Microsoft brags about pushing DEI since the late '80s — including 'gender-affirming benefits'



Microsoft's 2024 diversity and inclusion report highlights race- and sexuality-based programs dating back to the 1980s.

The report begins with the chief diversity officer stating that the company's inclusivity mission aims to empower "every person and every organization on the planet" to achieve more.

These vague platitudes were followed with a list of disturbing initiatives that started as early as 1985.

This included naming a "diversity director," establishing a "minority student day," and even race-based employee groups such as "Blacks at Microsoft," all in the 1980s.

Along with groups for gays, women, and Asians, Microsoft bragged that since 1989, it has been "promoting LGBTQIA+ inclusion."

Between 1996 and 2006, Microsoft infused its progressive beliefs into politics by partnering with organizations like the United Nations and the Human Rights Campaign.

The HRC is an adamant supporter of transgender surgeries for minors. Microsoft boasted that in 2005, it achieved a perfect score on the HRC's Equality Index.

"We donated over $1 million (including company match) to 220 nonprofits supporting LGBTQIA+ communities worldwide, totaling over $16.3 million in all-time donations to these organizations," Microsoft wrote.

During this time period, Microsoft said it also offered "gender-affirming benefits" to U.S. employees.

The report stretched its claims of inclusion by reporting on generic, nonspecific woke viewpoints within the company. For example, Microsoft reported that 83.5% of its employees agreed or strongly agreed that they have seen coworkers "demonstrate allyship in the workplace."

Other statistics showed a 2.3% year-over-year increase in groupthink (78.9% to 81.2%) regarding "diversity" being "critical" to the company's success.

'We believe gaming should be inclusive of all, accessible to all, and safe for all.'

Some of Microsoft's other initiatives are even more troubling, including "hiring inclusively" and "supplier diversity."

Described as partnerships that intend to "increase opportunities for communities," "diversity" in this sense is not really explained.

Glenda Dengah, director of supplier diversity, is quoted as saying the supply program is about "cultivating enduring partnerships" from "the diverse communities we represent."

Microsoft also claimed, using uncited research, that 71% of gamers think it's very important to have diverse characters and content. Again, these terms were not defined.

"We believe gaming should be inclusive of all, accessible to all, and safe for all," the company wrote.

Despite this claim, diversity-driven games have failed to capture audiences, with several big-budget games tanking in 2024 within just days of their release.

While the report was still published, it is important to note that Microsoft quietly laid off a diversity, equity, and inclusion team in July but insisted its commitment to diversity is "unwavering."

Blaze News reached out to a spokesperson representing Microsoft to discuss what "hiring inclusively" means, what "supplier diversity" means, and where its video game-related research came from.

The spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment despite initiating contact and sending the report.

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Microsoft CEO boasts about new AI chatbot that will surveil users aided by 'photographic memory'



Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently sat down for an interview with the Wall Street Journal to promote his company's new Windows AI Copilot+ computers. Nadella appeared excited about one feature in particular — AI software that will memorize users' every action on the device with photographic clarity.

Critics, particularly those keen on maintaining some modicum of privacy and autonomy in the age of ubiquitous surveillance, have expressed concerns about the "Recall" feature.

'It can recreate moments from the past, essentially.'

Nadella indicated that the company has long dreamt of introducing "photographic memory into what you do on the PC, and now we have it."

"It's not keyword search, right. It's semantic search over all your history," Nadella said enthusiastically. "It's not just about any doc — it can recreate moments from the past, essentially."

The Wall Street Journal indicated Recall "constantly takes screenshots of what's on your screen then uses a generative AI model right on the device along with the [Neural Processing Unit] to process all that data and make it searchable. Even photos."

To run Recall, a PC must have at least 16 GB RAM, 225 GB of storage, and an NPU that can swing 40 tera operations per second.

When the interviewer pressed Nadella about the notion that Recall is "creepy," the tech CEO — whose company recently built a generative AI model for American spies, regularly services the intelligence community, and has suffered major data breaches in recent years — said, "I mean, that's why you could only do it on the Edge. ... You have to put two things together: this is my computer, this is my Recall, and it's all being done locally, right. So, that's the promise."

"That's one of the reasons why Recall works as a magical thing because I can trust it," added Nadella.

Even though Microsoft has vowed to protect users' privacy by granting them the choice of turning off Recall or filtering out what they don't want tracked, some critics are not convinced.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote, "This is a Black Mirror episode. Definitely turning this 'feature' off."

Venture capitalist Roger McNamee noted, "Given that Microsoft has not been able to prevent massive hacks of its servers, this product — which will record everything you do on a Windows PC — qualifies as criminally insane."

— (@)

"Microsoft's like 'here NSA we made this present for u,'" tweeted Mike Benz, executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online.

It appears Microsoft is focused on producing prescient AI bots as well archivists of users' correspondences, written thoughts, and virtual actions.

At a recent Microsoft event in Redmond, Washington, Nadella said Recall is a step toward machines that "instantly see us, hear, reason about our intent and our surroundings," reported MarketWatch.

"We’re entering this new era where computers not only understand us, but can actually anticipate what we want and our intent," added the CEO.

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National Cathedral swaps out Civil War-themed stained glass for civil rights-themed windows



For nearly 65 years, the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., had four Civil War-themed stained glass windows featuring Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. They were allegedly installed in hopes of ameliorating postwar tensions between North and South.

On Saturday, the nation's second-largest cathedral unveiled its civil rights-themed replacement windows, featuring faceless black protesters. They were ostensibly installed as a symbolic nod to ameliorating racial tensions.

The National Cathedral, official seat of the Episcopal Church, indicated in a statement that its four new windows "signify a new chapter in the Cathedral's historic legacy of art and architecture."

What's the background?

The neo-Gothic cathedral's original 4'x6' windows were donated by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, designed by Boston artist Wilbur H. Burnham, and installed in 1953. They depicted Jackson and Lee as pious Christians at various stages in their military and spiritual lives.

The engraved stone below the Jackson window noted that he "walked humbly before his creator," reported the Washington Post.

The stone below Lee's window stated that the prominent Episcopalian was "a Christian soldier without fear and without reproach."

The windows were reportedly installed to "foster reconciliation between parts of the nation that had been divided by the Civil War," according to the cathedral's former dean, Gary Hall.

NPR indicated that around 2015, the idea of removing Confederate symbols from the building was raised after the massacre of black Christians at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

In 2016, Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, a member of the five-person task force assembled to consider the status of the windows, intimated their historical and provocative nature was not altogether cause for iconoclasm, but a talking point.

"Instead of simply taking the windows down and going on with business as usual, the Cathedral recognizes that, for now, they provide an opportunity for us to begin to write a new narrative on race and racial justice at the Cathedral and perhaps for our nation," said Douglas.

The subsequent death of a counter-protester at the 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, expedited the removal of the windows.

At the time of their removal, Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith, dean at the cathedral, said, "Confederate monuments, windows like ours — many of them have become symbols of racism and white supremacy, and they’ve become quite painful for brothers and sisters of this nation," reported the New York Times.

On Saturday, Hollerith said, "Simply put, these windows were offensive, and they were a barrier to the ministry of this cathedral, and they were antithetical to our call to be a House of Prayer for All People. They told a false narrative, extolling two individuals who fought to keep the institution of slavery alive in this country."

New windows

Smithsonian magazine reported that the bright new images, entitled "Now and Forever," were born of a collaboration between Kerry James Marshall and stained-glass fabricator Andrew Goldkuhle.

They depict black protesters holding signs that read "fairness," "not," "no," and "no foul play."

— (@)

Kerry James Marshall, a prolific race-focused artist from Birmingham, Alabama, designed the new windows for a symbolic fee of $18.65.

Marshall told the Washington Post in 2021 that this figure is significant because, "of course, 1865 is the end of the Civil War."

The windows will soon be accompanied by a poem by Mellon Foundation president Elizabeth Alexander, whose organization helped fund the windows' replacement. The poem, which will be engraved below the windows in the coming months, notes, "May this portal be where the light comes in."

Bible passages were read, speeches were given, and gospel music was played at the Saturday dedication. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson reportedly also marked the occasion by reading excerpts from Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail."

Marshall indicated that the unveiling highlighted "one instance where a change of symbolism is meant to repair a breach of America’s creation promise of liberty and justice for all, and to reinforce those ideals and aspirations embodied in the Cathedral’s structure and its mission to remind us that we can be better, and do better, than we did yesterday, today."

"I am deeply humbled, incredibly grateful, for the opportunity and hope that the things the windows propose continue to be a catalyst for the kind of transformation that the Cathedral stands for, what this nation stands for … and what I hope we all will embody and stand for and bring forward ourselves," added Marshall.

The Art Newspaper reported that the ultimate fate of the original windows, presently being stored and conserved at the cathedral, has not yet been decided.

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Russian Police Major Falls to Her Death After Testifying Against Former Boss

A police major in Russia has become the latest person to mysteriously fall to their death from a window after testifying against her boss.