DEI: How to Have the Conversation

By Greg Salsbury, PhD
STARRS Board of Advisors

Many of our volunteers have the task of introducing STARRS to new potential volunteers, donors, elected officials, and civic leaders. While most of us are aware of the origins and impact of DEI policies and practices, much if not most of the general public is not. Unfortunately, due to the massive expenditure from our government, media, and many NGOs, a large number of Americans have come to believe that DEI is doing, or at least supposed to be doing good things. This often presents a challenge in explaining the STARRS mission to eradicate it from the military – especially succinctly. The following explanation is meant to help with that challenge.

Think about this challenge ladies and gentlemen. How do you go about communicating something to people when they probably believe something very different from what you are going to tell them?

For example, what if you had to go back a thousand years ago and convince people that the world was not flat? What if you had to go back to the 1700s and convince physicians that bleeding the patient was not a good idea? What if you had to go back a hundred years ago and convince people that cigarette smoking was bad for them? Tall orders, right?

Well, we have another, similar challenge right now.

You have probably heard a lot about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion or DEI. Those are wonderful sounding words. Who could be opposed to including more people, accepting individual differences, and making sure everyone gets an equal chance? That may be why polls show that when asked about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, most Americans, about 60%, are generally favorable toward it.

But what if I told you that those supposedly good intentions were not good at all, that in reality, the intentions are about as evil as you can get?

And what if I told you that those intentions are made even more dangerous precisely because they have been cleverly cloaked in that veil of goodness?

Well, it might be similar to trying to talk to people about cigarettes a hundred years ago. But I will give it a try.

Most Americans have no idea where DEI came from. Some may believe it started with George Floyd and BLM, but in truth, it started well before that.

In his book, “America’s Cultural Revolution,” author Christopher Rufo outlines how Marxism and its close cousin Communism had been widely discredited around the world after WWII. Subsequent failures such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the disasters in Cuba and Venezuela only helped put nails in the coffin.

But all of that didn’t make Leftists disappear. They just got smarter and more clandestine in their approach. They knew that they could not introduce their policies through the front door of American culture and certainly not by name, so instead came in the back door – through the universities, media, and governmental policy – starting first at the local level and then expanding.

Because their ultimate goal was disruption and abolishment of the U.S. Constitution, they focused on areas where they believed they could sow discontent – race, gender, and sexual identity.

And they came in through the back door under the banner of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

This may all sound complex – because it is – and I encourage everyone to read more about it.

In sum, DEI is not what the nice sounding words would imply; and to see this, one merely has to look at the training, practices, and policies that are put in place in the name of DEI.

These practices are about dividing Americans into two opposing groups, the oppressed and oppressors, and about exchanging meritocracy for an obsession with race, color, gender, or sexual identity, and about making sure any non-Leftist expressions are censored and/or punished.

Stanford University and Hoover Institution scholar Dr. Victor Davis Hanson provides an excellent and concise rebuke of DEI in his recent piece “Will DEI End America – or Will America End DEI?”

Fortunately, the pushback has begun.

Since last year, there have been 85 different bills introduced to combat DEI with 14 already becoming law. DEI has been a massive failure in every arena in which it has been introduced – universities, corporations, and most importantly, our military.

Our group STARRS.US has been collecting feedback from hundreds of service personnel for years. They specifically reference DEI and its related policies as the key force destroying our military today – and often as the key reason they are leaving.

—Recruiting has fallen off a cliff, and current service personnel are not re-enlisting. We are short more than 40,000 soldiers. Because it turns out that people don’t much care for being told they are oppressors who are filled with rage and guilt, or having their lives put at risk due to lowered standards in fitness and combat readiness.

—Morale has never been lower. Partly because they see promotions and other opportunities allocated, not according to performance, but to achieve higher numbers of given races, sexual identities, or gender.

—Combat readiness has been sacrificed. Because standards of combat excellence have been sacrificed in favor of including a higher number of certain races, sexual identities, and gender. But bluntly, a less qualified warrior is accepted and often promoted over a more qualified one, if that person is of a given race, sexual identity, or gender.

—One of the only non-governmental assessments of our military, Heritage Foundation, now finds in their 2024 report that our military is at significant risk of not being able to defend our country. On a five-point scale ranging from “Very Weak” to “Very Strong,” they rate several areas of our readiness as “Very Weak” and provide an overarching grade of “Weak.” They indicate that struggles in recruiting and training are key contributors – particularly in the Air Force, Navy, and Army.

References

(Click to enlarge)

Share this post:

You may also like

Leave a Comment X