Unlike most things, prejudice does not go better with Coke.
Coca-Cola was criticized following the recent leaking of screenshots from a diversity training seminar. Not just any seminar, that is. This one encouraged employees to “try to be less white.” While the soda company insisted that the seminar was not “a focus of our company’s curriculum,” it admitted that the course from which it was taken was “part of a learning plan to help build an inclusive workplace.”
Few things could be less inclusive than telling people that their skin color makes them inherent unconscious oppressors.
From the leaked images, it’s plain to see Coca-Cola’s training uses a tactic common to proponents of Leftist identity politics. The state of whiteness, Coca-Cola’s training says, is a state of constant ignorance, arrogance and, most of all, oppression. The curriculum encourages students to be “less white” by aiming to be “less oppressive,” “less arrogant,” “less ignorant,” and “more humble.” You get the gist. The problems with such hypercritical thinking should be obvious. The concept of whiteness entails an admittance that one’s skin color and one’s place in society are irrevocably linked, that snap judgments of one’s worth based on skin color are a valuable part of building a better nation.
This is racist.
The color of a person’s skin should never define opinions about a person. Prejudice against whites is as wrong as prejudice against blacks. Racism should be combated wherever it arises. White people without an ounce of racism in their hearts, who are as disheartened and angry at the sight of racism as anyone, are told in Coca-Cola’s training that they are also a part of this oppressive system. No matter how they act, they are unconsciously oppressing those with a different skin color than their own. The actual state of a person’s heart matters little.
The point is that this kind of education, though perhaps well motivated, will actually make things worse. It fans the flames of hate by reducing human beings to the color of their skin. If you equate good people who happen to be white with oppression, arrogance, and ignorance, many good people will sadly devolve into rejecting the idea of more inclusive dialogue. Coca-Cola’s diversity training is a symptom of a larger issue involving critical race theory. Namely, the idea that race is the most interesting and important element of a person’s worth and being. This is divisive, it is untrue, and it is racist.
Coca-Cola can do better, and so can we all.
Sarah Weaver is a graduate student at Hillsdale College and a Young Voice Contributor. Follow her @SarahHopeWeaver. Or, for some lighter content, check out her Instagram: SarahHopeWeaver.
