Hypocritical Business scum: CVS execs rake in millions while lecturing wage-workers on wokeness

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[Business is full of garbage and the leaders are often just greedy filth. I saw the same here in South Africa. You can't respect these people. I lost respect for my "leaders" over the years in my career. Jan]

By Christopher F. Rufo

September 23, 2021 7:40pm

Last year, CVS Health Corporation, the largest pharmacy chain in the United States, paid then-CEO Larry Merlo almost 618 times the median company wage, while simultaneously launching a mandatory “antiracist” training program for hourly employees to deconstruct their “privilege.”

I have reviewed whistleblower documents that reveal the company’s extensive race-reeducation program, which is built on the core tenets of critical race theory, including “intersectionality,” “white privilege” and “unconscious bias.”

As a keynote for the initiative, Merlo, who has since retired, hosted a conversation with Boston University professor Ibram Kendi, who told 25,000 CVS employees that “to be born in [the United States] is to literally have racist ideas rain on our head consistently and constantly.”

Kendi argued that Americans are “walking through society completely soaked in racist ideas,” including children as young as 2 to 3 years old. “Our kids are basically functioning on racist ideas, choosing who [sic] to play with based on the kid’s skin color,” Kendi said. The solution, in part, is to “diagnose” employees as “racist,” to help them become “antiracist” and “stop hurting somebody else.”

A series of related training modules instructed employees to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities, then rank themselves according to their “privilege.” The exercise is grounded in the theory of intersectionality, which holds that individuals can be reduced to a network of overlapping identities that determine their position on the social hierarchy, with privileged groups occupying the “oppressor” role and unprivileged groups in the “oppressed” role.

The training asked CVS employees to circle their identities — including race, gender, sexuality and religion — and then reflect on their “privilege” during the discussion. Examples of privilege, according to a checklist, included celebrating Christmas, having “a name that is easy to pronounce,” feeling “safe in your neighborhood at night” and enjoying a sense of confidence in one’s “leadership style.”

Another exercise, called “Say This, Not That,” provided employees with detailed racial etiquette “reference cards” to reorient their speech to the values of “diversity, equity and inclusion.” The training instructed employees to stop using “problematic phrases,” including “I’m colorblind,” “I grew up poor,” “peanut gallery,” “I’m not racist” and “we must stand up for minorities.”

All these phrases, according to the training, are racist micro-aggressions that minimize the existence of “systemic racism,” have a “racist history” and “could be seen as discrediting the experiences of black people and their culture.” The goal of the training, documents say, is to create “psychological safety” for underprivileged and historically oppressed groups that might feel endangered by phrases such as “sexual preference,” “grandfathered in” and “off the reservation.”

The irony of these “privilege” programs is inescapable. In recent years, Merlo, enjoying the highest executive-to-employee compensation in the United States, was called “the most obscenely overpaid CEO in America.” Last year, Merlo earned $22 million in total compensation — compared with the median CVS employee salary of $35,529 — yet still lectured his 300,000 employees about their “privilege.”

Far from being a bottom-up program of empowerment, the new ideology of “antiracism” allows elites such as Merlo to assuage their guilt and shift blame to ordinary Americans.

Predictably, the program has provoked dissent. One CVS worker, who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisals, blasted the new program. “I have worked at CVS a long time, and we have never had a problem with discrimination or division. Quite the opposite: People of diverse backgrounds always have pulled together to solve complex problems.”

The employee argued that the politicized training program will ultimately undermine the company’s prospects: “Long-term, talent will drain, morale will suffer, and resentment will spread. This will contaminate our culture and threaten our long-term success.”

Unfortunately, CVS has shown no signs of backing down. Merlo retired this year, cashing out on a long career at the pharmacy. Meantime, executives continue to push the “antiracism” and “privilege” initiatives, hectoring employees to make a “personal commitment” constantly to “celebrate diversity, inclusion and equity.”

Any dissenters will pay the price. CVS promises “swift action against non-inclusive behaviors” — even if that inclusivity stops at the payroll department.

Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal, from which this column was adapted.