Top corporations fund ‘war on whiteness’

Chuck Ross writes for the Washington Free Beacon about a questionable priority for leading American businesses.

Procter & Gamble and other prominent corporations fund a “racial justice” group whose leader, a former Obama White House official, lashed out this week at what he called “white mediocrity” and urged a “woke” army of black youth “to wage war with whiteness.”

David Johns, who led President Barack Obama’s White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans, made the remarks at an event Tuesday to promote a boycott against Target for rolling back its DEI programs.

Johns is the executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, a black LGBT group that aims to fight “anti-Blackness.” The nonprofit lists companies like Airbnb, Sephora, Sony, and Procter & Gamble as sponsors. Procter & Gamble, which sells household brands like Gillette and Charmin, contributed $515,000 to the National Black Justice Coalition in 2023, around one-fourth of the nonprofit’s budget, according to tax records. The Department of Health and Human Services under President Biden awarded the National Black Justice Coalition a $1.2 million contract through 2026 as part of the government’s “Let’s Stop HIV Together” campaign. It is unclear if HHS is still funding the coalition, but Johns said last month his organization was “proud to be a grantee” of the HIV program.

Speaking at the anti-Target event, Johns endorsed the boycott and railed against President Donald Trump as a “fascist trying to rob us of our wealth.” He also urged black consumers to shop at black-owned businesses as part of a movement to “reclaim … African ways of being.”

“We don’t need nothing from white people. We don’t need nothing from white people,” said Johns. “They can’t even make potato salad.”

“We have everything we need to ensure that our babies are woke, that they are critical thinkers, that they are equipped to do the kind of work to wage war with whiteness,” said Johns, adding that “we don’t need to be lulled by the trappings of white mediocrity.”