FPI / July 27, 2020
Corporate WATCH
By Joe SchaefferIt started with a Trojan Horse. "President Obama issued a challenge to businesses, non-profits, and government: Work together to provide pathways to employment for low-income and disconnected youth." So read the presentation for Barack Obama's "Youth Jobs" program.
Fast forward a few short years later and we have the same people who were boosted under that program by the most divisive president in American history pledging to "transform" the American workplace "from a white dominant culture to a Race Equity Culture."
It should be no surprise to anybody who has observed the embarrassing sight of major corporations tripping over themselves to fuel racial animosity in this country that brand name business support for this radical agenda is overwhelming.
While in office, Obama frequently praised an organization called Year Up as part of his Youth Jobs campaign. He even paid an official presidential visit to the group's Washington, D.C. office in June 2009.
In September 2013, the Obama administration honored Gerald Chertavian, founder and CEO of Year Up, for spearheading an organization dedicated to closing the "opportunity divide" for "urban young adults."
It sounded so benign then, didn't it?
In fact, Year Up is enmeshed in a network of hardline leftist activists financially backed by a powerhouse progressive foundation that is lavishly funded by globalist billionaire George Soros. This network has ties to former Obama administration officials, the Clintons and a plethora of leading corporations in America today.
It all starts with the progressive financial powerhouse NEO Philanthropy. We reported on them in July 2019:
NEO Philanthropy is a “fiscal clearinghouse for left-of-center causes,” as the website Influence Watch puts it. On its own website, the organization prominently boasts that it “has strategically awarded more than $130 million to nearly 500 innovative organizations on the front lines of social change.”
NEO Philanthropy is a “fiscal clearinghouse for left-of-center causes,” as the website Influence Watch puts it. On its own website, the organization prominently boasts that it “has strategically awarded more than $130 million to nearly 500 innovative organizations on the front lines of social change.”
Kerrien Suarez is CEO of a radical organization called Equity in the Center. Suarez is also on the Board of Directors for NEO Philanthropy. In addition, she happens to be a staffer at a progressive group called ProInspire. In short, Suarez is one ultra-connected activist.
ProInspire is a partner of Year Up. The organization also states on its website that Equity in the Center is a ProInspire "project":
In 2016, we launched Equity in the Center with AmeriCorps Alums and Public Allies, and brought that on as a project of ProInspire in 2017. Through Equity in the Center’s research, we have expanded our understanding of building a Race Equity Culture.
Former Obama administration official Toby Chaudhuri is on the Board of Directors for ProInspire. According to his bio there, Chaudhuri "advised the White House’s race-based Initiatives and democracy and governance projects around the world for the U.S. State Department."
We'll detail more direct evidence of the NEO Philanthropy/ProInspire connection with Year Up later, but let's focus on Year Up and its CEO Chertavian for a moment. Chertavian personally penned the group's obligatory pledge of allegiance to Black Lives Matter in the wake of George Floyd's death. His screed was notable for its particularly aggressive nature. In it, Chertavian basically declares white people to be accessories to murder (bold added):
The undeniable reality is that the acts of brutality and murder of Black people captured on video are heinous and a predictable result of systems designed to dehumanize and oppress Black people. What hurts the most is knowing that these systems continue to work because the collective complacency and silence of so many has let them, but no more. By "so many" I mean myself and other non-Black Americans, those with power and influence, those who could effect change but have chosen not to. We choose complacency, deflection, explanation, comfort, or silence, and those actions have made us complicit.
Chertavian has also openly stated that furthering the employment of illegal aliens in corporate America is a core part of Year Up's mission. In a 2017 op-ed for Morning Consult, he wrote:
In my own experience working with more than 300 corporate partners, I have learned that one of the reasons so many corporations are pledging to stand with DACA recipients is because employers are eager to invest in new sources of talent, and they view these young people as valuable employees. DACA recipients, along with millions of other young adults in this country who are out of school and out of work, represent the best opportunity to modernize our workforce and close various skills gaps across industries. Programs like DACA allow this kind of untapped human potential to join our economy and meet the needs of employers across the country struggling to find applicants for vacant entry-level position.
Besides being honored by Obama, Chertavian has twice spoken at Clinton Global Initiative gatherings, he states on his personal website. In 2011 Chertavian, used his appearance at a CGI meeting to announce that Year Up would create a "professional training corps."
In its 2019 annual report, Year Up declares once again that it is dedicated to promoting social transformation in the workplace:
In the last ten years, there has been a growing corporate focus on ESG (environmental, social, and governance) metrics, a tight labor market, and mounting pressure to address social and economic inequality, which indicate a significant opportunity for Year Up to create more impact through additional channels.
But it is through its workings with Equity in the Center that the true radicalism of Year Up comes to the fore. It is here where the NEO-ProInspire-Equity-Year Up spider web really comes into play. Tamika Mason served as a top staffer at Year Up for 12 years and is still part of the "faculty" at ProInspire today.
In 2019 Equity in the Center, the group run by NEO Philanthropy board member and ProInspire staffer Suarez, issued a shockingly forthright report titled, "Awake to Woke to Work: Building a Race Equity Culture." Year Up was a key subject group of the report and is mentioned throughout. "Tamika Mason of Year Up" was specifically thanked by the report's authors for providing "feedback during in-depth interviews [that] greatly advanced conceptualization of the Race Equity Cycle."
The report can only be described as an overtly racist battle plan against white American workers. Such a claim deserves to be proven in detail. And so we will. Among the insanities to be found are the following nuggets (again, bold added):
Page 4:
While each organization will follow its own path towards a Race Equity Culture, our research suggests that all organizations go through a cycle of change as they transform from a white dominant culture to a Race Equity Culture. These changes include increased representation; a stronger culture of inclusion; and the application of a race equity lens to how organizations and programs operate. We have coined this process the Race Equity Cycle.
Page 10:
Organizations that intentionally infuse their strategy with race equity and use it as a key operational driver can weaken structural racism and, through a race-conscious lens, broaden the reach of their work to long-marginalized individuals. The impact of these efforts will reverberate not only within the populations served by social sector organizations, but also within the organizations themselves.
Page 26 – Glossary: Decolonize (Mind):
The international practice of colonization informs the dominant culture that characterizes American society today, driving ideologies and subconscious biases rooted in centuries of racism, classism, and white privilege. In order to dismantle white supremacy and the white dominant culture norms it influences, one must actively “decolonize” the mind, recognizing and counteracting the thoughts, preferences, practices, and behaviors that are deeply rooted vestiges of colonization.
Page 27 – Glossary: White Dominant Culture:
Culture defined by white men and white women with social and positional power, enacted both broadly in society and within the context of social entities such as organizations. See also "Dominant Culture" and "White Supremacy Culture."
Page 27 – Glossary: White Supremacy Culture:
Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun identified twelve characteristics of white supremacy culture in organizations: Perfectionism, Sense of Urgency, Defensiveness, Quantity of Quality, Worship of the Written Word, Paternalism, Power Hoarding, Fear of Open Conflict, Individualism, Progress is Bigger/More, Objectivity, and Right to Comfort.
The report highlights how Year Up "trains" white people to be "allies" in constructing this new racially obsessed workplace:
Page 19:
Year Up: As a part of their 360 review, each senior leader gets feedback on how effective they are at managing diversity on their teams. Based on that feedback, leaders receive coaching on how to be a more inclusive leader/lead inclusive teams. Additionally, white staff are trained as “allies,” both to support and model facilitating dialogue on race within teams and learn how to effectively introduce topics that people of color have expressed they are not comfortable raising publicly.
Year Up, an organization honored and personally promoted by a president who vowed to "transform America," has shown that it is totally devoted to doing that very thing in the U.S. workplace. To help in this effort, it can count on support from a staggering number of major corporations. "More than 250 leading companies partner with Year Up for a smarter hiring strategy," a post of the group's "2020 Corporate Partners" on its website reveals. Please click on the link here, as the names are far too numerous to list.
If you want to narrow it down to some of the worst offenders, Year Up's 2019 Annual Report celebrated a choice selection of "Corporate Changemakers" for the year. Among the companies mentioned are Bank of America, Capital One, Facebook, GE and the GE Foundation, Liberty Mutual Insurance, Microsoft, Prudential, and United Airlines.
"More than 250 leading companies" are currently on board for the fight to wipe out "white dominant culture norms" such as "individualism" and "objectivity" in the workplace. A full year into writing on this topic and I continue to be stunned by the grand scale of the betrayal of the American people by its ruling and corporate elites.
Joe Schaeffer is the former Managing Editor of The Washington Times National Weekly Edition. His columns appear at WorldTribune.com, LibertyNation.com and FreePressInternational.org.
Free Press International
