constantly to “celebrate diversity, inclusion, and equity.” Any dissenters will pay the price. CVS promises “swift action against non-inclusive behaviors”—even if that inclusivity stops at the payroll department.

---

Original Source Documents (PDF): https://s3.documentcloud.org/documen...-documents.pdf

(via https://christopherrufo.com/true-privilege/)

Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...69298574704640

[sparebulb]

https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...96884513861632

Additional tweets hidden to save space:

 

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https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...00929697697794

A small diversion:

By Ben Shapiro's own people's definition, they are their own race.

Therefore, they are not white.

[Occam's Banana]

https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...93546326798343

[Occam's Banana]

Walmart vs. Whiteness — Walmart's Critical Race Theory Training Program
The company’s new training program tells hourly employees that they are guilty of “internalized racial superiority.”
https://www.city-journal.org/walmart...aining-program
Christopher F. Rufo (14 October 2021)

Walmart Inc. has launched a critical race theory training program that denounces the United States as a “white supremacy system” and teaches white, hourly wage employees that they are guilty of “white supremacy thinking” and “internalized racial superiority.”

According to a cache of internal documents I have obtained from a whistleblower, Walmart launched the program in 2018 in partnership with the Racial Equity Institute, a Greensboro, North Carolina, consulting firm that has worked extensively with universities, government agencies, and private corporations. The program is based on the core principles of critical race theory, including “intersectionality,” “internalized racial oppression,” “internalized racial inferiority,” and “white anti-racist development.” Since the program’s launch, Walmart has trained more than 1,000 employees and made the program mandatory for executives and recommended for hourly wage workers in Walmart stores. When reached for comment, Walmart confirmed that the company has “engaged REI for a number of training sessions since 2018” and has “found these sessions to be thought provoking and constructive.”

The program begins with the claim that the United States is a “white supremacy system,” designed by white Europeans “for the purpose of assigning and maintaining white skin access to power and privilege.” American history is presented as a long sequence of oppressions, from the “construction of a ‘white race’” by colonists in 1680 to President Obama’s stimulus legislation in 2009, “another race neutral act that has disproportionately benefited white people.” Consequently, the Walmart program argues, white Americans have been subjected to “racist conditioning” that indoctrinates them into “white supremacy,” or the view “that white people and the ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions of white people are superior to People of Color and their ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions.”

Following the principle that “diagnosis determines treatment,” the Walmart program seeks to create a psychological profile of whiteness that can then be treated through “white anti-racist development.” Whites, according to the trainers, are inherently guilty of “white privilege” and “internalized racial superiority,” the belief that “one’s comfort, wealth, privilege and success has been earned by merits and hard work” rather than through the benefits of systemic racism. Walmart’s program argues that this oppressive “white supremacy culture” can be summarized in a list of qualities including “individualism,” “objectivity,” “paternalism,” “defensiveness,” “power hoarding,” “right to comfort, “and “worship of the written word”—which all “promote white supremacy thinking” and “are damaging to both people of color and to white people.”

The training program recommends that “discussions about racist conditioning” should be conducted in racially segregated “affinity groups,” because “people of color and white people have their own work to do in understanding and addressing racism.” Walmart employees who are racial minorities, in the framework of the training program, suffer from “constructed racist oppression” and “internalized racial inferiority.” Their internal psychology is considered shattered and broken, dominated by internal messages such as “we believe there is something wrong with being a person of color,” “we have lowered self-esteem,” “we have lowered expectations,” “we have very limited choices,” and “we have a sense of limited possibility.” Minorities thus begin to believe the “myths promoted by the racist system,” develop feelings of “self-hate,” “anger,” “rage,” and “ethnocentrism,” and are forced to “forget,” “lie,” and “stop feeling” in order to secure basic survival.

The solution, according to Walmart’s program, is to encourage whites to participate in “white anti-racist development”—a psychological conditioning program that reorients white consciousness toward “anti-racism.” The training program teaches white employees that ideas such as “I’m normal,” “we’re all the same,” and “I am not the problem” are racist constructs, driven by internalized racial superiority. The program encourages whites to accept their “guilt and shame,” adopt the idea that “white is not right,” acknowledge their complicity in racism, and, finally, move toward “collective action” whereby “white can do right.” The goal is for whites to climb the “ladder of empowerment for white people” and recreate themselves with a new “anti-racist identity.”

Walmart’s training program seems a study in opportunism. For years, activists have attacked the company’s business practices; the critical race theory program helps the giant retailer shift blame to forces beyond its control. As the company denounces “white supremacy culture”—with components including “objectivity,” “individualism,” and “hoarding”—its entire nine-member top executive leadership, except technology chief Suresh Kumar, is white, and its top six leaders made a combined $112 million in salary in 2019. Chief executive officer Doug McMillon, whom the whistleblower described as a “true believer” in critical race theory, hopes to export woke ideology to every Fortune 100 company through his role as chairman of the Business Roundtable.

The formula is clear: American executives, among the most successful people on the planet, can collect accolades and social status by promoting fashionable left-wing ideologies. Meantime, their hourly workers, making between $25,000 and $30,000 yearly, are asked to undergo dishonest and humiliating rituals to confront their “white privilege” and “white supremacy thinking.” McMillon gets the social justice credit; his workers pay the price.

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Original Source Documents (PDF): https://s3.documentcloud.org/documen...e-material.pdf

(via https://christopherrufo.com/walmart-vs-whiteness/)

Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...42306077569047

[Occam's Banana]

“White People, You Are the Problem” — AT&T's Racial Reeducation Program
AT&T’s new racial reeducation program promotes the idea that “racism is a uniquely white trait.”
https://www.city-journal.org/att-rac...cation-program
Christopher F. Rufo (28 October 2021)

AT&T Corporation has created a racial reeducation program that promotes the idea that “American racism is a uniquely white trait” and boosts left-wing causes such as “reparations,” “defund police,” and “trans activism.”

I have obtained a cache of internal documents about the company’s initiative, called Listen Understand Act, which is based on the core principles of critical race theory, including “intersectionality,” “systemic racism,” “white privilege,” and “white fragility.” CEO John Stankey launched the program last year and, subsequently, has told employees that private corporations such as AT&T have an “obligation to engage on this issue of racial injustice” and push for “systemic reforms in police departments across the country.”

According to a senior employee, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, managers at AT&T are now assessed annually on diversity issues, with mandatory participation in programs such as discussion groups, book clubs, mentorship programs, and race reeducation exercises. White employees, the source said, are tacitly expected to confess their complicity in “white privilege” and “systemic racism,” or they will be penalized in their performance reviews. As part of the overall initiative, employees are asked to sign a loyalty pledge to “keep pushing for change,” with suggested “intentions” such as “reading more about systemic racism” and “challenging others’ language that is hateful.” “If you don’t do it,” the senior employee says, “you’re [considered] a racist.” AT&T did not respond when asked for comment.

On the first page of AT&T’s Listen Understand Act internal portal, the company encourages employees to study a resource called “White America, if you want to know who’s responsible for racism, look in the mirror.” The article claims that the United States is a “racist society” and lays out its thesis plainly: “White people, you are the problem. Regardless of how much you say you detest racism, you are the sole reason it has flourished for centuries.” The author, Dahleen Glanton, writes that “American racism is a uniquely white trait” and that “Black people cannot be racist.” White women, she claims, “have been telling lies on black men since they were first brought to America in chains,” and, along with their white male counterparts, “enjoy the opportunities and privileges that white supremacy affords [them].”

Another resource included in the program argues that “COVID-19 may have actually helped prepare us to confront in a deeper, more meaningful way the many faces of racism and how entrenched it is in society.” According to the article, written by Andrés Tapia of the consulting firm Korn Ferry, the pandemic has created a “brooding sense of always feeling vulnerable” for white Americans, which has forced them to fear imminent death, which “many Blacks live with every day.” Furthermore, as millions of Americans have lost their jobs and secured unemployment benefits, they “have more time” to attend street protests, which provided “a way to feel like one could have an impact.” As a result, Tapia argues, the pandemic established the conditions for a sense of “shared helplessness” that has resulted in political activism.

In the “Act” section of the training program, AT&T encourages employees to participate in a “21-Day Racial Equity Habit Challenge” that relies on the concepts of “whiteness,” “white privilege,” and “white supremacy.” The program instructs AT&T employees to “do one action [per day for 21 days] to further [their] understanding of power, privilege, supremacy, oppression, and equity.” The challenge begins with a series of lessons on “whiteness,” which claims, among other things, that “white supremacy [is] baked into our country’s foundation,” that “Whiteness is one of the biggest and most long-running scams ever perpetrated,” and that the “weaponization of whiteness” creates a “constant barrage of harm” for minorities. The 21-Day Challenge also directs employees to articles and videos promoting fashionable left-wing causes, including “reparations,” “defund police,” and “trans activism,” with further instruction to “follow, quote, repost, and retweet” organizations including the Transgender Training Institute and the National Center for Transgender Equality.

AT&T is another Fortune 100 company that has succumbed to the latest fad: corporate “diversity and inclusion” programming that traffics in the ugly concepts of race essentialism and collective guilt. The company has publicly pledged itself to a set of principles that include, “When we make a mistake, we have the character and courage to make it right and learn from it.” If that commitment is genuine, CEO John Stankey should immediately scrap Listen Understand Act, apologize to his workers and customers, and develop a program that does not vilify certain racial groups and promote divisive and destructive ideas.

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Original Source Documents (PDF): https://s3.documentcloud.org/documen...-documents.pdf

(via https://christopherrufo.com/white-pe...e-the-problem/)

Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...16421415219229

[Occam's Banana]

With respect to the posts indexed in the OP, I have replaced tweets with the corresponding articles.

I have also appended to each of those posts a direct link to the original source documents (as well as a link to the relevant Twitter thread).

[A Son of Liberty]

"If you're white in this country," she said, "you are the beneficiary of a 350-year system of white supremacy."

Well, you stupid bitch, my Irish and Italian ancestors - going back no more than 3 generations, mind you, would be quite entertained by this utterly unfounded proclamation.

My families never owned slaves. My ancestors were castigated and shunned throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th century. "No Irish Need Apply" ring a bell, you clown bitch? "Filthy Degos" sound familiar, you mental midget? Oh, you poor thing, you... Your ancestors had a rough time, did they? Pick up a $#@!ING history book, you unrepentant buffoon. There isn't a race, society, or civilization that some other race, society or civilization hasn't attacked, subjugated, enslaved, raped, or conquered on this planet. NONE. In fact, the primary places on earth where slavery still exists are Africa and the Middle East, which, mind you, is populated with your heroic, noble brown people.

We are living in a timeline in which the least well read people, with the shallowest of understanding of humanity, philosophy and the history of the world hold the most sway within the institutions and power structures of society.

Idiocracy was a documentary. That this clown is any kind of relevant person in the world is proof-positive.

I'm sick and weary of this.

[Occam's Banana]

I went looking to see if any of the remaining three stories in this series have been released yet and discovered that they had already been published months ago, before I even started this thread. So I will post them below and update the OP accordingly.

[Occam's Banana]

The Wokest Place on Earth
Disney mounts an internal campaign against “white privilege” and organizes racially segregated “affinity groups.”
https://www.city-journal.org/racial-politics-at-disney
Christopher F. Rufo (07 May 2021)

The Walt Disney Corporation famously bills its amusement parks as “the happiest place on Earth,” but inside the company’s headquarters in Burbank, California, a conflict is brewing. In the past year, Disney executives have elevated the ideology of critical race theory into a new corporate dogma, bombarded employees with trainings on “systemic racism,” “white privilege,” “white fragility,” and “white saviors,” and launched racially segregated “affinity groups” at the company’s headquarters.

I have obtained a trove of whistleblower documents related to Disney’s “diversity and inclusion” program, called “Reimagine Tomorrow,” which paints a disturbing picture of the company’s embrace of racial politics. Multiple Disney employees, who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisals, told me that the Reimagine Tomorrow program, though perhaps noble in intent, has become deeply politicized and engulfed parts of the company in racial conflict.

The core of Disney’s racial program is a series of training modules on “antiracism.” In one, called “Allyship for Race Consciousness,” the company tells employees that they must “take ownership of educating [themselves] about structural anti-Black racism” and that they should “not rely on [their] Black colleagues to educate [them],” because it is “emotionally taxing.” The United States, the document claims, has a “long history of systemic racism and transphobia,” and white employees, in particular, must “work through feelings of guilt, shame, and defensiveness to understand what is beneath them and what needs to be healed.” Disney recommends that employees atone by “challeng[ing] colorblind ideologies and rhetoric” such as “All Lives Matter” and “I don’t see color”; they must “listen with empathy [to] Black colleagues” and must “not question or debate Black colleagues’ lived experience.”

In another module, called “What Can I Do About Racism?,” Disney tells employees that they should reject “equality,” with a focus on “equal treatment and access to opportunities,” and instead strive for “equity,” with a focus on “the equality of outcome.” The training also includes a series of lessons on “implicit biases,” “microaggressions,” and “becoming an antiracist.” The company tells employees that they must “reflect” on America’s “racist infrastructure” and “think carefully about whether or not your wealth, income, treatment by the criminal justice system, employment, access to housing, health care, political power, and education might be different if you were of a different race.”

In order to put these ideas into action, Disney sponsored the creation of the “21-Day Racial Equity and Social Justice Challenge” in partnership with the YWCA and included the program in its recommended resources for employees. The challenge begins with information on “systemic racism” and asks participants to accept that they have “all been raised in a society that elevates white culture over others.” Participants then learn about their “white privilege” and are asked to fill out a white privilege “checklist,” with options including: “I am white,” I am heterosexual,” “I am a man,” “I still identity as the gender I was born in,” “I have never been raped,” “I don’t rely on public transportation,” and “I have never been called a terrorist.”

Next, participants learn about “white fragility” and are asked to complete an exercise called “How to Tell If You Have White Fragility.” The program interprets beliefs such as “I am a good person, I can’t be racist” and “I was taught to treat everyone the same” as evidence of the participant’s internalized racism and white fragility. Finally, at the conclusion of the 21-day challenge, participants are told that they must learn how to “pivot” from “white dominant culture” to “something different.” The document claims that “competition,” power hoarding,” “comfort with predominantly white leadership,” “individualism,” “timeliness,” and “comprehensiveness” are “white dominant” values that “perpetuate white supremacy culture”—and must be rejected.

In the same collection of resources, Disney also recommends that employees read a series of how-to guides, including “75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice” and “Your Kids Are Not Too Young to Talk About Race.” The first article suggests that white employees should “defund the police,” “participate in reparations,” “decolonize your bookshelf,” “don’t gentrify neighborhoods,” “find and join a local ‘white space,’” and “donate to anti-white supremacy work such as your local Black Lives Matter Chapter.” The second article encourages parents to commit to “raising race-consciousness in children” and argues that “even babies discriminate” against members of other races. A graphic claims that babies show the first signs of racism at three months old, and that white children become “strongly biased in favor whiteness” by age four.

Finally, as part of an initiative labeled “CEO sponsored priorities,” Disney has launched racially segregated “affinity groups” for minority employees, with the goal of achieving “culturally-authentic insights.” In the original launch, the Latino affinity group was called “Hola,” the Asian affinity group was called “Compass,” and the black affinity group was called “Wakanda.” The racial affinity groups, also called Business Employee Resource Groups (BERGs), are technically open to all employees but in practice have become almost entirely segregated by race, with the occasional exception for white “executive champions” who attend on behalf of corporate leadership. “The thing that this company does very well is they know politics, so they leave many things unspoken,” said one employee, a racial minority, who also claimed the affinity groups are intended to be racially segregated spaces. “I don’t think anyone has necessarily even tried to attend something that they would discover that they’re not welcome at.”

Multiple Disney employees told me the political environment at the company has intensified in recent months. There are “almost daily memos, suggested readings, panels, and seminars that [are] all centered around antiracism,” said one employee. The company is “completely ideologically one-sided” and actively discourages conservative and Christian employees from expressing their views. “I attended several [training sessions] at the beginning just to see what the temperature of the discussion would be and to gauge if I would be able to bring up my own objections in a safe way—safe meaning for my career. And I’ve continually gotten the unspoken answer: ‘no,’” said the employee. “It’s been very stifling to feel like everyone keeps talking about having open dialogue and compassionate conversations, but when it comes down to it, I know if I said one thing that was truthful, based on data, or even just based on my own personal experience, it would actually be rather unwelcomed.”

Despite these internal warnings, there is no sign that Disney is slowing down its efforts to achieve ideological purity. The company recently fired actress Gina Carano for expressing a conservative viewpoint. Content managers have modified and added “content advisories” to films such as Dumbo, Aladdin, and Fantasia, which, according to an internal video I have obtained, executives have denounced as “racist content.” In the same video, executive chairman Bob Iger pledged that the company “should be taking a stand” on political controversies and will no longer “shy away from politics” in the future.

Disney’s premise has always been to provide an escape for middle Americans, but its executives seem to harbor growing contempt for the very people who visit their amusement parks, watch their films, and buy their merchandise. Once known as the “Happiest Place on Earth,” Disney has now committed to becoming the “wokest place on Earth”—whatever the cost.

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Original Source Documents (PDF): https://s3.documentcloud.org/documen...-resources.pdf

(via https://christopherrufo.com/the-wokest-place-on-earth/)

Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...28488949518337

[Occam's Banana]

The Woke-Industrial Complex
Lockheed, the nation’s largest defense contractor, sends key executives on a mission to deconstruct their “white male privilege.”
https://www.city-journal.org/lockhee...strial-complex
Christopher F. Rufo (26 May 2021)

Last year, Lockheed Martin Corporation, the nation’s largest defense contractor, sent white male executives to a three-day diversity-training program aimed at deconstructing their “white male culture” and encouraging them to atone for their “white male privilege,” according to documents I have obtained.

The program, hosted on Zoom for a cohort of 13 Lockheed employees, was led by the diversity-consulting firm White Men As Full Diversity Partners, which specializes in helping white males “awaken together.” The Lockheed employees, all senior leaders in the company, included Aaron Huckaby, director of global supply chain operations; retired Air Force lieutenant colonel David Starr, director of the Hercules C-130 military transport program; retired Air Force lieutenant general Bruce Litchfield, vice president of sustainment operations; and Glenn Woods, vice president of production for the Air Force’s $1.7 trillion F-35 fighter jet program. (Lockheed Martin did not return request for comment.)

At the beginning of the program, the diversity trainers led a “free association” exercise, asking the Lockheed employees to list connotations for the term “white men.” The trainers wrote down “old,” “racist,” “privileged,” “anti-women,” “angry,” “Aryan Nation,” “KKK,” “Founding fathers,” “guns,” “guilty,” and “can’t jump.” According to the participants, these perceptions have led to “assumptions about white men and diversity,” with many employees believing that white men “don’t care about diversity,” “have a classical perspective on history and colonialism,” and “don’t want to give away our power.”

The White Men As Full Diversity Partners team—Jim Morris, Mark Havens, and Michael Welp—framed the purpose of the training session as providing a benefit for white men who embrace the diversity and inclusion philosophy. In response to a prompt about “what’s in it for white men,” the participants listed benefits such as: “I won’t get replaced by someone who is a better full diversity partner,” “[I will] improve the brand, image, reputation of white men,” and “I [will] have less nagging sense of guilt that I am the problem.”

In a set of related resources, White Men As Full Diversity Partners lays out its theory of privilege. The firm’s founders, Welp and Bill Proudman, have argued that white males must “work hard to understand” their “white privilege,” “male privilege,” and “heterosexual privilege,” which affords them unearned benefits. The firm’s training programs are designed to assist white men in discovering the “roots of white male culture.” That culture, according to Welp and Proudman, consists of traits—such as “rugged individualism,” “a can-do attitude,” “hard work,” “operating from principles,” and “striving towards success”—which are superficially positive but are “devastating” to women and minorities.

At the Lockheed training, following the baseline exercises, the trainers proceeded with the “hearts and minds” portion of the session: deconstructing employees’ “white male privilege” through a series of “privilege statements,” then working to rebuild their identities as “agent[s] of change.” The trainers provided the participants with a list of 156 “white privilege statements,” “male privilege statements,” and “heterosexual privilege statements” to read and discuss, including: “My culture teaches me to minimize the perspectives and powers of people of other races”; “I can commit acts of terrorism, violence or crime and not have it attributed to my race”; “My earning potential is 15-33% higher than a woman’s”; “My reproductive organs are not seen as the property of other men, the government, and/or even strangers because of my gender”; “I am not asked to think about why I am straight”; “I can have friendships with or work around children without being accused of recruiting or molesting them.”

Finally, in order to cement the idea that white male culture is “devastating” to racial minorities and women, the trainers had the Lockheed employees read a series of “I’m tired” statements from fictitious racial minorities and women. The statements included: “I’m tired of being Black”; “I’m tired of you making more money than me”; “I’m tired of people disparaging our campaigns (like Black Lives Matter)”; “I’m tired of Black boys/girls being murdered”; “I’m tired of people thinking they’re smarter and more qualified than me”; “I’m tired of hearing about how we need a wall at the southern borders but not on the northern borders”; “I’m tired of the desire or comment to remove race—the concept that we should be ‘colorblind.’”

This is not the first time White Men As Full Diversity Partners has been involved in a controversial training program. Last year, I reported on the company’s white male training program for employees at the Sandia National Laboratories, which began a series of reports leading to President Trump’s Executive Order 13950, banning racial stereotyping, scapegoating, and discrimination in federal diversity programs. The Trump ban, however, was temporary; President Biden rescinded the order on his first day in office.

Today, it’s back to business as usual. Consultants such as White Men As Full Diversity Partners peddle fashionable racial theories and attach themselves to bloated government contractors such as Lockheed Martin. Presidents change, but for now the woke-industrial complex has no term limit.

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Original Source Documents (PDF): https://s3.documentcloud.org/documen...s_redacted.pdf

(via https://christopherrufo.com/the-woke...trial-complex/)

Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/st...27960052502528