Wake up the philosophy of American Express

There are few companies more synonymous with consumer finance than American Express, the longtime and iconic credit card provider.

I still remember the day when you were afraid to carry cash on vacation, you bought the company’s traveler’s checks because, as the company’s popular commercial said, you “don’t leave home without them.”

To this day, AmEx continues to be a staple consumer product.

It serves its customers well, especially those of us who hate monthly fees and opt for yearly fees.

Most people I know have at least one AmEx card as well as a corporate one.

Yes, I am a happy AmEx customer.

That’s why the hell it baffles me so much that this company – with the word “American” in its name, no less – is pushing for an anti-American corporate awakening in the name of social justice.

According to critics, AmEx’s dance with the awakening devil seems to have started sometime in 2020 and mostly after the police killing of George Floyd and the ensuing race riots (although company insiders claim it has evolved from its original structure into something more) . inclusive).

In any case, it wasn’t just the company that tried to use the tragedy and social upheaval as a lesson.

In fact, I don’t know of any major corporation that hasn’t addressed this issue in one way or another, either in their diversity sessions or in their communications with employees.

But AmEx’s experiment with what is often euphemistically referred to in corporate circles as “educating diversity and inclusion” for its employees does illustrate how the social justice debate has also taken on an aggressive streak.

The horrendous behavior of some rogue cops was used as an excuse to promote a radical version of America, as a racist country in desperate need of reform was all too common in corporate America.

Recall how JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon knelt in apparent solidarity with the financially shadowy and radical Black Lives Matter movement, which has become a favorite recipient of innumerable donations from corporate titans that signal virtue.

A professor at the prestigious Yale School of Management convened top executives to denounce Georgia’s voter registration law, which was deemed racist because people were asked to show proper identification.

Inborn racism? Really?

Then there were sensitivity sessions.

Bank of America has set up a program at one of its branches to correct past mistakes by educating employees about their inherent racism and how such flaws are passed on to their children by the time they are 5 years old.

And if you believe some of the words of AmEx employees, both former and current, the credit card company has taken its diversity education to the extreme and, depending on who you talk to, continues to do so.

Chris Rufo of the Manhattan Institute first documented this madness when he discovered educational materials on corporate diversity featuring speakers who subscribed to the pernicious and divisive Critical Race Theory, a social movement that views America as a racist society and especially despises capitalism for such bias.

The company soon came under intense pressure to release data on how they hire and promote people, largely based on race and gender, making these factors largely determine hiring decisions, critics say.

The Diversity and Inclusion sessions discussed pseudo-intellectual quirks such as “intersectionality” that sees the world through the lens of our gender and racial differences.

It also essentially stigmatizes any straight white male as inherently racist and in need of brainwashing.

So-called “macro-aggressions” in which certain words, even if they are used unintentionally, are perceived as racist when dealing with people from so-called oppressed groups.

They consider hostile speech unsuitable for work and grounds for disciplinary action.

And what would a diversity/inclusion session be without a little CRT; one guest speaker at the “optional” diversity seminar argued that America is still a racist relic, despite court rulings, years of affirmative action, and the election of a black president and now vice president.

It’s amazing that this kind of bullshit, usually found on college campuses, made its way to corporate America, but it did.

The good news is that most of the companies I’ve contacted for this column tell me that some of what I’ve just outlined was an overreaction to the heat of the moment.

They removed classes on inclusive education.

Instead of separating people along racial lines, they tend to build bridges and work as a team.

Does this include AmEx? Well, it depends on who you’re talking to.

A spokesman for the firm declined to respond to the complaints, and to the fact that the company’s “diversity and inclusion” seminars still feature such nonsense.

Some employees argue that awakening remains in so-called “D&I” training, but messaging is seen as more opaque.

A source inside the company said that the worst of what you read about this no longer exists.

Again, this is so weird, especially considering the AmEx brand and who runs the place, CEO Stephen Square, a guy from Queens and a graduate of Monsignor McClancy Memorial High School in East Elmhurst.

Since Squeri was named CEO in 2018, AmEx’s market value has risen to $123 billion.

It is one of the most valuable companies in the world and has outperformed both the S&P and the Dow during this time.

Square is the American Dream, as I was told by mutual friends: a local boy of modest means who had made his way to the top of one of the largest financial companies in the world.

And not because the presence of a vowel at the end of his last name opened many doors to large Wall Street firms operating in white shoes.

Sounds like a great story for an AmEx diversity session.