“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”― Lyndon B. Johnson

When President Lyndon B. Johnson made this comment in the 1960s, he could have been gazing into a crystal ball. The words perfectly predict the political agenda on which Donald Trump based his racist and misogynistic campaigns in his effort to divide and conquer the electorate.

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Trump has transformed the concept of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) into an accusation and epithet. He and his followers define the term as promoting unqualified, poorly experienced, and poorly educated people. In Trump’s world, DEI means hiring practices are anti-white and anti-male and rely on low expectations regarding workplace quality and performance.

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Trump’s recent executive order revoking Lyndon B. Johnson’s landmark anti-discrimination act declared that DEI programs utilize “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences” and “undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system.”

“Hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American Dream should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race or sex,” the order stated.

But that’s not it at all.

To paraphrase the National Association for Multicultural Education, DEI is a philosophical and educational model founded on principles of freedom, justice, equality, equity, and the empowerment of human agency, integrity, and dignity as illuminated in the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence, as well as the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights. DEI affirms a standard of governmental, educational, and business policies and practices in organizing and sustaining positive, warm, and welcoming places essential in a democratic society. It values the many social and cultural differences and identities and prizes the pluralism that all people bring.

What is more “pro-American” and “patriotic” than programs and people who are attempting to bring about the promise of our founding documents?

But opposing forces have launched a fierce and sustained backlash to turn back progressive social change, including shutting down DEI initiatives.

And this did not start with Trump’s recent anti-DEI crusade, which has also included an executive order on “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.” That order claimed DEI programs constitute “immense public waste and shameful discrimination.”

During his first term, he also signed an executive order banning DEI programs in government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and other institutions that held or applied for federal contracts. The stated purpose of the order was to “combat offensive and anti-American race and sex stereotyping.”

This way of thinking has become infused into right-wing media.

Last year, Fox host Laura Ingraham blasted DEI for causing the incident of a door panel blowing off the fuselage of an Alaska Airlines plane over the state of Oregon at 16,000 feet, which terrified passengers and forced the pilots to make an emergency landing.

“We can’t link the diversity efforts to what happened, that would take an exhaustive investigation,” she admitted. “But it’s worth asking at this point, is excellence what we need in airline operation, or is diversity the goal here?”

Ingraham’s message implies that DEI efforts are more related to “wokeness” than to hiring talented and highly qualified employees and parrots the right-wing talking point that companies are prioritizing diversity over safety and that quality and diversity in hiring are mutually exclusive.

During the unprecedented windblown wildfires in Southern California this past month, billionaires Elon Musk and Bill Ackman, among others on social media platforms, have, without any evidence, blasted the Los Angeles Fire Department’s DEI initiatives as the cause of the widespread devastation and loss of life.  

Musk reposted several anti-DEI posts on X, including one declaring, “DEI means people DIE.”

The online biography of Kristin Crowley, Chief of the LAFD, says she is the department’s first woman and first LGBTQ+ chief. Her department also created a DEI bureau the year she was hired. Though creating greater diversity within the force was one of her ten initial objectives, reducing readiness and quality of service never entered into the equation. Crowley’s main focus has always been on preventing and extinguishing fires.

Right-wing commentator Matt Walsh argued on X, without proof, that the LAFD “deliberately set out to exclude white men from becoming firefighters” by announcing its commitments to hiring and retaining more diverse employees.

Elon Musk has also shouted from the rooftops into his high-volume microphone on his X platform his disdain for DEI efforts by promoting a post arguing that graduates from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have IQs nearing “borderline intellectual impairment.”

Musk promoted the post of a popular user called @eyeslasho, which argued that the United Airlines program of hiring traditionally underrepresented employees such as people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, and others, some from HBCUs, is dangerous because graduates from HBCUs are not intelligent, and, therefore, not qualified to fly a plane.

“The mean IQ of grads from two of those United Airline HBCU ‘partners’ is about 85 to 90, based on the average SATs at those schools. (The SAT correlates reasonably well with IQ.),” @eyeslasho wrote. “The HBCU IQ averages are within 10 points of the threshold for what is considered ‘borderline intellectual impairment.’”

Musk added: “It will take an airplane crashing and killing hundreds of people for them to change this crazy policy of DIE.” This came on the heels of the billionaire broadcasting a tweet asserting that Jews push “hatred against whites.”

While opportunities have opened up somewhat for people of color at primarily white universities since the 1964 Civil Rights Act, hundreds of thousands of people attend HBCUs today due to the high-quality education, stimulating atmosphere, and diversity in the student population and among professors, along with the cultural sensitivity in pedagogical methodologies. In addition, non-black students comprised 24% of enrollment at HBCUs as of 2022.

Esteemed graduates from these institutions include Thurgood Marshall, Spike Lee, Toni Morrison, and former Vice President Kamala Harris, among many others.

While Trump, Musk, and others on the political right oppose DEI initiatives, they stand in full and unqualified support for politics, programs, and institutions that promote OPK (oligarchs, plutocrats, and kleptocrats) hiring and retention initiatives. Simply consider Trump’s selection of his cabinet, advisors, and ambassadors for his second term, which includes an unprecedented number of billionaires. There is also the looming reality of a joint Trump/Musk presidency.

Falling over our bootstraps

The continuing and perennial need for DEI programs in schools and industry lays bare the lie that the United States stands as a meritocratic nation built on the dream and practice that hard work, talent, and ambition alone is the ticket to success, regardless of one’s social identities.

The story goes something like this: For those of us living in the United States, it matters not from which station of life we come. It matters not about our backgrounds and social or personal identities. We each have been born into a system that guarantees equal and equitable access to opportunities.

Success is ours through hard work, study, ambition, and by deferring gratification to later in our lives. We will succeed if we “keep our nose to the grindstone” (ouch!) and “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps” (without falling over on our faces).

This concept of “meritocracy” is founded on “personal responsibility,” and those who do not achieve success must accept responsibility for their failures. Maybe they did not try hard enough. Maybe they failed to scale any barriers that could have been placed in their way because they did not have enough will, self-control, fortitude, intelligence, or character or because they simply made bad choices.

While of course, we are all accountable and liable for our actions, what impact do the systemic conditions of our nation have to do with personal success?

This concept of meritocracy fails to consider the long legacy of differentials of power and privilege based on the social identities of race, socioeconomic class, gender, gender identity, sexual identity, ability, age, and others.

Today, the United States stands as the most culturally and religiously diverse country in the world. This diversity poses great challenges and great opportunities. The way we meet these challenges will determine whether we remain in the abyss of our history or whether we can truly achieve our promise of becoming a shining beacon to the world.

When deployed effectively, DEI initiatives can give us all the opportunity to shine to the outer limits of our potential.

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