The Western Journal
In the minds of social justice warriors, racism is around every corner, embedded in every institution — and its ever-present effects are visible in any form of racial disparity as long as it is minorities who are underrepresented.
Any organization that doesn’t meet the social justice left’s specific expectations is immediately demonized as a tool of white racism, an extension of slavery and Jim Crow.
The CDC is the newest target of this woke outrage. Over 1,200 employees from within the public health organization have signed a petition condemning the CDC’s “recurring acts of racism and discrimination” while also calling for the organization to meet a list of demands for equity or equal representation by treating people differently based on the color of their skin.
Dated June 30, the letter was addressed to CDC Director Robert Redfield and later obtained by NPR, which published the full petition online.
“During the past several weeks, we have received messages from agency leaders claiming solidarity with the ongoing protests and calls for racial justice. Though we are encouraged by these messages, their sentiments ring hollow in the face of our daily, lived experiences as employees of this agency,” the petition read.
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“In light of the recent calls for justice across this country and around the world, we, as dedicated public health professionals, can no longer stay silent to the widespread acts of racism and discrimination within CDC that are, in fact, undermining the agency’s core mission.”
According to NPR, as of Monday afternoon, the letter had been circulated among the organization’s 11,000-person workforce and had garnered as many as 1,204 signatures from staff members.
Redfield responded to the letter by saying “CDC is committed to fostering a fair, equitable, and inclusive environment in which staff can openly share their concerns with agency leadership.”
Dr. Camara Phyllis Jones, a former employee advocating the letter, was deeply disappointed with the response, finding it “disheartening and disrespectful” that Redfield did not address the specific demands of the letter.
Those seven demands call for social justice and racial equity changes. The list includes demands such as declaring racism a public health crisis, increasing black representation through diversity hirings, establishing safe spaces for CDC employees, removing “visible and invisible” barriers to advancement for black employees and implementing implicit bias training.
Combating the ‘Invisible Barriers’ of ‘Systemic Racism’
The first demand, that the CDC “declare racism a public health crisis in the United States,” and the fourth demand, to “dismantle the visible and invisible barriers to career advancement for Black employees,” carry with them a few troubling presuppositions.
