[slackdog]

Corporate DEI initiatives using divisive rhetoric designed to foster paranoia, in order to keep workers on edge around each other. ("You're all racist. Even if you think you aren't racist, asserting you have no subconscious racial biases only proves that you're overtly racist. You're constantly commit racist 'microaggression' offenses against your coworkers without even realizing it.")

Such paranoia between coworkers is a serious impediment to labor organization. The more diverse the workplace, the better this works.

[nerdponx]

My experience has led me to believe that most individuals in favor of corporate DEI initiatives are earnestly and in good faith attempting to put into practice the recommendations of critical race theory and related frameworks.

The same experience has led me to believe that most managers and employers are not so crafty, and are going along with it because it seems to be trendy and in-demand and because they don't want to be publicly canceled. It's more about petty virtue signaling among managers than coordinated suppression of organized labor.

Furthermore, most DEI initiatives do not look like what you describe, outside of a limited subset of academic institutions that have always been somewhat radical (including few to none of the name-brand universities in the Americas) and smaller companies/startups headed by highly-opinionated idealists.

In general I think we are right to be skeptical of attempts to divide, rather than unite. It's absolutely possible that DEI initiatives are weaponized at some organizations, and we should be wary of that possibility. But it's also not fair or correct to assume that it's always being wielded as such.

It's worth noting that there are legitimate good intentions behind all this no-subconscious-bias microaggression stuff. It's derived from a very earnest radical academic tradition. The kernel of wisdom at the core of it all is that diversity is good and should be not just acknowledged but actively embraced and celebrated. That is, people can be united together, without all being the same.

[slackdog]

> My experience has led me to believe that most individuals in favor of corporate DEI initiatives are earnestly and in good faith attempting to put into practice the recommendations of critical race theory and related frameworks.

Yes, of course they are. As explained by Chomsky's model of propaganda, corporations hire true believers for these roles because they are the most effective and reliable.

> most managers and employers are not so crafty

Amazon being so crafty is a documented fact; it's naive to think they're the only ones.

[nerdponx]

Chomsky's model of propaganda is a useful model, but it's not an iron law.

Amazon is a great example of a company where I absolutely would not put it past them to use DEI initiatives to try to defeat labor organizing. But in many other cases these initiatives are actually demanded and sought after by employees.

I think in this case the actions of well-meaning people were only appropriated as an oppression tactic after they've caught on in popularity.

History and my own anecdotal experience are not consistent with your implied theory that CRT-driven DEI became popular specifically as an anti-labor capitalist conspiracy.

[slackdog]

Incidentally, it was while working at Amazon years ago that I first encountered the divisive and paranoia-inspiring form of DEI training which I described above.