Posted on May 27, 2021

The Woke-Industrial Complex

Christopher Rufo, City Journal, May 26, 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.” {snip}

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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 {snip}

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. {snip}

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