American Express CRT training urged staff to adopt a hierarchy, putting 'marginalized' above 'privileged'

American Express CRT training urged staff to adopt a hierarchy, putting 'marginalized' above 'privileged'<br /><br />Told white employees to avoid 'microaggressions' like 'We are all human beings'<br /><br />American Express subject its employees to a series of critical race theory training sessions that encouraged staff to rank themselves on a hierarchy of "privilege" and apply that hierarchy in the workplace, with the more "privileged" employees deferring to staff from "marginalized groups."<br /><br />According to internal documents reviewed by Christopher F. Rufo, a senior fellow at The Manhattan Institute, and first reported in The New York Post, Amex executives created an internal "Anti-Racism Initiative" after the death of George Floyd, subjecting employees to a training program based on CRT tenets, including intersectionality, which categorizes people as "oppressors" or "oppressed" based on racial, gender, sexual, and other identities.<br /><br />In the training, the outside consulting firm Paradigm urged Amex employees to construct their own intersectional identities, mapping their "race, sexual orientation, body type, religion, disability status, age, gender identity [and] citizenship" on an official company worksheet. Employees could then determine whether they have "privilege" or are members of a "marginalized group." Whites, males, heterosexual people, Christians, able-bodied people, and citizens would presumably count as "privileged."<br /><br />In another session, consultants instructed employees to change their behavior in the office-based on their relative position on the intersectional hierarchy. According to Rufo, the session included "a blue flowchart with specific rules for interacting with black, female and LGBT employees: If members of a subordinate group are present, workers should practice ‘intersectional allyship’ and defer to them before speaking."<br /><br />Rufo cited another handout, which instructed white employees to "identify the privileges or advantages you have"; not to "speak o