Our Problematic Nation: America Isn’t Down with DEI
Will 2024 mark the beginning of the end for big-budget racial division?
What’s good for DEI programs is good for minorities. And if you’re against DEI, you’re against minorities. That’s the impression you often get from reporters and pundits. One Boston Globe headline put it bluntly: “DEI Denial is the Modern Day Lynching.”
Recent developments—such as the Supreme Court’s rejection of racial preferences and the explosion of campus antisemitism—have left the formerly untouchable DEI industry as anxious as an adjunct professor.
And as universities and corporations take a closer look at their overgrown DEI budgets, expect most in the media to double down on casting the controversy as a racially charged battle between good and evil. Consider that the “modern day lynching” claim preceded the recent wave of DEI skepticism.
But there’s a surprising group that complicates the story media outlets want to tell. This group opposes racial preferences, equity, and cancel culture, and thinks many of the most common microaggressions aren’t really offensive. This group is known as Americans.
It’s true. In general and for the most part, Americans of all hues share some problematic views about DEI’s sacred truths.
That’s good news for those of us rooting for less tribalism and more free expression, but it’s bad news for DEI Inc. Americans reject at least two of its three pillars.
Take the D—Diversity.
Americans generally support racial diversity. In fact, they usually support affirmative action if it means minority outreach programs and the like. But their enthusiasm erodes when it comes to favoring one group over another in college admissions and hiring.
After examining many recent surveys, I’ve discovered widespread opposition to racial preferences among Americans from all racial groups.
By my tally, a majority of Asians oppose racial preferences in three out of three polls. The same can be said of black respondents in six out of eight polls, and whites in seven out of seven polls. Majorities of Hispanics opposed preferences in five polls, and the numbers were split equally in two polls.
Now for the E.
Americans would be all for the E if it stood for “equality.” In
, Ruy Teixeira points out various instances where they choose it over the industry standard term, equity.For instance, 92 percent of Americans support what Teixeira calls the “MLK-style statement” whereby: “Our goal as a society should be to treat all people the same without regard to the color of their skin.”
But like DEI dissident Karith Foster, the good reverend probably wouldn't be hired by today’s Diversity Deans. No, the keepers of the cash write checks to speakers, like Ibram X Kendi, who regard any black-white disparity as evidence of racism.
Kendi’s infamous solution is discrimination:
The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination … The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.
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Now it’s not like Americans oppose everything touted by DEI devotees. Americans of all colors agree that systemic racism exists and that it plays at least some role in racial disparities in areas like health and finances.
But the rubber hasn’t met the road yet. Things get real when you ask a different question: What should be done about disparities?
Kendi calls for the creation of a federal Department of Anti-racism (DOA) “comprised of formally trained experts on racism.” Trained by whom, I wonder!
His DOA description reads like something Ayn Rand would write if she returned from the dead and cooked up a novel based on a sinister DEI plot:
The DOA would be responsible for preclearing all local, state and federal public policies to ensure they won’t yield racial inequity, monitor those policies, investigate private racist policies when racial inequity surfaces, and monitor public officials for expressions of racist ideas. The DOA would be empowered with disciplinary tools to wield over and against policymakers and public officials who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas.
No doubt critics would accuse Rand of straw-manning, but Kendi is serious.
Good thing Americans reject the heavy hand of the federal government. When it comes to making positive change, black, white, Asian, and Hispanic Americans trust the federal government the least and small business the most.
And the racial harmony doesn’t stop there: Americans of all colors are fed up with cancel culture and aren’t offended by many of the most common microaggressions.
You’d hope university administrators would at least poll some black and brown Americans to find out what they actually think before crafting speech codes on their behalf. Then again, less racial strife is bad for business.
And most media outlets are happy to maintain the charade. Some engage in direct distortion, but most simply frame away the truth. They avoid outright falsehoods, but shape content in such a way as to invite readers and viewers to jump to the wrong conclusions.
I’ve read many public opinion surveys about these thorny issues, but I’ve yet to encounter one that asks Americans what they think other Americans think about DEI dogmas.
My guess is that many of us are like the onlookers during the absurd procession in The Emperor’s New Clothes. We see the nakedness of the powerful but are afraid to speak up because we assume our neighbors have been duped.
Here’s some good news—your neighbors see what you see.
Ted Balaker is a filmmaker, and former network newser and think tanker. His recent work includes Little Pink House starring Catherine Keener and Jeanne Tripplehorn, Can We Take a Joke? featuring Gilbert Gottfried and Penn Jillette, and a soon-to-be-released feature documentary based on the bestselling book, The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt.
As I’ll write sometime soon, “equity” is nothing more than eugenics for people who flunked math.
I am being held prisoner against my will.
Please help me get my life back.
Charles H. Swartz
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