The cancel culture free-for-all is in full swing following the dramatic shifts in public polling favorable to BLM and affiliated leftist social movements.
Power-drenched activists are riding high on the post-Floyd murder scene as they demand the removal of ever-increasing scores of “problematic” imagery and art in ritualistic homage to Black Lives Matter.
Woke CEOs, in turn, acquiesce reflexively and uncritically to the demands of the day by the Twitter mob. The Fortune 500 class has learned — through observation of the awe-inspiring political power of SJW activism — to cave faster to the mob’s absurd ultimatums than any craven cucks to power have ever caved to public pressure in the history of public relations.
As far as self-serving bids to retain their lucrative financial positions in a rapidly devolving political scene go, there is seemingly no limit to the depraved depths to which CEOs will stoop to safeguard their financial preeminence.
Most recently, the mob got up in arms over the tediously “problematic” corporate imagery depicting Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, two centuries-old icons of American marketeering that normal people don’t think twice about.
“Problematic” syrups are now cancelled.
Reductionism is the central skill of the SJW twitter mob. They employ their mass-scale fallacies ruthlessly and efficiently. Among the gender studies-pedigreed, pseudo-academic ranks of the intersectional feminist movement, everything perceived to have a genesis in white minds is racist, every white is inescapably racist (either consciously or subconsciously), and daily interactions can be boiled down to racial power struggles.
In the reductionist fantasyland of SJW activism – which supplies an endless list of grievances to be tackled by, unsurprisingly, themselves – “everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is homophobic, and you have to call it all out.”
Nuance is a foreign concept to the diseased minds of SJW activists.
Wokeism — in addition to functioning as a tool of social control for power-hungry racial minorities as well as a feel-good philosophy for guilt-ridden whites – is an increasingly lucrative economic sector for racialist pioneers with no conventional marketable skills.
Never mind that the 21st century iteration of SJW activism has never produced a single impressive work of literature, music, or any art worthy of consideration for that matter. The corporate giveaway gravy train for woke figureheads as a means for business “leaders” (read: profit-hungry cowards) to legitimize themselves has rendered wokeism a viable career path for unskilled workers of color (WOCs).
Consider the pay scales for SJW professionals: the average “diversity manager” can wrack up nearly $80,000 annually in personal income. When the observer considers that the entire “diversity” scam/industry is the brainchild of otherwise mediocre women and gender studies professors at liberal arts colleges, the take-home pay for woke social engineers is utterly impressive.
It’s even more impressive when one considers that the average salary for a construction worker is barely half that. The typical American factory worker doesn’t even clear $32,000 per year. US workers who produce tangible, beneficial goods and services make 2-3 times less than what woke activists are compensated to visit those same hard-working Americans at their job sites to harangue them about their supposed subconscious racial biases and “microaggressions.”
For just $35 per participant, racialist entrepreneurs of color (EOCs) will educate white marks when they sign up for the “Beyond Diversity: How to Build a Truly Anti-Racist Organization” workshop. There, the mayonnaise-faces can learn how their small businesses are “complicit in systemic racism and white supremacy culture.”*
*Notice the subtle shift in demand from non-racism to “anti-racism” (whatever that means). Simply being not racist is not good enough anymore; to escape judgment from the mob, one must be “anti-racist.”
According to the woke pseudo-sociologists at Everyday Feminism’s marketing department, White Rob, a generic Caucasian proprietor of a family-owned landscaping company, likely erroneously believes his business to be mostly about cutting grass and removing weeds. When he signs up for Everyday Feminism’s anti-racist seminar, White Rob will be propagandized into submission. The takeaway for White Rob will be that his primary social contribution through his work has not been cutting grass but, in fact, is the oppression of landscapers of color (LOCs).
Getting back to the CEOs, imagining the wild success of the upstart SJW social engineering sector would be nearly impossible without the cringeworthy acquiescence of nearly every so-called “leader” in the business community.
Meaningless corporate virtue signaling during gay pride month disguised as social progress.
How did this happen? Did the collective business leadership of the U.S. have an overnight epiphany about the social ills they contribute to?
Let’s cut through the public relations nonsense: if social improvement is on the true agenda of the Chamber of Commerce, are its members willing to disavow their slave labor operations in third-world countries? Will they relinquish their death-grip on the US political system via systemic bribery of opportunistic politicians?
Nike is definitely interested in foisting feel-good propaganda admonishing viewers to “believe in something even if it means sacrificing everything” in a cynical bid to sell more shoes. Is it equally interested in curtailing its reliance on wage-slavery in its third-world sweatshops? Don’t hold your breath.
Nike believes in padding its bottom line for the next shareholders’ meeting, even if it means sacrificing their integrity.
The enemy is formidable; corporate propaganda efforts are buttressed by entire Joseph Goebbels-like staffs of public relations firms churned out by communications and mass media departments in universities across the country whose sole job is the manipulation of their marks to sell more stuff.
If Joseph Goebbels were alive today, he would surely be a prime candidate for a lucrative position in a Fortune 500 PR department.
The essential corporate calculation boils down to this: if corporate PR departments can offer up wholly inconsequential, symbolic, rhetorical support for the social movement de jour, they are assuredly in a better position to navigate through turmoil without losing out on their heavy-handed economic domination of the political landscape.
Decency and moral courage compel us to stop taking our social cues from the manipulative forces of social engineers that sit on high.
Ben Bartee a Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. Contact him via his portfolio or on LinkedIn.