AT&T fights racist whites?
AT&T is now sending its white employees to a re-education camp of sorts to rid them of their racism, but first, a little background about racism as it now exists.
If you’re a dark-skinned Mexican or a dark-skinned Black, you’ve no doubt encountered racism from your own kind. That sounds wrong because, well, it is.
Years ago, I used to work with a Hispanic woman, a journalist, who told me how badly her husband was treated at high-class Mexican hotels when they traveled south of the border because he had a lot of Indian blood in him and had dark skin, whereas she was very white-skinned.
It bothered her, she said, as it should any decent human being, the way hotel staff treated her husband. That was about 35 years ago, and I’m guessing things have changed since then, although it’s hard not to notice that most of the stars of Mexican novellas (soap operas) have very white skin as do many of the politicians.
In fact, there are studies that prove this point. Simply GOOGLE: “Mexico discriminates against darker-skinned Mexicans.” Stories, studies will pop up all over the search engine’s first page, like this one: “Study reveals racial inequality in Mexico.” (Source: Vanderbilt University.)
That study shows that in Mexico, “darker skin is strongly associated with decreased wealth and less schooling.”
The same skin-color discrimination exists among Black Americans as well. Simply GOOGLE “High Yellow,” and you can read how dark-skinned Blacks have been treated over the years by lighter-skinned Blacks.
You can also GOOGLE: “Darker-skinned Blacks discriminated against by lighter-skinned Blacks,” and a plethora of stories will pop up for review, some written by black writers decrying the societal practice.
That’s changed over the years, even though the Social Justice warriors will say it hasn’t. The U.S. is still a racist country, they say. I say, America is one of the least racist countries in the world where anyone — despite, race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation — who has an ounce of self-determination and is willing to work hard can become successful.
That wasn’t always the case, but times change, attitudes change, and to not acknowledge that America, even the Rio Grande Valley, is now on a much more even playing field than it was 60 years ago is simply a distortion of the truth.
AT&T’s agenda
According to AT&T, which is the point of this column, it seems that only white people, AKA, “Crackers,” can be guilty of racism. Do an online search for “AT&T re educates white employees,” and multiple news stories will pop up, which were only published in recent days after an internal AT&T document was leaked.
Granted, the document was leaked to a conservative activist, Christopher Rufo, but the document is what it is, and it is now online in its entirety and it lays the re-education idea clearly at the feet of AT&T CEO John Stankey.
People who want to get the real story about modern-day racism or the lack thereof can do their own research. With a computer these days and online access, anyone can uncover the truth if they so choose. The real problem is, too many people don’t do their own research to get at the truth. They simply follow the crowd with which they’re attached, which is why the country is in the shape it’s in, more bitterly divided than I’ve ever seen it in my lifetime.
There is the far right, the far left, but where is the middle ground? Where have the people gone willing to think for themselves?
The AT&T story is pretty amazing. It might lack veracity if the entire AT&T internal leaked document (titled “Listen. Understand. Act.”) isn’t available online for review, but it is. The giant corporation’s CEO, John Stankey, 59, pulls in approximately $22 million per year even though he has laid off more than 40,000 AT&T workers in the U.S. since taking over as CEO in 2015. Job well done. Now, he apparently wants to play the part of the Social Justice Warrior writ large.
The AT&T document includes articles for its white employees to read, which includes a story published in The Chicago Tribune titled “White America, if you want to know who’s responsible for racism, look in the mirror.”
Okay, I’m looking in the mirror, and all I see is a tired old arthritic white guy with a grey beard who’s been working since I was 13, and I’m still not a millionaire. Nor have I ever benefited from my so-called “White privilege,” as Stankey likes to call it. Every job I got before I became self-employed, I got on my own merits.
I’ve never discriminated against anyone. I’ve been discriminated against, but that was mainly during my teen years when I had long hair. Went to pick up a cute girl for a tennis date, and her dad the cop wouldn’t let her leave the house. Good times. The long hair also didn’t sit well with some redneck bouncers, but, hey, life is full of challenges.
If I were ever elected to Congress, I sure couldn’t join the Black Caucus.
That Chicago Tribune story, by the way, which Stankey urges his white AT&T employees to read, study, and absorb, says that “American racism is a uniquely white trait,” and it tells us white folk that we are “the problem.”
If not for us white folk, America wouldn’t be racist, according to AT&T’s new re-education program.
Stankey was raised in a Jewish household, but I assume he still considers himself white because, well, based on his photos, his skin is whiter than mine.
The problem with his heritage is that Jews have suffered a lot of discrimination over the years, lost lives, and Stankey’s latest diatribe against white people — “Look in the mirror” — only gives cannon fodder to the true White Supremacists out there, which are few and far between, but who are now attacking Stankey online for being Jewish, calling him all sorts of derogatory names tied to his heritage.
The rest of us white people just want to get along with the rest of humanity. The only people I discriminate against are jerks, and they come in all shapes, sizes, genders, ethnicities, and colors.
Will I switch phone carriers? I’m not sure. Switching carriers is a huge pain; but here I am, a white guy, with mixed ethnicities, helping pay Stankey’s multi-million-dollar salary because I’m an AT&T customer, and he’s branded me a racist, in so many words, simply because my white ancestors came from Western Europe (including Spain).
If Stankey is doing such a lousy job (AT&T lost $5.4 billion in 2020 and cut tens of thousands of jobs), maybe he won’t last long as CEO. One can only hope.