The Central Intelligence Agency continued its series of “woke” recruitment ads, with two videos featuring a man who “[grew] up gay in a small Southern town” and a blind employee who talks about the agency’s push to “create a more inclusive environment.” The ads have been criticized for lacking any information about job qualifications or what the agency’s various jobs entail.
“Growing up gay in a small Southern town, I was lucky to have a wonderful and accepting family. I always struggled with the idea that I may not be able to discuss my personal life at work,” a male CIA employee says in the ad, which was originally posted April 8, but came to light last week. “Imagine my surprise when I was taking my oath at the CIA and I noticed a rainbow on then-Director Brennan’s lanyard.”
“I remember being stunned,” the man continues, adding that “inclusion is a core value here [at the CIA].”
“Officers from the top-down work hard to ensure that every single person, whatever their gender, gender identity, race, disability, or sexual orientation, can bring their entire self to work every day,” the man says.
In the second advertisement originally released Jan. 4 but circulating last week, a blind woman in a “Love Is Love” sweatshirt is led through a CIA facility by her guide dog.
“Someone with a disability finding rejection is fairly common, I think, especially with opportunities at times,” the woman says, later adding, “I want people with disabilities to know that the agency does hire.”
“We all have different skills, abilities, and we can offer great assets to the agency. I think doing that will make the agency and employer of choice. That is the director’s goal. We at the agency have incorporated a large investment in physical infrastructure, digital remediation and creating a more inclusive environment,” she says.
The ads are part of a series dubbed “Humans of CIA” and come after an ad featuring an agent who described herself as a “cisgender millennial” was the target of mockery and criticism on social media last week.
“If you’re a Chinese communist, or an Iranian Mullah, or Kim Jong Un…would this scare you?” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted in response to the first ad. “We’ve come a long way from Jason Bourne.”
“The CIA used to be about mission to country. (I speak from experience) Now it’s now about demanding — and getting — accommodation to fix an emotional wound or advance a personal agenda,” former CIA Ops officer Bryan Dean Wright posted.
“America is less safe with this new CIA, and dangerously more political,” he added.
Former President Donald Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. tweeted, “China & Russia are laughing their asses off watching CIA go full woke. ‘Cisgender.’ ‘Intersectional.’ It’s like @TheBabylonBee is handling CIA’s comms. If you think about it, wokeness is the kind of twisted PSYOP a spy agency would invent to destroy a country from the inside out.”
