Who owns Hasbro? Insider leaks toy company's CRT program that claims kids have racial bias
James O'Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, interviewed a Hasbro insider, a packaging engineer. David Johnson, the insider, spoke about the critical race theory training he was forced to participate in and leaked a video showing The Conscious Kid co-founders Katie Ishizuka and Ramón Stephens lecturing Hasbro employees, as per The Post Millennial.
The Conscious Kid, as per its website, is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit that serves as an “education, research, and policy organization dedicated to equity and promoting healthy racial identity development in youth.” Per The Post Millennial, in the interview, Johnson said, “They are attempting to covertly push CRT -- critical race theory -- through branding and messaging through their products,” adding that a program developed by The Conscious Kid “is working with Hasbro to teach children about racial bias at an early age.”
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The program reportedly talked about how children show racial bias at an early age as young as three to six months. The program also reportedly talked about how children are capable of expressing racial bias by age three. "This isn't something I want to do; this is something I felt I had to do. This is a hill worth dying on," said Johnson about acting as a whistleblower. “I decided to come to Project Veritas because I oppose the indoctrination of children that they wanted to push, and I felt that more people needed to know about it.”
Speaking with O’Keefe, Johnson also said in the video, "I think it's absurd to just state as fact that at two-years old-that children are going to be racist, and using race to reason about who they're going to play with, and discriminating based on." He added, “I've seen this ideology a lot over the past seven years. To have it so in-my-face at my place of work was just astounding to me.”
“To just state categorically that, at five years old, your children are as racist as the adults -- which is implying that the parents are also racist in some manner -- I just think it's absurd,” he said. Johnson also added, "We're not supposed to be a society where the Black people only play with the Black toys, and the White people only play with the White toys. And, to me, that's not progress; it's regress. It's regress of the Civil Rights Era, and the progress that was made then… Why are they trying to get people to see the world in terms of race, if they're the same people who are complaining that one group is privileged over another?"
Earlier this year, Hasbro announced that all 16 of Monopoly’s Community Chest cards, which allow players to collect extra money, will be replaced to bring them more in line with current social attitudes. The existing set of cards offered players cash bonuses such as “second prize in a beauty contest” for $10 or “Bank error in your favor” for $200.
Hasbro, however, said that they are “overdue for a refresh,” because the Covid-19 pandemic has given the word “community” a “whole new meaning.” The company even invited the general public to help change this by voting online for new Community Chest cards, such as “Shop Local,”“Rescue A Puppy,” or “Help Your Neighbors.”
Who owns Hasbro?
The American multinational conglomerate headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, was founded by Henry and Hillel Hassenfeld in 1923. In 1968, Hasbro became a publicly traded company. Brian Goldner, who joined the company in 2000, became Hasbro CEO in 2008.
As per an article published on the Nasdaq website, Hasbro has a market capitalization of $13 billion, and institutional investors own over 50percent of the company. Capital Research and Management Company is currently the company's largest shareholder with 11 percent of shares outstanding. The Vanguard Group, Inc is the second-largest shareholder owning 11 percent of common stock, and BlackRock, Inc. holds about 8.5 percent of the company stock. Additionally, the company's CEO Brian Goldner directly holds 0.8 percent of the total shares outstanding.
The report said that nine of the top shareholders account for roughly 50 percent of the register. The report noted that insiders (while the term is broad, board members fall under this bracket) own $803 million worth of shares at the company. The general public holds a 12 percent stake in Hasbro.