Major Corporations Had ‘Woke’ Trainings Exposed in 2021

Major corporations found themselves in hot water during 2021 as whistleblowers revealed what they claimed were employee training sessions steeped in critical race theory.

Disney, Coca-Cola, American Express, Bank of America, Lowe’s and Pfizer faced accusations that they trained employees on certain “woke” ideas, such as putting “marginalized” staff above “privileged” staff, learning to “decolonize” their minds” and combating aspects of an alleged “White supremacy culture,” such as perfectionism, individualism and objectivity.

These ideas trace back to critical race theory (CRT) — a framework that involves deconstructing aspects of society to discover systemic racism beneath the surface. Current and former employees at American Express told Fox News that the change began after the police-involved killing of George Floyd in May 2020, but the “woke” trainings came to light in 2021.

In February, a whistleblower at Coca-Cola claimed that the company forced employees to take a seminar teaching them to “be less white.” The whistleblower posted photos of a seminar giving tips to “be less white,” including “be less arrogant, be less certain, be less defensive, be more humble, listen, believe, break with apathy” and “break with white solidarity.” The materials claimed that White people in the United States and other western nations are “socialized to feel that they are inherently superior because they are white.”

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In March, Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Chris Rufo revealed whistleblower documents from the Walt Disney Company’s diversity and inclusion program “Reimagine Tomorrow.” The program includes multiple training modules on “antiracism.”

The modules tell employees that they must “take ownership of educating [themselves] about structural anti-Black racism.” The modules claim that the U.S. has a “long history of systemic racism and transphobia” and that White employees must “work through feelings of guilt, shame, and defensiveness to understand what is beneath them and what needs to be healed.” Another module encourages employees to reject “equality” focusing on “equal treatment and access to opportunities,” and instead strive for “equity,” focusing on “the equality of outcome.”

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In August, Rufo published internal documents showing that American Express subjected its employees to a series of critical race theory training sessions that encouraged staff to rank themselves on a hierarchy of “privilege” and apply that hierarchy in the workplace, with the more “privileged” employees deferring to staff from “marginalized groups.” {snip}

In the trainings, the outside consulting firm Paradigm urged Amex employees to construct their own intersectional identities, mapping their “race, sexual orientation, body type, religion, disability status, age, gender identity [and] citizenship” on an official company worksheet. Employees could then determine whether they have “privilege” or are members of a “marginalized group.” Whites, males, heterosexual people, Christians, able-bodied people and citizens would presumably count as “privileged.”

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In August, Rufo revealed documents showing that Bank of America, Lowe’s and Truist Financial Corporation sponsored a United Way critical race theory “Racial Equity 21-Day Challenge” claiming that America is systemically and institutionally racist, encouraging participants to “decolonize” their minds and get “woke at work” and urging white people to “cede power to people of color.”

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The pharmaceutical company Pfizer has set goals to fill a percentage of leadership positions with Black and Hispanic candidates by the year 2025, in the name of fighting “systemic racism.” In September, FOX Business reported on an Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) Report 2020, published in March 2021, in which Pfizer set “opportunity parity goals” for 2025. Those goals include “increasing our minority representation from 19% to 32% and doubling the underrepresented population of African Americans/Blacks and Hispanics/Latinos.”

The report includes a letter from Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s chairman and CEO, in which Bourla says he is “proud” of having “set concrete goals to address systemic racism and gender equity challenges by reviewing and augmenting our plans to increase diversity and opportunity parity by 2025, particularly focusing on increasing female and U.S. minority representation at leadership levels.”

“We now have quotas, basically, in hiring and promotions,” explained a current Pfizer employee, who spoke with FOX Business on condition of anonymity. The employee said the company hosted events with Ibram X. Kendi and encouraged employees to read books written by Robin DiAngelo, two prominent CRT proponents.

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