The Patriot Post® · Woke Coke Mum on China's Genocide

Earlier this year, we noted how the executives at Coca-Cola had jumped fully on board the Left’s “woke” social justice train, actively pushing Critical Race Theory. As our guest columnist Tom Aquinas observed, “[Coke is] more concerned with its distorted notion of social justice and less concerned about why so few are drinking its product.” This came to light with Coke’s active racism, wherein it subjected employees to a training program that told them to “try to be less white.”

When the news leaked and the predictable blowback followed, Coke sought to walk back its CRT push. The company issued a statement saying that it is essentially committed to equality in the true sense, where people are judged by their words and actions, not by their skin color.

Yet when an issue of genuine racial injustice on a societal and governmental scale is ripe for public condemnation, the execs at Coke suddenly go silent.

This past January, the U.S. State Department classified Beijing’s actions against Uyghur Muslims as genocide. Many Uyghur leaders have condemned China and called for the world to boycott China’s scheduled hosting of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. Salih Hudayar, founder of the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement, stated, “We should not empower China by allowing it to host the Winter Olympics while it is engaged in genocide and other crimes against humanity.”

When Coke was questioned as to whether it would support the effort to pressure China into ending its Uyghur genocide by having the games relocated outside of the communist dictatorship, Coke’s global vice president for human rights, Paul Lalli, dodged any commitment to such an effort. “We do not make decisions on these host locations,” he insisted. “We support and follow the athletes wherever they compete.”

So, to put things in perspective, when it comes to the patently false claims from Black Lives Matter that the entire U.S. is steeped in “systemic racism,” Coke goes woke. But when it comes to actual instances of massive injustice in the form of genocide — systematic abuse, slave labor, rape, torture, and death — Coke refuses to offer even a hint of criticism. Even Democrat Representative Tom Malinowski sees Coke’s hypocrisy, observing: “You are afraid of [China] in a way that you are not afraid of critics in the United States. I think that’s shameful.”

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) similarly challenged Coke execs over their opposition to Georgia’s election integrity legislation. “Can you tell me,” he asked, “why Coca-Cola doesn’t have a say in whether it sponsors the genocide Olympics next year, but it does a have a say in how the state of Georgia runs its elections laws?” He added: “You are spending millions of dollars to sponsor the genocide Olympics, yet you will not opine on any matter about it. Yet you will stick your nose in the Georgia legislature’s election reform laws. Can you explain to me the contrast?”

Sure. One takes real bravery. The other takes empty virtue signaling. It’s easy to spot the difference.