Coca-Cola staff told in online training seminar ‘try to be less white'
WASHINGTON - Coca-Cola raised some eyebrows this week for promoting an online training seminar that urged employees to "try to be less white" in order to combat racial discrimination.
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Slides from the training seminar shared online this week featured tips on how to tone down whiteness.
The tips to "be less white" included: "be less arrogant, be less certain, be less defensive, be more humble, listen, believe, break with apathy," and "break with white solidarity."
Another slide tells viewers that in order to confront racism, they must understand "what it means to be white, challenging what it means to be racist."
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White people in the United States and other western nations, are "socialized to feel that they are inherently superior because they are white," another slide reads.
It continued: "Research shows that by age 3 to 4, children understand that it is better to be white."
The seminar has predictably provide divisive, with some praising the company and others threatening to boycott it.
Attorney and Center for American Liberty founder Harmeet Dhillon, who shared the slides on her Twitter, said the slides seemed "like blatant racial discrimination."
In a letter to Fox Business, the soft drink giant said the slides being attributed to a Coca-Cola training program "are not part of the company’s learning curriculum."
"Our Better Together global training is part of a learning plan to help build an inclusive workplace. It is comprised of a number of short vignettes, each a few minutes long," the company said.
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It noted that the training is publicly available on LinkedIn, and includes a "variety of topics, including on diversity, equity and inclusion.
"We will continue to listen to our employees and refine our learning programs as appropriate," the company said.