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Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

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Re: Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

#121

This is from LinkedIn's learning portal, which is used by numerous companies (like Coca-Cola). The training claims to be created by Dr. Robin DiAngelo (author of books such as White Fragility). Dr. DiAngelo has a statement on her website claiming that she had nothing to do with this content and it was created without her consent: Dr. DiAngelo was not the creator or facilitator of the LinkedIn Learning course “Confron…

That's great. Will Dr. Diangelo also retract and denounce her paper: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1065640.pdf where she states: > raising White children to be White is a form of child abuse Feel free to read the full context. So no, she may have not provided the slides. But yes, this is on point for her if you read even the smallest bit of her papers.

> where she states: > raising White children to be White is a form of child abuse

But she doesn't state that; she states that someone else characterized an effect that DiAngelo is discussing in those terms. You just clipped that sentence to obscure that: “Acknowledging this, Thandeka (1999) argues that raising White children to be White is a form of child abuse because...”

Re: Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

#122
post #19

Anyone saying this isn't racist is blinded to reality

The key to solving this cognitive dissonance is to redefine 'racism' and all the implications that come with it.

Hasn't it already been done? Now we somehow have to take "power" (whatever it means) into account to decide if something is racist or not.

Re: Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it sounds like non-American countries are going to take over America and then then rule over it with an iron fist. That being said I don't know how you'd create "real value" on top of what Coca-Cola does. They put sugar into water and sell it at absurd mark-ups.

I’m amazed that there is so much to do at Coca-Cola. You’d think by now the entire company would be a technician, a taste tester, and a marketer + an army of machines.

And if you think that then you’re demonstrating the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Re: Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

#124
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"White" isn't a racial group. "White" as an idea to describe a group of (roughly) light skinned European people, came about in order to justify enslaving and subjugating other groups. Various groups worked their way into being considered white over time, in part by contributing to the subjugation of others. And various groups once considered white, later were not considered so. "White" as what you call a "social grou…

> "White" as an idea to describe a group of (roughly) light skinned European people, came about in order to justify enslaving and subjugating other groups. ... This is flat wrong. For better or for worse, the modern "White" identity in the U.S. was heavily promoted by late-19th-c. and early 20th-c. Progressives so that light-skinned Europeans would stop trying to oppress and subjugate one another over their national…

I agree I was wrong, there's another reply to me that's a lot more coherent about what I was going for. I do think it's important to still understand and confront the problems of whiteness as an identity head on.

> Being in denial about how divisive these racially-connoted messages are is just not productive.

I don't think it's denial, I think it's strategic choice made in the full knowledge of the offense and discomfort it might provoke. There's definitely part of messages like "whiteness is racist" or "be less white" that ii ... intended to generate offense & reflection and is a valid way of getting the work done. Being polite and working within the status quo can be seen to upload the status quo, and hasn't seemed to work at actually making chaneg. Sometimes to cut through people choose to say very challenging things. I'm personally fine with that, and even if I'm not I don't think it's up to me to tell the people affected by white supremacist ideas how to go about their business.

Re: Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great. Will Dr. Diangelo also retract and denounce her paper: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1065640.pdf where she states: > raising White children to be White is a form of child abuse Feel free to read the full context. So no, she may have not provided the slides. But yes, this is on point for her if you read even the smallest bit of her papers.

> where she states: > raising White children to be White is a form of child abuse But she doesn't state that; she states that someone else characterized an effect that DiAngelo is discussing in those terms. You just clipped that sentence to obscure that: “Acknowledging this, Thandeka (1999) argues that raising White children to be White is a form of child abuse because...”

So is she disagreeing with this?

Re: Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what, you're admitting it's not a race issue but an education issue?

That depends - are you willing to admit that the education issue is a race issue? Race, income and school quality are highly correlated in the US: poor neighborhood = poor education. The fact that immigrants (who were not poor in the old country - immigration is expensive) bypass low-quality education doesn't mean it's not a race issue, it just means they are not useful as a control group. Ruby Bridges, the first bla…

You’re also ignoring the impact of cultural values here. Education is particularly favored in Nigerian cultures, especially amongst immigrants.

Re: Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

#127
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why HN only focuses on the financial part. There are several complex ways in which racial injustice works. Nigerian Americans will still get racially profiled at the store and have a harder time with the police.

I cannot vouch for that either way. My experience from Europe is that A LOT depends on your clothing and general demeanor. An Indian dressed a in silk three piece suit and a Philippe Patek watch on his wrist will be treated with obsequious deference by the store personnel. A Roma guy dressed as stereotypical Roma will be suspected and followed. Their skin colors are identical. At the end of the day, money talks.

I can tell you one anecdote — I have a Nigerian friend who is very high up at a FAANG, well dressed and mannered (and wealthy), who is pulled over _monthly_ in the Bay Area driving a fancy SUV. Nearly every time they ask him “is this your car?”

Re: Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

#128

Honestly seeing the comments on here makes me feel a little better about life. Even if there are people out there who want to judge me literally by the color of my skin and not the content of my character, I’m happy there are still a lot of people here who don’t want to go back to the 1950s way of looking at race (or heaven forbid to the racially-focused social Darwinism that caused so much suffering in the early and…

Im also genuinely surprised to read the comments here. I typically expect US silicon valley types to be woke to the point of mental retardation.

Prejudice has never been insightful.

Re: Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

#129

The quote in the title of the article is really an inappropriate way to try to describe inclusiveness. It’s not about being less, it’s about including others more.

For you maybe, do you speak for everyone else? There are definitely a lot of people who want to reduce whiteness, not just include others more. A concrete example is media capitalizing Black but not white in reference to people. There's also this statement that apparently you would agree with, yet many people got upset by: "It's Okay To Be White". There's even a wikipedia article on it. Inclusiveness is not the same…

I’ve also noticed this, and find it ironic because I recall reading about how capitalizing “white” but not “black” was a dog whistle around the time triple parenthesis hit the public consciousness.

Re: Coca-Cola says 'Be Less White' learning plan was about workplace inclusion

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what, you're admitting it's not a race issue but an education issue?

That depends - are you willing to admit that the education issue is a race issue? Race, income and school quality are highly correlated in the US: poor neighborhood = poor education. The fact that immigrants (who were not poor in the old country - immigration is expensive) bypass low-quality education doesn't mean it's not a race issue, it just means they are not useful as a control group. Ruby Bridges, the first bla…

> That depends - are you willing to admit that the education issue is a race issue?

There is no uneducated white people who experience a massive income gap maybe?

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