Leaked Documents: Disney Required Employees to Complete 'White Privilege Checklist'
Apparently, the Walt Disney Corp. either hasn’t heard of or is not concerned about the concept, “Go woke, go broke.”
The company has embarked upon a new “diversity and inclusion” program called “Reimagine Tomorrow” that requires employees to participate in training sessions on subjects that include systemic racism, white privilege, white fragility, white saviors and more.
As you might imagine, that has more than a few employees concerned.
The City Journal’s Christopher F. Rufo recently obtained a series of “whistleblower documents” related to this initiative and spoke to numerous Disney employees. For obvious reasons, the employees agreed to speak with him on the condition of anonymity.
The employees agree that the “Reimagine Tomorrow’ program has become deeply politicized and engulfed parts of the company in racial conflict,” Rufo wrote.
It is built around a phrase that’s filled the airwaves over the last few months, “critical race theory,” which unfortunately won’t be going away anytime soon.
The “antiracism” program consists of a series of modules, according to Rufo. The first is called “Allyship for Race Consciousness,” which “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.'”
It teaches employees that the U.S. has a “long history of systemic racism and transphobia” and white employees need to “work through feelings of guilt, shame, and defensiveness to understand what is beneath them and what needs to be healed.” The company suggests employees can remedy the situation by “challeng[ing] colorblind ideologies and rhetoric” such as “All Lives Matter” and “I don’t see color”; they should “listen with empathy [to] Black colleagues” and “not question or debate Black colleagues’ lived experience.”
Another module, according to Rufo, is called “What Can I Do About Racism?” Employee are told to reject “equality” which merely means “equal treatment and access to opportunities.” Rather, they should aim for “equity,” which means “the equality of outcome.”
[firefly_poll]
The company asks employees to “reflect” on our “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.”
Disney has collaborated on a separate program with the YWCA called the “21-Day Racial Equity and Social Justice Challenge.” This starts with the assumption that employees have “all been raised in a society that elevates white culture over others.”
Rufo write: “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.'”
Rufo explains an exercise that employees must complete to find out if they suffer from “white fragility.” I have a feeling most will be told that they do. Statements such as “I am a good person, I can’t be racist … I was taught to treat everyone the same” are viewed “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.’ … 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,” Rufo writes. Got that.
It gets worse. The recommended reading material, according to Rufo, tells employees to support defunding the police, to “participate in reparations,” to “decolonize your bookshelf,” to “donate to anti-white supremacy work such as your local Black Lives Matter Chapter,” and not to “gentrify neighborhoods.”
Another part, according to Rufo, asks parents to “commit to ‘raising race-consciousness in children’ and argues that ‘even babies discriminate’ against members of other races. The resource includes a graphic that claims that babies show the first signs of racism at 3 months old and white children become ‘strongly biased in favor whiteness’ by age 4.”
One employee told Rufo “the political environment at the company has intensified in recent months.” I can’t imagine why.
Workers receive “almost daily memos, suggested readings, panels, and seminars that [are] all centered around antiracism,” an employee said.
America is not a racist nation and people should not be made to feel ashamed of their race.
This is pure unadulterated indoctrination. This is the stuff of authoritarian regimes. It will divide employees as it’s already dividing Americans. It’s especially dangerous inside a media empire that filters entertainment and information to millions, including — and especially — children.
How far will Disney and the countless other corporations take critical race theory? About as far as their shareholders will let them. Given that Disney’s customer base consists of mostly middle-class Americans, the majority of whom view critical race theory with disgust, that limit might be reached sooner than Disney execs think.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
