The Walt Disney Corporation has ordered all headquarters employees to attend seminars that inject critical race theory, “systemic racism,” “white privilege,” and “white fragility” into their training. The way that City Journal’s Christopher Rufo describes what’s contained in the whistleblower documents he received from several Disney employees suggests the training regimen is designed to elicit guilt and shame from white employees while falsifying history.
In truth, it’s beyond belief. Disney’s theme parks may be known as “The Happiest Place on Earth,” but you have to wonder for how long.
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.”
“Challeng[ing] colorblind ideologies and rhetoric” is only part of the healing process.
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.” (Author’s emphasis )
Not very subtle, are they? In 18th century America they were known as “levelers” — those who didn’t care what it took to achieve “equality of outcomes.” The French revolutionaries were great levelers. They used the guillotine to prove how good they were.
Now Disney — whose gigantic impact on American culture cannot be dismissed — wants to poison the minds of employees with this rot. Sadly, the wokeness is bound to seep down into the rest of the corporate culture and ruin the Disney experience for young and old alike.
Recently, Disney announced that cast members are now permitted to display tattoos, wear inclusive uniforms and display inclusive haircuts. Disney did all of this in the name of allowing cast members to express themselves.
The problem is, I’m not traveling across the country and paying thousands of dollars to watch someone I do not know express themselves. I am there for the immersion and the fantasy, not the reality of a stranger’s self-expression. I do not begrudge these people their individuality and I wish them well in their personal lives, but I do not get to express my individuality at my place of business.
What’s next, is Disney going to end the rule barring on stage cellphone use by cast members as an infringement on self-expression.
Indeed, this self-described “out-of-touch white American dad” bemoans the loss of Disney’s most valuable resource: the human imagination.
Disney is in the process of taking the woke scalpel to the Jungle Cruise. Trader Sam is out because he might offend certain people. Every grown-up in the room realizes that Trader Sam is not a representation of reality and is meant as a funny and silly caricature. It is no more based in racism than every Disney caricature of an out-of-touch white American dad.
The next time I ride Jungle Cruise I will not be thinking about the gloriously entertaining puns of the skippers, I will be thinking about Disney’s political agenda. That’s a mood killer.
“You will be forced to care,” wrote Eric Erickson about the left’s assault on values. There’s no hiding from them. There is no “escape” with your family — even to Disneyland or Disney World. We are being overwhelmed by propaganda that looks to be as effective as propaganda from Kim Jong-Un’s North Korea. Conformity, “equity,” “equality of outcomes” — the groundwork for ending freedom of thought has already been laid in our schools and even where we work, where we worship, and where we play.
And even our icons like Mickey Mouse will become slaves in service to this ideology.
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