It may seem hard to believe, with corporate America so aggressive in advocating for divisive social issues, but corporations used to generally prohibit advocacy in the workplace for any cause that was unrelated to the operations of its business.
Unfortunately, corporate America no longer knows how to decline involvement in social issues. Instead, they feel they must weigh in, but there’s only one side that the left’s mob of outrage warriors will allow. So corporate America, which feels it must take a stand in favor of that which is “good,” has joined in advocacy for the left’s agenda.
My career started in the late ‘80s for a division of a very prominent corporation. Any political advocacy, promotion of good causes, fund raising for worthy charities, etc. was strictly prohibited in the office.
In my first supervisory role when I was still in my mid-20s, I occasionally had to pull employees aside and counsel them that they could not engage in activities such as selling raffle tickets or band candy in the office. I once instructed an employee to take down a poster in the break room promoting her church’s Fall Festival.
The only charity that was allowed to be promoted in the office was United Way, which had the official endorsement of the company (for better or worse), but we wouldn’t even allow employees to pass around pledge sheets to support them in charity runs for causes such as cancer or heart disease. Employees were welcome to do that in their own time and outside of the office.
It seemed kind of draconian to me at the time, and I was sometimes embarrassed telling my subordinates (who were usually older than me) that although their intentions were commendable, they could not promote their worthwhile causes in the office. I understand now how important it was to remain steadfast in barring such activities in the workplace, even if they were for “good causes.”
How could there be anything wrong with encouraging employees to support fundraising efforts to battle cancer, or heart disease, or AIDS? And why not use company time and resources for these worthwhile causes?
The answer is because that is how slopes become slippery. It was a straight line from raising employees’ awareness about AIDS to mandating that employees disclose their gender pronouns in email signatures.
Not wanting to be seen as bigoted, corporations started becoming very active in supporting organizations involved in “good” causes, especially those that affect women and identity groups. Thus, battling AIDS and breast cancer became workplace priorities. Don’t misunderstand, these are worthwhile causes, but once the barn door was opened, corporate America could not say “No” to any “worthy” cause. And since the far left gets to determine what is worthy and good, we now have major corporations promoting cross-dressing in the office and compelling certain disfavored employee demographics to submit to dehumanizing struggle sessions.
The left’s march through the institutions involved so much more than this topic of course, but when corporate America forfeited the right to say “No” to good causes, it opened the door to having to say “Yes” to every left wing pathology.
Be it the Bud Light debacle with Dylan Mulvaney, or the Los Angeles Dodgers’ “Pride Night” debacle (which will feature cross-dressers named the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” mocking Catholics, with the support and endorsement of the Dodgers), these companies would have been so much better off if they had a policy of focusing only on beer and baseball, and leaving social issues to others.
If the woke backlash that destroyed Bud Light can take down a few more major corporate brands (hello Target), perhaps corporate America will be incentivized to start saying “No” again to all advocacy.
Charity and compassion begin at home. Leave it out of the workplace.
[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]