Illinois DEI Training Compares White People and Cops to Blood-Sucking Mosquitoes

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker's Department of Human Rights is offering a taxpayer-funded training course on “microaggressions” that uses a video comparing white people and police officers to mosquitoes biting people of color.

The course is offered through the Illinois Department of Human Rights' (IDHR) Training Institute, not just to state employees, but to "private-sector, government, and public participants" across Illinois, backed by a department budget of nearly $30 million in 2024.

The Washington Free Beacon attended the May 15 session and reported that the training included a video titled “How Microaggressions Are Like Mosquito Bites,” along with slides defining “color blindness,” “assumption of criminal status,” and “denial of individual racism” as themes of race-based microaggressions.

The “color blindness” example listed in the training was the statement, “When I look at you, I don’t see color.” The training said the message behind that statement is that it “denies a person of color’s racial/ethnic experience.”

Another example listed “My best friend is Black” under “denial of individual racism,” with the message: “I’m immune because I have friends of color.”

Then came the mosquito video, and it ends with a Black woman torching the mosquitoes with a flamethrower.

The video opens by telling viewers to imagine a microaggression as a mosquito bite instead of just “a stupid comment.” It then shows a white woman telling a black woman, “Oh, you’re so well spoken,” before turning into a mosquito and biting her.

The video keeps going from there. A person asks, "Where are you really from?" Another says, "Oh, your English is so good." Another tells a same-sex couple, "I couldn't even tell you were gay."

The narrator explains that repeated "mosquito bites" can make someone "want to go ballistic on those mosquitoes," while those not on the receiving end think the reaction is overblown. Then the video escalates.

"Beyond just being annoying, some mosquitoes carry truly threatening diseases that can mess up your life for years."

That line sets up the video's treatment of police.

"And other mosquitoes carry strains that can even kill you. He looked like he was up to trouble. Okay, I felt threatened."

That is the material Pritzker’s human rights department is using in a course presented as workplace training.

The Free Beacon reported that Michael Patrick, a public service administrator at the Illinois Department of Human Rights, led the session. Patrick told participants directly: "A lot of times people don't mean to cause harm, but the impact and the intent is not the same thing. And over time, repeated experiences like that can contribute to things like stress, exclusion, and inequity."

He also defended the flamethrower scene. "I had somebody in one of my classes that thought the woman with the flamethrower was overreacting," Patrick said. "And it just kind of shows you that maybe they were not on the receiving end of the mosquito bites."

Upon completion, participants received a certificate signed by IDHR Director James Bennett, a Pritzker appointee whose official biography touts his work launching training to "advance knowledge and understanding of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) and implicit bias."

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The department, for its part, says its Training Institute exists to increase "knowledge, awareness and prevention of discrimination and harassment issues" and to offer solutions for employers and employees.

The actual content, according to the training materials and video, includes a state-backed lesson that treats "I don't see color" as a problem, compares routine awkward comments to blood-sucking insects, and folds police officers into the same metaphor as mosquitoes that "can even kill you."

For a governor often mentioned as a possible 2028 Democratic contender, this is not some stray campus seminar or a random activist workshop. It is an Illinois state agency training, offered to public and private participants, carrying the imprimatur of the state government.

Pritzker has made a pattern of this. In 2021, he signed a bill that grades prospective state contractors on how much money they donate to DEI nonprofits and how much their leaders pledge to promote DEI in their communities.

The obvious question is whether Illinois taxpayers signed up to fund workplace training or political indoctrination dressed up in HR language. The less comfortable answer is sitting right there in the course material.

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