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Why This North Face Discount Is Facing So Much Backlash

What a company does for “pride month” is usually a good indicator of how woke it is. Sponsoring an LGBT event, for example, is a far cry from the over-the-top commercials companies like The North Face produce, which leave viewers seriously questioning whether what they just watched was real or satire.  Last year, for example, “Patti Gonia” was the star of one of a North Face video promoting its “Outside Together” collection, inviting supporters to “gay sashay across the nation” with various events for their Summer of Pride. Thus, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the company is also completely behind the DEI agenda. 

In the UK, customers can get a 20 percent discount if they not only take an hour-long course on racial inclusion, but answer the questions "correctly," which as GB News’s Jacob Rees-Mogg pointed out, is "a very totalitarian approach." 

The sportswear brand says its Allyship in the Outdoors course in the United Kingdom is meant to “educate individuals …on the barriers that people of colour face in the outdoors,” and describes access to the outdoors “in this context” as “white privilege.”

It’s also designed to “foster a deeper understanding of the unique challenges that people of color face when accessing the outdoors,” according to the survey. […]

Shoppers who downloaded the digital course highlighted sections of the “modules” that they found particularly irksome, including a description of ‘white privilege.’

“In this particular context we refer to ‘white privilege’ meaning that your race and skin colour can give you access to the outdoors when others can be excluded because of historic enduring racism and biases,” according to an expert of the course. (New York Post)

While the promo was ripped on social media, the company stood behind the effort. 

“The North Face has always believed the outdoors should be a welcoming, equitable and safe place for all,” the company told the Post in a statement. “This course aims to bring light to the barriers to entry preventing all people from sharing equally rewarding experiences in the outdoors.”