The program was led by the consulting firm White Men As Full Diversity Partners, which specializes in helping white males “awaken together.” The participants included a former three-star general and the vice president of production for the $1.7 trillion F-35 fighter jet program.
To begin, the diversity trainers led a “free association” exercise, asking the Lockheed employees to list connotations for the term “white men.” The trainers wrote down “old, racist, privileged, anti-women, angry, Aryan Nation, KKK, Founding fathers, guns, guilty, can’t jump.”
The trainers then asked “what’s in it for white men,” listing responses: “I won’t get replaced by someone who is a better full diversity partner,” “[I will] improve the brand, image, reputation of white men,” and “I [will] have less nagging sense of guilt that I am the problem.”
White Men As Full Diversity Partners argues that the “roots of white male culture” include traits such as “rugged individualism,” “a can-do attitude,” “hard work,” “operating from principles,” and “striving towards success”—which are “devastating” to women and minorities.