Don’t worry about DEI programs being eliminated:
These programs had no impact in the first place
There’s been concern over Trump’s manhandling DEI policies every chance he gets and recently even blaming a tragic plane crash on DEI policies without a shred of evidence. When pressed on why he made such an unfounded assessment, he stated, strangely smug, as if he would receive an award for his answer, “Because I have common sense.”
Meanwhile, companies did not wait for Trump’s directive to dismantle their DEI programs and policies. Companies such as Starbucks, Walmart, Amazon, Meta, and Target, due to pressure from conservative groups, decided on their own to end their diversity programs and anything associated with diversity initiatives.
Because of the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision to end affirmative action in college admissions, companies were concerned about the legality of race-based policies and programs. Coupled with conservative pressure to destroy the “woke” culture, companies feared boycotts of their brands, such as what happened to Bud Light.
It is not a bad idea to get rid of those DEI programs. Before I became an educator, I read Alan Bloom’s book, The Closing of the American Mind. Bloom believed that embracing cultural diversity was a trend toward relativism, a belief that only the truths of a culture or an individual are valid. He believed that affirmative action undermined merit-based college admissions and that colleges’ embrace of diversity is dangerous for America.
Bloom was wrong. His consideration of the diversity commitment that American colleges were pursuing was undermining a commitment to excellence. He thought that adding the accomplishments of other races outside of Europe was depriving students of a rich and rigorous education. In other words, he felt the accomplishments of people such as African Americans were minor and of little merit to be added to the American history landscape, and to do so would dilute the quality of education.
His view that diversity favored social quality over merit is laughable today, where we have a president who is a lair, a convicted felon, and a rapist. He never read a book in his life, caused an insurrection against America, was impeached twice, never held a real job, and is a racist when not grabbing women by their p$$$y. On what merit (besides being rich) was his ascension to the most powerful position in America based? Finally, he pardoned violent men and women who attacked and killed at least one police officer when they stormed the Capital of the United States and paid much less taxes than most Americans, whose income is only a fraction of his billions. This country is a lot of things, but to pretend it’s a meritocracy is stretching reality too far.
Most Americans were taught history from the European view. If the Indigenous people of the Americas had shared their views on history, I am sure it would have differed dramatically from the standard view. No one wants to erase the accomplishments of Europeans in the building of America. But any sensible person would agree that the story involves all Americans, and adding the experiences of Africans, Indians, Asians, and Hispanics stories does nothing to diminish the European angle. But here’s the trouble with all of that. Multiculturalism certainly supports the fact that minorities have a story to tell. The problem is, it’s a terrible story. White people don’t mind having their children learn about the accomplishments of George Washington Carver (sans all racial slights), but you’d be lucky to see a paragraph on Nate Turner, a story that can’t be whitewashed no matter how you tell it. When the problematic part of American history is told, many White people feel uncomfortable and accuse the schools of indoctrinating their children.
So why is getting rid of DEI programs good for African Americans? One thing Bloom pointed out that I agree with is that many Black students feel the mental stigma of the perception that any or all of their success is the result of affirmative action. And it makes no difference whether they were beneficiaries of affirmative action, like Clarence Thomas, or if they have never received any assistance from affirmative action at all. It is an unnecessary extra pile of crap African Americans have to contend with. It is not fair and only perpetuates the myth that Blacks require assistance to achieve the same heights of achievement that Whites have. This view totally ignores all of the other roadblocks African Americans have endured: slavery, lynching, medical experiments, segregation laws, etc. Today, we are still absent in several professions, and the most lucrative industries still hold a surprisingly low number of people of color.
I am an African American man. I have decades of work experience in the fields of education and technology. I have spent time in the corporate world, working for Time Warner Telecom as a computer network analyst, and I was the only Black manager there. I worked for the New Your Office Information of Technology as a network disaster recovery manager, where there were less than 3 Black managers out of the dozens of departments I was in charge of training. When I changed my profession to teaching, I was the only Black teacher in the high school for 7 years I worked there. In all that experience, I have never met one person who benefitted or participated in any affirmative action program. This is not an embellishment. I know they exist, but I have yet to meet one. I have never been aware of any hiring that was affirmative action. And for everyone that I hear about, there are dozens of White men who claim they lost that same single job to affirmative action.
Of course, affirmative action programs exist(ed); however, these programs are not doing a good job of putting unqualified Blacks in all of those great jobs in the industry. In my own industry, cybersecurity and education, the number of African Americans is embarrassingly low. The point is that affirmative action is not taking away a significant number of jobs from White people or putting a high number of Blacks in key positions. The least we have to say is affirmative action has absolutely no positive impact on the Black culture, either financially or socially. But it does have a very negative effect on Black people. Get rid of it. It will not harm Black people in any way that would be significant.
African Americans look to state-funded programs almost as a birthright. The mentality in some of the neighborhoods on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder has been harmfully embedded in the mindset of those benefiting from these public programs and has carried on for generations. Affirmative action is an idea that many, but not all, African Americans feel is part of our society’s general right. They accept this program without a clear view of its nature. Will Black people need this perpetually through time well into the future? Or is this a temporary program designed to have a beginning, middle, and end? The end would be the steady improvement toward the goal of a multicultural society where everyone has equal access to resources, and merit alone would determine the level of success, regardless of race.
Black celebrities are too busy entertaining the president’s people, and they are more concerned with their image and continuing to make money. They will try their best to stay neutral and do neutral things. Gone are the days of Ali, Russell, Robeson, Nina, and other African American athletes and celebrities who risked their lives and careers for the benefit of us all, and some of them lost a lot. Today, you will see celebrities complain about why their spouses have not received an Emmy or Oscar award and blame this on racism in the industry. Still, they say nothing against the blatant racism of an entire political party. The same party they are entertaining. At least they get paid this time.
Goethe made the perfect statement of how I feel about America. “When I estimate myself, I am modest, but when I compare myself, I am proud.” When I write about the ills of my country, America, I am modest about the reality that this is far from a perfect country. But when I compare it to other places, I am proud of our accomplishments. I have not seen a Black president/prime minister in Europe yet. We have put the work in to make this country what it is, and we are not going anywhere.
So, getting rid of DEI programs will force us to do the things we should have been doing all along: registering to vote, ensuring each individual registers five unregistered individuals, and figuring out a way to weaponize our vast monetary power. Imagine a great number of people organizing and boycotting stores. We will not need to write laws to protect the most basic of human needs: dignity. I believe this will happen; we’ll use our economic power to make change not by smiling and singing to them but by taking control of our lives through action.
