Sam Amico
Videos by OutKick
Nashville-based company Asurion is teaching its employees how to be less white. And not just less white, but how to be more black.
According to OutKick sources, management at Asurion has started handing out the book “How to Be Black,” authored by Baratunde Thurston, as part of Employment Appreciation Day.
Asurion hails itself as a technology insurance and repair company. “When your technology works, your life does too,” the Asurion website reads. “From fixing cracked screens and replacing lost phones to resolving video streaming issues and more, our Asurion experts are here to make things right.”
Its specialties apparently aren’t limited to just technology though. They now also specialize in race and culture training.
Per OutKick sources, Asurion management sent out a video to accompany the book and hammer home the “How to Be Black” rally cry. The “goofy” video explains the “the importance of getting past our biases,” per one source. Amy Orem, a senior VP of supply chain at Asurion, is the speaker featured in the video.
What makes all this even more interesting is that Thurston is an American comedian — and has indicated the book isn’t to be taken too seriously. He once described the book’s purpose as “another side of the black experience while offering practical, comedic advice based on my own painful lessons learned.” He added that “if you don’t have a sense of humor, this book will upset you greatly.”
Whether the book is to be taken seriously or not, this is a bad move for Asurion. By handing out the book and distributing the video, they are sending out the message that employees aren’t allowed to be comfortable in their own skin.
Or perhaps Asurion is merely intending to have some fun.
But in these days of over-sensitivity and “cancellation” for even the smallest, most-innocent action, this was, at best, a fairly moronic decision from Asurion management. At worst, the company is telling its employees it’s only OK to be one race.
Lol
“if you don’t have a sense of humor, this book will upset you greatly.”
I predict his cancellation the minute a blue checkmark finds this out.
Go to your local cvs loot it then burn it down you can see lessons almost nightly if you don’t want to read oh and maybe assault someone in the process
HAHAHA!!
My brother in law is a VP at this company. I just took a picture of this article and sent it to my sister (his wife) and my brother HAHA!! OMG!!! The holidays just got a WHOLE LOT more entertaining!!
Lou Reed’s “I Wanna Be Black”
I wanna be black, have natural rhythm
Shoot twenty foot of jism too
And fuck up the jews
I wanna be black, I wanna be a Panther
Have a girlfriend named Samantha
And have a stable of foxy whores
Oh oh, I wanna be black
I don’t wanna be a fucked up
Middle class college student anymore
I just wanna have a stable of
Foxy little whores
Yeah yeah, I wanna be black
Oh, I wanna be black
Yeah yeah, I wanna be black
I wanna be black, wanna be like Martin Luther King
And get myself shot in the spring
And lead a whole generation, too
And fuck up the jews (fuck up the jews)
I wanna be black, I wanna be like Malcolm X
And cast a hex
Over President Kennedy’s tomb
And have a big prick too (have a big prick too)
Forward by Rachel Dolezal.
I know multiple people of multiple races that work there. All were shocked and embarrassed that the company sent this out. And it’s wild that the company didn’t realize it was meant to be humorous. The author is from The Onion! It’s right there on the cover!