New York City employees have been forced to undertake mandatory training on “racial equity” in the workplace.
According to an email seen by Fox News, the training was sent out to all New York City employees, in order to give them a “framework” to understand “the importance of racial equity… in the workplace.”
In the training, it was argued that there was absolutely no “genetic or scientific basis” to race, and was instead a “social construct created to classify people on the arbitrary basis of skin color and other physical features.”
Even though race was a “social construct,” it has a “very real impact on people’s lives… because our society has used race to establish and justify systems of power, privilege, exclusion and oppression,” it continued.
Long Island City, Queens, New York City (King of Hearts / Wikimedia Commons)
Three types of racism exist according to the training. Firstly, there is individual racism, where individuals are racist and bigoted to each other. There is also institutional racism, which involves “policies, practices, patterns and structures within public and private institutions that impose oppressive or otherwise negative conditions on identifiable groups on the basis of race or ethnicity.”
The third type of racism is structural, or systemic racism, which “occurs across multiple institutions and is integrated into politics, culture and other aspects of life. Creating a system that negatively impacts communities of color compared to White communities.”
In order to negate the impact of racism, the New York City employees should implement “antiracism training” at work, including creating “safe spaces” for the discussion of race and racism, along with addressing “unconscious bias” in the workplace.
“Become aware of systematic racism and the possible presence of racial inequity in your workplace,” the training argued. “Understand the dominant cultural patterns of your workplace and whether they are hurting or helping your diversity, equity and inclusion goals.”
“Where they were discussing equity, how we have to look at people through a particular lens, that contradicted… [the idea that] we should treat everybody equally,” a source familiar with the racial equity training told Fox News.
“I do not agree with what they want us to do as city employees. The [racial equity training] leads me to believe that they want the contracts with the city and the hiring from the city being looked at through this lens. And that’s what I think is really unfair,” the source added. The employees have until March 6 to complete the training.
Valiant News reported last week that prospective MPs for the Conservative Party in the UK also had to undergo similar training before being allowed to stand for Parliament, with the training featuring the ideas that minorities have to deal with “white resentment,” and “microaggressions.”
This news and commentary by Jack Hadfield originally appeared on Valiant News.
