A former corporate trainer in “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion,” or DEI, says the industry must perpetuate racism and see it “where it doesn’t exist” because that is the sole basis for its highly lucrative business.
“Think about it: If you’re making all that money off of racism, the last think you want is for racism to go away. You’re going to perpetuate it. You’re going to see it where it isn’t,” Erec Smith said as a guest Tuesday on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime.”
Smith said the single dominant thought that dominates DEI training is that “any problem a black person has – any problem – is because of racism.”
Fox describes Smith co-founder of “Free Black Thought,” a nonprofit dedicated to unpacking diversity of thought within the Black community.” The Free Black Thought site states: “Black thought varies as widely as black individuals.”
Watters introduced his interview with Smith by playing clips of DEI videos from three mega-corporations: Coca-Cola Co., Apple and Amazon.
“Companies pay diversity consultants big money to ‘train’ their employees,” Watters said, making air quotes with his fingers around the word train. “And then they check a little box in their annual report: my company’s not racist, please buy our product.”
“But it’s a shakedown,” he said, noting that DEI is a $3.5 billion industry.
‘Racism is everywhere’
Smith told Watters: “The major tenet of critical social justice pedagogy is: Don’t ask if racism happened, ask how it manifested in this situation. Which is to say: there’s racism everywhere.”
“And you know the saying, if you’re a hammer, then everything’s a nail. Well, if you’re a critical social justice activist, everything’s racist,” he said.
Smith said when he was a diversity officer, he “realized how useless it was,” noting you cannot compel people to think a certain way –”you can’t be a thought police.” Moreover, he said, “I was always preaching to the choir. It wasn’t working.”
Fox News reports, “Smith’s remarks come as some experts have questioned the legality of the DEI policies moving forward following the Supreme Court’s decision to rule against affirmative action back in June. … The Supreme Court said in a 6-3 decision that colleges and universities could not include race considerations in their admissions process, effectively outlawing what’s known as affirmative action and upending previous legal precedent that allowed it.”
In the aftermath of the Supreme Court striking down affirmative action, white and Asian employees who say they have been discriminated against have been emboldened to pursue legal action against corporations that justify their de facto racist policies using “diversity” ideology (i.e., hiring, promoting and firing not based on merit but rather skin color, gender or ethnicity).
Fox News champions ‘diversity’
Ironically, Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, champions the same “Diversity & Inclusion” culture that Watters rails against (although he, like most conservatives, says he has no problem with diversity itself). In the last couple of years, Fox News has begun to run special “Pride Month” segments during June, usually featuring openly homosexual reporters and producers doing one-sided puff pieces on famous gay people and LGBT issues – all playing into that aspect of the DEI formula.
And in late May, Fox’s mid-day host and star Harris Faulkner outraged conservatives by implying that the network has no choice but to embrace leftist DEI polices due to government diversity mandates in New York, where Fox is based: “Many states are mandating [DEI] now. Here at Fox, other corporations, there will be things they’re gonna have to change because the state of New York requires it.”
A Fox Corp. page on “Diversity & Inclusion: Building A Diverse And Inclusive FOX” states: “The stories we tell reflect the rich complexity of our world, and we continue to seek out new voices both in front of and behind the camera. Programs are designed to nurture writers and directors who have diverse voices, backgrounds and life experiences, while creating a strong pipeline of diverse talent for the company’s productions across all media types and platforms.”
