News/Commentary

BlackRock CEO talk about ‘forcing behaviors’ may explain why ‘woke’ runs amok today

June 5, 2023 | | Print Article

Video of BlackRock CEO Larry Fink speaking at Deal Book 2017 resurfaced over the weekend and may help explain why woke runs amok in the year 2023.

In the clip, the discussion is on more diversity at the top of corporations in America and Fink stressed that this is an investment criteria for the world’s largest asset manager — keep in mind that 19 Attorneys General singled out BlackRock in 20222 for their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) activism, as noted by Independent Women’s Forum.

In effect, the CEO said the desired behavior of placing diversity ahead of competence must be “forced” on companies.

“Behaviors are gonna have to change,” Fink insisted. “And this is one thing we’re asking companies — you have to force behaviors, and at BlackRock, we are forcing behaviors. Fifty-four percent of the incoming class are women, we added four more points in terms of diverse employment this year and… what we were doing internally is if you don’t achieve these levels of impact your compensation could be impacted okay.”

“It’s just, you have to force behaviors and if you don’t force behaviors, whether it’s gender or race or just anyway you want to say the composition of your team, you’re gonna be impacted and that’s not just not recruiting it is development,” he added.

The “End Wokeness” Twitter account noted in sharing the clip, “Why has everything gone woke these days? ESG scores.”

The remarkable admission drew Elon Musk’s attention, and not necessarily in a positive manner:

In another tweet, Musk replied, “Concerning.”

A BlackRock spokesperson responded with a statement to American Wire saying the video clip is “often taken out of context.”

“This nearly six-year-old clip misconstruing Larry’s words about BlackRock’s own approach to its employees has been circulating for years on social media and is often taken out of context,” the statement said. “As a fiduciary, BlackRock’s actions serve one purpose: maximizing long-term financial value for our clients. As an employer, BlackRock seeks to hire employees from a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives because we believe this diversity is critical to delivering for our clients in a rapidly changing world.”

ESG scores represent a clever woke scoring system that assigns a social credit score on diversity and inclusion — the Corporate Equality Index, which is overseen by the pro-LGBTQ+ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, is considered ” an ominous cog in ESG’s wheel,” according to the New York Post.

The score is considered all-important by many corporations that fear being canceled over a bad score — fear of the intolerant left is evidently greater than fear of alienating loyal consumers, as Bud Light and Target have recently proven.

This may explain why even Chick-fil-A, a Christian-based company, has seemingly gone down the diversity, equity and inclusion path.

Here’s a sampling of responses to the story from Twitter:

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