AT&T SAYS WHITE PEOPLE ARE THE PROBLEM

    AT&T's Racial Reeducation Program | City Journal

“White People, You Are the Problem”

AT&T’s new racial reeducation program promotes the idea that “racism is a uniquely white trait.”

Christopher F. Rufo

October 28, 2021

AT&T Corporation has created a racial reeducation program (Do they actually use the word re-education? AH) 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.” (Whatever those words mean this week, AH) 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. (What, no torture in order to elicit this so-called confession?! AH) 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:

(The only place where everybody, no matter who they are, has been welcomed, and the place all those spicks want to illegally immigrate to, is a racist society? AH)

“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 kind of people who are funding this type of stuff are the same new world order types doing everything they can to spread eugenics. AH) The author, Dahleen Glanton, writes that “American racism is a uniquely white trait” and that “Black people cannot be racist.” (Ever watched "The Jeffersons, lady? AH) White women, she claims, “have been telling lies on black men since they were first brought to America in chains,” (that should be "about" instead of on; you don't know your grammar. AH) and, along with their white male counterparts, “enjoy the opportunities and privileges that white supremacy affords [them].”

(Gee, if that's the case, why would we whites want to do anything to change that? AH)

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, (Why ever would you name a company something like that? AH) 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.” (White people lived with imminent death every day till about 70 years ago, from disease, injury, war, famine, etc. AH) 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.

(Read "COVID-19: the great reset." AH)

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. (Man, these sjws are racist. AH) The 21-Day Challenge also directs employees to articles and videos promoting fashionable left-wing causes, including “reparations,” (which working black people, including recent immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean, would end up helping to pay for. AH) “defund police,” (What about black and other police officers of colour? AH) and “trans activism,” (I didn't know tranies were a race. Maybe AT&T employees should start identifying as the opposite sex in order to avoid all this nonsense. AH) with further instruction to “follow, quote, repost, and retweet” organizations including the Transgender Training Institute and the National Center for Transgender Equality.

(So this really isn't about the true acts of racism that do occasionally occur; it's completely about pushing an agenda. AH)

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. (I wonder how much these companies might possibly be being paid by whomever to force this stuff on their employees. AH) 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.

Christopher F. Rufo

is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. (That should be for instead of of. AH))