With 2021 diversity training, Coca-Cola earned the moniker “Woka-Cola” by advising employees to “try to be less white.” But now the company may become more white. That will be the result, anyway, if Coke follows through on a pledge to enforce new diversity goals.
That is, to align their employee racial, ethnic, and sexual demographics with U.S. census data.
Meeting these goals would require the company to cut its black-employee representation by 31 percent. Asian-descent hires would also be reduced — by 33 percent.
Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, reported on the story on X (below).
“Unbelievable,” writes commentator Scott Shepard about this at RealClearMarkets. “And absolutely predictable from this benighted corporation demonstrably run these days on principles grounded in equal parts on [sic] extremist ideology and unqualified imbecility.” Shepard then provides perspective and writes about Coke’s sordid history:
It’s hardly news that Coke was an early and aggressive adopter of the New Racism, &c. [e.g., discrimination against whites], of the New ’20s. It infamously demanded that its outside legal counsel institute race and other forbidden discrimination on behalf of the “diverse” in servicing the Coke contract. It subjected employees to racist training (e.g. “Try to be less white.”). It leapt to be “crystal clear” that Georgia’s voting-integrity law enacted “voter suppression” by asking voters to demonstrate their identity and for closing some of the widest avenues of voter fraud—fraud that it was treason even to think about in federal elections “won” by leftists, but absolutely the deciding factor in state elections won by people who dared not to be [Stacey] Abrams.
The Method to Coke’s Madness?
Shepard’s anger at Coke’s turn toward “anti-black discrimination” is intense. Yet is it warranted? The problem, after all, is focus on “diversity” itself, not the precise formula embraced. In fact, if you’re going to indulge Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) nonsense, aligning your workforce with census data makes more sense than most woke paradigms. Moreover, it’s entirely possible that whoever formulated Coke’s goals failed to consider the politically incorrect implications. The wokesters aren’t exactly deep thinkers prescient with regard to unintended consequences. Yet there’s another possibility. As Shepard also writes:
Coca-Cola doubtless would have preferred to stick with the New Racism (and Discrimination) if it could, but Supreme Court decisions in the last two summers have made starkly unavoidable what has always been true. Everyone has the same civil rights. They forbid distinctions based on suspect classifications (e.g., race, sex, sexual orientation, creed, &c.). This includes all such workplace discrimination, even the kind that corporations have pretended were of no legal importance—though touted endlessly as vital in every other way.
… This created a dilemma for Coke, where New Discrimination policies appear to have been endemic—systemic even. It seems, as my colleague Stefan Padfield noted on X, that Coke recognized that current staffing levels all by themselves might get plaintiffs whose civil rights Coke had violated past dismissal motions and deep into eye-popping discovery.
DIE, DIE, DEI? Don’t Hold Your Breath Waiting
Whatever the explanation, for sure is that Woka-Cola remains woker than you could imagine. For starters, its diversity goals also include reducing its male workforce. It wants women to constitute 50 percent of its employees; they’re currently 39 percent of senior leadership. This sounds just. But it isn’t. It also doesn’t even benefit “women.”
After all, men are more likely to be sole breadwinners. This role is frustrated, however, when the men who’d normally occupy higher-paying positions are passed over for female quota hires. But doesn’t this help women? Well, just ask the women — the wives and daughters — who rely on these men for support.
Of course, though, if you aim to destroy traditional families and drive homemakers into the workforce, these quotas are ideal.
But to really grasp Coke’s steroid-engorged wokeness, take a gander at its 88-page section “Refresh the World. Make a Difference.” It’s as if it was written by the UC Berkeley political science department on an LSD trip. It of course talks about “sustainability,” “climate change,” and “renewable energy.” The page states “Diversity, equity and inclusion is in our DNA.” The company sponsors a “women’s leadership platform” called “Break the Ceiling Touch the Sky.” In Japan, it boasts, it “earned a ‘Rainbow’, the highest rating in the 2022 PRIDE Index, for our LGBTQI+-friendly workplace initiatives.” (Is that the woke version of being an Eagle Scout?) The corporation also talks about “Standing with Ukraine.”
Additionally, Coke states that it wants to increase “the overall diversity” of its suppliers. They “are working to spend at least $1 billion annually with diverse suppliers,” the company explains. “We aspire to join the Billion Dollar Roundtable—the gold standard of supplier diversity, currently with only 27 member companies.”
The Diversity Blues
Returning to Coke’s desire to “mirror the markets we serve,” could you imagine if the NBA did this? A high percentage of its players would be average-height, middle-aged white guys with beer bellies. And aligning with census data would make the league 51 percent female. But no company’s job is to mirror the market it serves.
Its job is to make money — by serving the market it serves — as well as possible.
Whether it’s the military, Harvard presidents, pilots, air-traffic controllers, or corporate executives, focus on diversity never makes anything better. It just makes certain people feel better and ensures that the cocktail-party invitations keep coming. Ultimately, these pseudo-elites’ faux virtue is just a cover for how they’re selling their souls for pocketbook, power, and prestige.
