By Lafe Tolliver, Esq
Guest Column
Now that the nation has been placed on notice that Trump is equating the laudable goals of D.E.I. (diversity, equity and inclusion) with all things deemed intellectually challenging, a lack of comprehension and of no merit, what does D.E.I. say about those whose only claim to fame, privilege and fortune is being white?
From the aspersions cast against D.E.I., the Trumpers are conducting a mass media campaign to equate D.E.I. and their bigoted offense to the concept of Affirmative Action.
Why is it whenever people of color or women seek to pry open a closed American system of privileges and equal opportunity, they are immediately met with aggression and hostility and a campaign of disinformation?
What is so troubling the White American psyche that whenever someone other than a white person, who through hard work, grit and perseverance takes command or exhibits competent skills or mastery of a subject, that they are called into account for their accomplishments?
Pinpoint, if you will, the inner angst and fears that White America wrestles with when someone, not of their own ethnic tribe, is placed in a position of power or wealth that they feel it is an existential threat to their station in life?
When you start placing those “pins,” remember that America is still recovering from being a Jim Crow country and still has half of its brain is in the past history wherein Black people and other people of color were intentionally and legally subjected to heinous treatment and social pummeling for no more than that their melanin was not considered Caucasian.
Remember (for some) that childhood ditty: “If you are white, you are right, If you are Brown, stick around, if you are Black…. get back!”
Some ditties have a life of their own and the meaning behind that obnoxious mantra is to let you know in no uncertain terms, that the American welcome mat and equity was not intended or designed for everyone.
Now, if you must apply the now corrupted terms of D.E.I. to the American workforce, you will notice that corporate America is full of wdummies and people who could not locate their nose in a dark closet.
But that is America. It can turn its eyes the other way when one of “theirs” makes profound errors in judgment, mis apply the law and guts good intentioned social policies that hurt people of color.
Such “reversed” D.E.I. people populate the Congress, legislatures, police departments, the teaching corps, the military and of course, the biggest glaring example of moronic behavior being richly awarded and elevated, is the person who currently occupies the White House!
Image the howl and the collective beating of breasts if Obama allowed an uncredentialed Black person, not vetted and posing as his alter ego, to take a chainsaw to the agencies of the US government and fire thousands of people without notice or giving them due process (notice, hearing and protection of their rights).
If that were to happen, Senator Mitch McConnell, Joe Jordan, Senator Hawley, and a host of other GOP congresspeople would be on the Capitol steps with pitchforks in hand, demanding Obama be impeached!
They would call him every name but a child of God! Remember when Trump wanted to see Obama’s birth certificate and then, later, he wanted to see his law school transcripts because he did not believe he could be on Harvard Law Review!
Of course, being the stable genius as he loves to brag about, Trump did not release any of his undergraduate or graduate records and we know why, for it would have shown him to be a legacy admittee at Wharton and it would have shredded his crafted image that he was a very bright student.
But…no matter. As long as Trump was and is still able to con half of the American voting public that he was/is a victim, he would be their “retribution,” and all was forgiven and forgotten about his egregious and hateful background.
Imagine a Black man having 34 felony convictions and being adjudged a sexual abuser (among many other charges) running for the White House. The roar and outcry would have been deafening from White America about his mere presence desecrating hallowed ground.
But with America’s double standard of justice and fairness, the foibles of Trump and his coterie of brainwashed sycophants are adept at playing the race card and as such seek to diminish and traduce all things of color.
This is the genesis of Trump and President Musk colluding to try to remake America in the image of the past 1930’s and 1940’s where whites reigned supreme and the Black person was relegated to Stepin’ Fetchit roles replete with the obligatory rolling eyeballs.
D.E.I. is a cruel attempt to sully anything that remotely indicates the competence of Black people and women and other people of color. It is a complete and knowing attempt to butcher D.E.I. into an unrecognizable doctrine so that the media and public would shun it as favoring “those others.”
We live in interesting times. DEI simply expands the pool of qualified candidates to, “shoot their best shot” at available job slots or be notified that such opportunities even exist.
Contact Lafe Tolliver at tolliver@juno.com