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Bank of America Corporation is teaching anti-American propaganda to its employees through a controversial re-education program based largely on “radical, pseudoscientific concepts of critical race theory,” according to an exclusive article by writer Christopher R. Rufo.
According to allegations, Bank of America has implemented a racial reeducation program that claims the United States is a system of “white supremacy” and encourages employees to become “woke at work.”
In this way, the bank instructing white employees, in particular, to “decolonize [their] mind[s]” and “cede power to people of color,” Rufo explained.
On his Twitter account, the writer posted some photos of the re-education document, including a calendar and also some of the content released by Bank of America.
In the first days, the program stipulates the study of topics such as: “Race and racial identity,” “intersectionality” and “levels of racism.” In the final days, content on “justice system inequalities,” “environmental justice” and “building a race equity culture,” among other points, will be studied.
According to Rufo, there is a strong anti-police, anti-white and, in short, anti-American bias in the content.
The United States has a “racialized society,” according to Bank of America.
Part of the content of the program reads: “The notion of race is a social construct designed to divide people into groups ranked as superior and inferior. The scientific consensus is that race, in this sense, has no biological basis – we are all one race, the human race. Racial identity, however, is very real. And, in a racialized society like the United States, everyone is assigned a racial identity whether they are aware of it or not.”
The program then begins to explain that white people live with “white privilege” and that sometimes these same people stop feeling white when they have interracial partners.
“Whites in interracial black-white marriages or relationships frequently experience a shift in how they personally understand their individual racial identity,” the program notes.
“In a society where being white (regardless of one’s socioeconomic class background or other disadvantages) means living a life with white skin privileges – such as being presumed safe, competent and noncriminal – whites who begin to experience discrimination because of their intimate connection with someone of another race, or who regularly see their loved ones fall prey to racial discrimination, may begin to no longer feel white. After all, their lived reality does not align with the social meaning of their whiteness,” he continues.
Also, the re-education program cites two authors who explain that children should be taught to disengage from “white smoq.” “Van Ausdale & Feagin (2001) argue that all children should be actively taught to recognize and reject the “smoq” of white privilege, but that, if anti-bias education exists in school curricula at all, it tends to be too little, too late.”
What are these supposed privileges of white people? The program leaves several examples:
“I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection,” “If I have low credibility as a leader I can be sure that my race is not the problem.”, “If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial overtones,” among others.
In another section, the program also says that whites may be prone to “be unreflective and unquestioning about our cultural values and assumptions;” to “have a diminished capacity to persevere in the face of obstacles or discomfort;” to even feel “barriers to authentic and intimate relationships with people of color, as well as with White people who have different opinions on race;” and also that they have the problem of having “more limited imagination and creativity due to complacency in the status quo.”
On the other hand, the program itself says that “reverse discrimination,” i.e., from blacks toward whites, is not possible. “Reverse racism and discrimination are not possible given the history of oppression and power structures that have been core to the making of this country. All people can be unfair and treat others badly, but that is not the same thing as being racist. Racism is by definition a form of oppression based on the socially constructed concept of race used by the dominant racial group (whites) over non-dominant racial groups.” In other words, black people cannot be racist according to the Bank of America Corporation program.
White people must “decolonize their minds,” says Bank of American
The re-education program gives a series of “personal” and “structural” recommendations to Bank of America employees to engage and fight systemic racism while “empowering” African Americans. They are asked, in short, to be “woke at work” activists.
The structural recommendations read, “Be accountable, at the individual and organizational level, for dismantling personal, interpersonal, institutional, and structural instruments of white supremacy;” “Publicly advocate for race equity and challenge white dominant cultural norms, including naming microaggressions in interpersonal and institutional contexts;” and, finally, “Cede power to people of color within and across teams, organizations, and systems.”
The personal ones include three other recommendations that, quietly, could be slogans from the Marxist, anti-racist group Black Lives Matter: “Decolonize your mind. Accept that white supremacy and institutional racism are real and practiced by all races;” is the first. “Interrogate the dominant narrative. Understand implicit bias and your identity and role in enabling and propagating structural racism,” the second, and finally, “Complete your own internal work. Don’t put the burden exclusively on people of color or people who you perceive to be more “woke” to explain the system to you. Hold yourself accountable for the work at all four levels on which racism operates.”
It is very curious how an institution called “Bank of America” decides to teach its employees anti-American political propaganda. A symptom of the times, no doubt.
Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón is a journalist at El American specializing in the areas of American politics and media analysis // Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón es periodista de El American especializado en las áreas de política americana y análisis de medios de comunicación.
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