There is at least anecdotal evidence that corporate CEOs, and professional sports executives, are no more familiar with honesty, courage, and common sense, than their political counterparts. (See my last blog). Their fear is palpable. All over the U.S., corporations are announcing new Critical Race Theory (CRT) training programs to bring their employees into compliance with the whining of the woke community. They are donating hundreds of millions of dollars to organizations, one of which bragged it is against many things that have been fundamental to the success of our country. CEOs, corporate boards, and professional sports league executives, are acting like frightened children as they rush to support outrageous theories, and false movements.
There are too many to list them all in this blog. So I will cover only a few of the most egregious examples of corporate flailing. Apparently before the tragic death of George Floyd corporations were oblivious to the systemic racism that was rife within the ranks of their companies. Floyd’s death was one of those defining, I’ll be damned, moments that caused them to open their checkbooks and require their racist, white male, employees to enroll in remedial race classes.
We watched corporations fall all over themselves writing multimillion dollar checks to nonprofits if they had the word black in their title. The most famous, and the recipient of the lion’s share of the checks, was Black Lives Matter (BLM). Checks were issued within days of Floyd’s death. Corporations like AirBnB, Amazon, AT&T, Apple, Coca Cola, Disney, Door Dash, Facebook, FitBit, Gatorade, Google, Nabisco, Nike, and Unilever, wrote huge checks. Those who wrote checks to BLM exhibited their cowardice, indifference, and/or ignorance. Because BLM was an organization known for calling out racist corporations, cowardly CEOs were anxious to avoid any such recognition. Even if that meant funding a group that advertised itself as being led by Marxists. Even if that meant funding a group that advertised it was AGAINST capitalism, wanted to DESTROY the traditional nuclear family, and was FOR defunding the police! There is absolutely nothing in this last sentence that could benefit corporations in any way. Yet they were so frightened at the specter of being identified as racists they threw intelligence, and common sense, out the window and wrote checks anyway.
Checks however, were just down payments. The woke community insisted that corporations grovel in order to avoid its wrath. Wokesters demanded that corporations hire a team of their trained racists to reeducate what they called racist employees. Rather than defend employees, and push back against potential accusers, CEOs and their boards caved. U.S. Sandia Labs held a “re-education camp” for white male employees. These men were forced to write apology letters to people of color, and women. Coca Cola’s diversity plan stated it would punish law firms working with the company if they didn’t hire “diverse attorneys,” half of whom were required to be black. It also required employees to watch videos on “how to be less white.” American Express, AT&T, Bank of America, Lowes, Walmart, Google, and many others are forcing white male employees to take training on how they can be “less white,” and I presume less male. If you can avoid any of the above companies please do.
I will finish with a paragraph on a company that is simply un-American. That company is Disney. Disney’s diversity training program titled “Reimagine Tomorrow” forces employees to admit “systemic racism” and “white privilege.” It segregates employees into “affinity groups” overseen by white “executive champions.” It falls neatly into the title of this blog. That is not the only reason that Disney should be scorned by every patriotic American. Back in 2016 Disney fired hundreds of high paid IT employees in Orlando and Anaheim. Those employees were replaced by lower paid foreigners coming here on H1-B visas. Adding insult to injury Disney forced the fired employees to stay and train their replacements. If they refused they would not receive the severance package Disney offered. If Walt Disney was still alive he would be appalled. Their behavior is despicable. We should not support Disney.
I’ll close with a discussion about the hypocrisy of our professional sports leagues and their millionaire athletes. Nike has a contract with the MLB, NFL, and NBA that are each valued at around $125 million a year. The relevance of that comment will become clear later. The NBA will receive the bulk of my wrath That is because its hypocrisy has been in the news recently, and it is by far the worst offender. The NBA has spent years, perhaps decades, building a relationship with China. Things were going swimmingly until one relatively innocuous tweet was sent. In October of 2019, Daryl Morey, the Houston Rockets G.M., sent a very simple tweet that would threaten that relationship.
Great Britain handed Hong Kong over to the Communist Chinese in 1997. The agreement to do so came after China promised that Hong Kong would receive a high degree of autonomy for 50 years. In 2019 China began crushing Hong Kong and removing the people’s freedoms. Then Morey sent this simple tweet: “Fight for freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.” Who could argue with that? Had he said this referencing any other country it would have gone unnoticed. But China is the NBA’s largest international market.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) went apoplectic. Because it had signed Yao Ming, a high profile Chinese basketball player, the Rockets were the most popular NBA team among the estimated 500 million Chinese fans. Sponsors and media partners immediately cancelled support of the Rockets. The NBA had always touted its official stance regarding freedom of expression. Morey’s comments unintentionally exposed the limits of the NBA’s social conscience. What to do? Within days Morey had backtracked on his comments, apologizing to those he may have offended. You know the speech. The NBA made it clear that Morey’s comments were his own, and did not represent those of the NBA. God forbid!
For the 2019-20 season the league produced a list of approved social messages that could appear on the back of players jerseys. That list included, among others: freedom and stand up. Morey had said, “Fight for freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.” The NBA has a training center in Xinjiang which is in the region where an estimated 1 million ethnic Uyghurs are imprisoned in “reprogramming camps” and forced to do slave labor. The NBA paints “Black Lives Matter” banners on their floors. It denounces the history of systemic racism and slavery in the U.S. Then it defends China, a country whose citizens enjoy zero freedom, and is currently enslaving many of its minorities. You can cut the hypocrisy with a knife!
A couple of days after Morey’s comments one of the NBA’s savants, LeBron James, came forth waving his high school diploma and chimed in on the topic. He said that Morey “was either misinformed or not really educated on the situation.” With my limited ability to understand such deep comments I will try to interpret this one. I think what LeBron meant was that had Morey been receiving $30 million a year from Nike to wear their shoes, as was LeBron, he would not have made such ill-informed comments. What a hypocrite. American patriots should not support the NBA.
Earlier this year, Major League Baseball (MLB) decided to move its All Star Game from Atlanta to Denver because Georgia passed a law that required absentee voters to provide picture ID. This, MLB claimed, disadvantaged black people. So MLB decided it would punish black people? The black population in Atlanta is about 52%. The black population in Denver is about 9%. The move cost Atlanta area businesses, many of them black, tens of millions of dollars. MLB couldn’t be bothered by such trivia. The woke community was screaming for blood and demanding that MLB make a statement, and take a stand. Little did we know it had already made a statement, although a covert one. In 2017 MLB signed an agreement with the Beijing Enterprises Real Estate Group Ltd. The joint venture plans to build up to 2 dozen MLB branded facilities for talented young players. MLB promises to arrange for, and provide, pro players and coaches for instruction. MLB’s statement is simple. It will follow the demands of the cancel culture and bully cities in the U.S. where people are free to do what they want. At the same time it will defend China, a country whose citizens have few, if any, freedoms. The country that imprisons, and harvests organs from healthy members of certain minorities. They truly should be ashamed. We should ignore them.
Back to my earlier comments about Nike and the contracts it has with MLB, NBA, and the NFL. In that I covered the NBA and MLB earlier in this post, and having written about the NFL in previous blogs, I will direct my comments to Nike’s thirst for profits at the expense of people. The 3 pro leagues receive about $400 million combined in sponsorship money every year from Nike. Nike is also a strong supporter of BLM and CRT. They advertise a company persona of equality and strong social conscience. Behind the scenes they produce products in sweat shops and with slave labor. As long as those being enslaved live in other countries Nike, and minions receiving Nike millions, seem willing to turn a blind eye.
After workers in South Korea and Taiwan started organizing Nike moved production to China, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Today over 90% of their shoes are produced in those three countries. Some of them are reportedly produced by slave labor in Uyghur “reprogramming camps.” Nike refutes these claims. In 2020 Congress introduced the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The bill passed the House on a 406-3 vote. Imagine that, both parties agree forced labor is wrong. The Senate did not vote on it. This year it was reintroduced and the Senate approved it on a voice vote. The House is yet to act? During this time Nike has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying Congress. Some of it in an attempt to water down the bill. In true Nike form it says it is not lobbying members of Congress. It is simply having discussions with congressional members. Either way, why would Nike waste a nickel lobbying if it weren’t using slave labor?
I always shake my head when I see social justice warriors wearing Nike shoes, apparel with the iconic swoosh, and shirts that boldly say “Just do it.” Whether you are a social warrior, or you just care about the well being of others, wearing Nike products leads to the exploitation of human beings. I hope you will think about that. Then just DON’T do it.
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Thank you, Bob