By Greg Salsbury
STARRS Board of Advisors
Now that she has been picked as a presidential candidate, Democrats as well as their friends at The Washington Examiner, CNN, CBS, NPR, Reuters, MSNBC, and elsewhere are suddenly furious that some people have referred to Kamala Harris as a “DEI hire.”
At his recent appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists conference earlier this month President Trump was grilled by ABC’s Rachel Scott about this trend and asked whether he agreed with other Republicans calling Vice President Harris a DEI hire.
It served as an instructional microcosm of how the destructive practices of DEI and its close cousin Critical Race Theory (CRT) have been able to flourish with so little push back.
There are two key DEI contradictions exposed by that exchange that seem to go largely unchallenged.
Firstly, it highlighted that DEI is not what its supporters contend.
The great Thomas Sowell once observed that most of the arguments of the Left fall away by simply asking for definitions.
In response to her inquiry, President Trump asked Ms. Scott to define the acronym of DEI – an excellent question. She indignantly repeated the words “diversity, equity, and inclusion” as if this were a definition. He asked again. She refused, claimed that she had provided a definition, and demanded he answer her question.
Avoidance is a standard tactic of those pushing the philosophy because when they cannot escape providing some form of a definition, the nonsense is revealed.
In his book “How to Be an Antiracist,” author Ibram X. Kendi offers a good example with his definition of racism:
“Racism is a powerful collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity and are substantiated by racist ideas.”
As I have previously observed, this is as illuminating as defining a tree as “one of a powerful collection of tree-like objects that have the appearance, composition, and functionality of trees, and are often surrounded by other trees.”
In other words, it is but another way to avoid providing a meaningful definition.
The words diversity, equity, and inclusion themselves sound akin to peace, love, acceptance, and fluffy puppies.
We are told that DEI is about eliminating dangerous racial biases, promoting acceptance of people who are different, fairness, being more open-minded, and improving team strength and output. What heartless, bigoted, illogical soul could disagree with any of that?
In practice, it is exactly the opposite of that.
As Christopher Rufo outlines in his excellent work America’s Cultural Revolution, DEI is a camouflaged Marxist philosophy aimed at sowing chaos by substituting race, gender, and sexual identities for the more traditional class warfare.
DEI pits people against each other by establishing oppressors (white people) and oppressed (non-white people). It attempts to create guilt, resentment, and separate standards among these groups.
More than diversity, it produces divisiveness.
More than equity, it forces lower standards of excellence to assure equal outcomes.
More than inclusion it produces exclusion of anyone deemed a non-victim, and rewards to others based on identity vs. qualifications.
This was the first DEI contradiction made clearer by the avoidance of definition – DEI produces the opposite result of what it proclaims.
Fortunately, an increasing number of organizations – governmental, academic, private sector, and military – are waking up to these counterproductive results and taking action to dial back or eliminate DEI programs.
The second contradiction pertaining the Scott/Trump exchange is the hypocrisy behind the anger at observing that Vice President Harris was in fact a DEI hire. Critics claim it demeans the Vice President, and implies she is not qualified other than by dint of her gender and skin color.
Dr. Harmeling spoke to this in her Forbes piece “The ‘DEI’ Trap: How President Biden Turned His VP Pick Into Fodder for Critics,” saying “When Joe Biden announced he’d pick a woman of color as his running mate, he thought he was being progressive. Instead, he walked right into a DEI trap, gift-wrapping ammunition for every critic ready to dismiss Kamala Harris as a ‘diversity hire.’”
She refers to what she calls “The Paradox of Publicizing Diversity” and argues against public statements. Note the emphasis on publicity. She seems to be arguing that Mr. Biden’s big mistake was not in making a diversity hire with Ms. Harris, not in picking her by dint of her gender and skin color; it was in telling the truth about it – and doing so in advance.
President Trump could have easily responded to Ms. Scott by simply saying that he did indeed believe Vice President Harris was a DEI hire and believed that chiefly because President Biden told us all so. He could have directed her to President Biden’s public address in which he told us all
“To me the values of diversity, equality, inclusion are literally – and this is not kidding – the core strengths of America. That’s why I’m proud to have the most diverse administration in history that taps into the full talents of our country. And it starts at the top with the Vice President.”
President Biden was equally clear about his hiring practices with his choice of candidates for the Supreme Court when he announced in advance that he would select a black woman for the slot. This was a highly enviable public employee position paying a handsome six-figure salary for a lifetime.
Many Americans were left scratching their heads as to how that wasn’t a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to announce in advance that whites, Asians, Hispanics, or any non-black, and all males need not apply.
This is the second contradiction exposed – that the same people who essentially insist that diversity be the paramount variable of every hire are fine with that being announced prior to the hire but go apoplectic when that is called out as such after.
Is it not hypocritical to argue for diversity being the top consideration of each hire and then claim it is demeaning to point that out after the fact?
Could it be because it exposes the truth behind the belief that better words to describe the acronym DEI are Didn’t Earn It?
Greg Salsbury, Ph.D., Author of But What If I Live, and Retirementology, former president of Western Colorado University, his work appears in Real Clear Defense, American Thinker, and others.
References
https://www.c-span.org/video/?537472-1/president-trump-speaks-nabj-conference
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/564299/how-to-be-an-antiracist-by-ibram-x-kendi
https://www.newsnationnow.com/race-in-america/dei-doesnt-work-study-of-studies
https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/diversity-was-supposed-to-make-us-rich-not-so-much-39da6a23
https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/the-michael-knowles-show, Min. 2:04
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/biden-supreme-court-black-woman-pick-february
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