My letter to the CEO of Disney

Robert Chapek,
Chief Executive Officer
The Walt Disney Company

Dear Mr. Chapek:

Like millions of other Americans who love this country, I was dismayed to learn that Disney, a company I once held in the highest esteem, has been using a Marxist poison pill known as critical race theory in an attempt to impose ideological purity on its employees.

While I agree with Disney that America has a long history of systemic racism—no one can deny that—those days are OVER.

There was a time in this country when systemic racism was more than a cheap political talking point. I grew up during such a time, a time when black people were systematically excluded from full participation in nearly every aspect of American life, including athletic competition. When I enrolled at Georgia Tech in 1962, the SEC did not have a single black football or basketball player. My, how times have changed.

I remember a time when black people routinely suffered dehumanizing indignities: prohibited from drinking at “white only” water fountains, denied public accommodations, forced to sit in the back of the bus and otherwise treated like dirt. But that unenlightened era is long gone. A racist nation would not elect a black president once, much less twice.

I remember a time when Democrat governors like George Wallace and Democrat police chiefs like Bull Conner looked the other way as racists wearing white hoods murdered black men, women and children at the drop of a hat. In the America of today, racists in white hoods have been relegated to the most remote outer fringe of society, and the overwhelming majority of black homicides are carried out not by whites, not by police, but by young black males in America’s Democrat-controlled inner cities.

The America of today is light-years away from being anywhere even remotely close to “systemically racist.” There is not a mainstream institution in the country that doesn’t use racial preferences to hire and promote black people, including some whose job-related qualifications would not merit an initial screening interview for a similarly-qualified white or Asian applicant. So please, spare the great country that made you wealthy your self-righteous posturing about systemic racism.

It’s indisputable that no nation has ever done more to correct the wrongs once committed against an oppressed minority of its own citizens than has this great nation. Failure to acknowledge that is spitting on the graves of the 360,000 Union soldiers who paid the ultimate price to end slavery.

It’s also indisputable that a black child born in America today has the exact same legal rights as a white child. Failure to acknowledge that is spitting on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who paid the ultimate price to ensure that black citizens are treated equally under the eyes of the law.

America is the most sought-after migrant destination in the world. According to Pew Research, the black immigrant population in the U.S. increased fivefold since 1980, reaching 4.2 million in 2016. If America is a remorseless racist cesspool, as you contend, why do so many black people from Africa and the Caribbean stand in line to get here?

As far as I am concerned, Disney can drop dead. I will not spend a dime on the products of a company whose anti-American senior management is a disgrace to the memory of its beloved patriotic founder. There are plenty of other entertainment providers that don’t slander this great country as something it is not: a racist hell hole for black people.

John Eidson
Marietta, GA

That Disney apparently backed down is too little too late for me. Its management’s anti-white, neo-racist mindset has already been exposed.

Race-Crazed Disney Backs Down

Resisting woke corporations works.

Thu May 20, 2021
Matthew Vadum
FrontPageMag.com

A humiliated Walt Disney Corporation scrubbed its bizarre critical race theory-based employee indoctrination materials from the Internet after a think tank scholar exposed them.

Christopher F. Rufo, a senior fellow and director of an initiative on critical race theory at the Manhattan Institute, celebrated Disney’s conspicuous retreat from the Left’s rarefied anti-white anti-Americanism, the New York Post reported May 13. Rufo defines critical race theory as “racialized Marxism.”

Disney “has removed its entire antiracism program from the company’s internal portal,” he said, “effectively scrubbing it out of existence.”

“This is a major victory in the war against ‘woke capital,’” he said, noting a “significant backlash from the public” after his initial report.

“Disney was peddling the most toxic elements of critical race theory — and my reporting led to immediate changes within the company,” Rufo said.

The environment at Disney has become increasingly politicized in recent months, Rufo reported employees telling him. The account appeared in a City Journal article he penned, titled, “The Wokest Place on Earth.”

There are “almost daily memos, suggested readings, panels, and seminars that [are] all centered around antiracism,” one said. Disney is “completely ideologically one-sided” and discourages conservative and Christian 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,’” an  employee told Rufo.

“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.”

“Despite these internal warnings, there is no sign that Disney is slowing down its efforts to achieve ideological purity,” he wrote.

“The company recently fired actress Gina Carano for expressing a conservative point of view. Content managers have modified and added ‘content advisories’ to films such as Dumbo, Aladdin, and Fantasia, which, according to an internal video that I have obtained, executives have denounced as ‘racist content.’ In the same video, Executive Chairman Bob Iger pledged that the company ‘should be taking a stand’ on political controversies and no longer ‘shy away from politics’ in the future.”

“Disney is playing with fire. The premise of the company has always been to provide an escape for middle Americans, but Disney’s executives seem to have growing contempt for the very people who visit their amusement parks, watch their films, and buy their merchandise.”

And what did Rufo discover in the Disney document dump?

Rufo found that Walt Disney Corp., which touts its amusement parks as “the happiest place on Earth,” terrorizes its employees, intimidating them into unquestioning acceptance of the most orthodox dictates of critical race theory.

Over the past year its corporate leaders have transformed critical race theory into corporate dogma, besieging hapless workers with trainings on “systemic racism,” “white privilege,” and “white fragility,” while creating racially-segregated “affinity groups” at the head office.

Rufo obtained what he called “a trove of whistleblower documents related to Disney’s ‘diversity and inclusion’ program, called ‘Reimagine Tomorrow,’ which paints a disturbing picture of the company’s embrace of racial politics.”

Disney attempts to indoctrinate its employees through a series of training modules dealing with “antiracism.”

In one the company directs employees to “take ownership of educating [themselves] about structural anti-Black racism.” Instead of relying on black colleagues to enlighten them, they need to take the initiative because it is “emotionally taxing” for blacks to have explain themselves.

The United States, according to the paper, has a “long history of systemic racism and transphobia” and white employees have to “work through feelings of guilt, shame, and defensiveness to understand what is beneath them and what needs to be healed.”

Employees can become good “allies” by “challeng[ing] colorblind ideologies and rhetoric” such as “All Lives Matter” and “I don’t see color.” The latter two phrases are “harmful and hurtful, as it is a form of erasing the real and specific ways racial identities affect lived experiences.” Employees must also “listen with empathy [to] Black colleagues” and must “not question or debate Black colleagues’ lived experience.”

And woe to the Disney employee not up to speed on every aspect of intersectionality.

“Consider the ways multiple dimensions of identity (e.g. race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, socio-economic, veterans) can make people vulnerable to interlocking forms of bias or systems of exclusion,” the document states. “For example, Black transgender and gender non-conforming people face one of the highest levels of discrimination.”

Just because you have black friends and colleagues or are yourself a minority doesn’t mean you’re not oppressing blacks:

“Reflect on the diversity of your personal and professional networks and how racial and other dimensions of your identity give (or do not give) you access and advantage. Proximity to Black people or being part of a marginalized group does not mean you cannot harbor bias.”

Employees should “[c]ontribute to the Black community by consistently supporting Black/ African American-owned businesses and/or volunteering for organizations that advance racial equity and justice.”

Employees should also snitch on other employees if they see “problematic posts” on “company approved social channels,” a Disney document states.

In another module Disney instructs employees to reject “equality,” with its focus on “equal treatment and access to opportunities,” and instead aim for “equity,” with a focus on “the equality of outcome.” Workers have to “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.”

Disney partnered with the YWCA to create something called the “21-Day Racial Equity and Social Justice Challenge.” Participants are required to affirm that they have all “been raised in a society that elevates white culture over others.” They complete a white privilege “checklist,” which includes check-off options such as: “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.”

Participants learn about “white fragility,” and are made to believe that treating people of different races the same is proof they have somehow internalized their racism and white fragility. They are informed they must figure out how to “pivot” from “white dominant culture” to “something different.” Values that “perpetuate white supremacy culture,” such as “competition,” “individualism,” and “timeliness” must be rejected, they are told.

Disney also urges employees to read how-to guides including “75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice” and “Your Kids Are Not Too Young to Talk About Race.” White employees learn they must “defund the police,” “participate in reparations,” “decolonize your bookshelf,” “don’t gentrify neighborhoods,” and “donate to anti-white supremacy work such as your local Black Lives Matter Chapter.” Parents are encouraged to commit to “raising race-consciousness in children” and contends that “even babies discriminate” against members of other races.

It’s hard to believe America has gotten so screwed up that people anywhere take diversity and inclusion scams seriously, and that they are willing to put up with the kind of woke bullying that Disney forces on its employees.

Although there is little evidence that the hipster-fascists of the woke corporate world are mending their ways and abandoning their ongoing infantilization of blacks and brainwashing of American society, it is good to know at least that they can be embarrassed and beaten back.

©John Edison. All rights reserved.

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