Disney Caught Indoctrinating Employees With Critical Race Theory, “White Privilege” Checklist

According to newly leaked employee training manuals, the Walt Disney Company has been pushing “Critical Race Theory” (CRT) on its employees, including lectures on race and white privilege, and how America was ‘founded on systemic racism.’

According to the trove of documents leaked by a whistleblower, Disney’s “diversity and inclusion” program called “Reimagine Tomorrow” as become “deeply politicized and engulfed parts of the company in racial conflict, according to city-journal.org.

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.”

Disney claims that America has a “long history of systemic racism and transphobia” and tells employees they must “take ownership of educating yourself about structural anti-Black racism” and “not rely on your Black colleagues to educate you,” which is “emotionally taxing.” pic.twitter.com/eSSxpPvvFF

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) May 8, 2021

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.” –city-journal.org

To enact this radical training agenda, Disney sponsored the creation of the “21-Day Racial Equity and Social Justice Challenge” in partnership with the YWCA. It begins with information on “systemic racism” and demands that participants accept that they have “all been raised in a society that elevates white culture over others.”

The lesson then shifts to “white privilege,” in which employees are asked to fill out a white privilege “checklist” with options that include “I am white” , “I am heterosexual” , “I am a man” , “I still identify 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 are asked to complete a “white privilege checklist”: “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.” pic.twitter.com/hcTVp9Tnz1

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) May 8, 2021

Participants then learn about “white fragility,” and are made to complete an exercise called “How to Tell If You Have White Fragility.”

In it, white employees are taught to interpret their own 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 one’s own internal racism and white fragility.

Disney claims that America has a “long history of systemic racism and transphobia” and tells employees they must “take ownership of educating yourself about structural anti-Black racism” and “not rely on your Black colleagues to educate you,” which is “emotionally taxing.” pic.twitter.com/eSSxpPvvFF

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) May 8, 2021

At the end of the 21-day challenge, participants are told that they must “pivot” from “white dominant culture” to “something different” – and that “competition” and “power hoarding” come from predominantly white leadership. What’s more, “individualism” , “timeliness,” and “comprehensiveness” are “white dominant” values which “perpetuate white supremacy culture” and should be rejected.

Did you get that? Simply being on time to things is perpetuates ‘white supremacy culture.’

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.” –city-journal.org

One employee told City Journal‘s Christopher F Rufo that the political environment at the company has intensified in recent months, and that there are “almost daily memos, suggested readings, panels, and seminars that [are] all centered around antiracism.”

The company is “completely ideologically one-sided” and actively discourages Christian and conservative 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.“