OPINION:
Over the last year, Americans have demonstrated clearly that they’re fed up with DEI, or diversity, equity and inclusion, one of the top mantras of the “woke” politics of the American left. Of late, there has been a lot of high-fiving over the ending of DEI programs at major corporations including Ford, Coors, Lowe’s, Boeing, Walmart, Tractor Supply and even Jack Daniel’s. Some universities are dialing back their allegiance to these policies as well.
Many courageous Americans have made it their mission to expose this systemic discrimination. Many have voted with their wallets and at the ballot box to push back. They took on the DEI complex at great risk to their jobs, reputations and personal lives. But Americans fighting this fight should be careful not to celebrate prematurely. That would be to ignore the designs and patterns of behavior of the left.
The left in this country has had no problem violating the Civil Rights Act by pushing diversity, equity and inclusion. But DEI, of course, is hardly a new phenomenon.
What started decades ago as “quotas” became “affirmative action” because it sounded better, just as leftists use the term “progressive” today rather than liberal or socialist. After a time, affirmative action got a makeover as diversity, equity and inclusion, which became a more militant form of affirmative action in the post-Obama era. DEI also had close cousins and confederates such as critical race theory, White fragility, gender fluidity and even cancel culture.
There will be another incarnation of this movement. They may not call it DEI, but they will call it something. Sure, many of the DEI corporate human resources czars, lecturers and experts who have made a fortune hocking their divisive secular religion will face some setbacks, but they’re not just going away.
Throughout American history, the most atrocious examples of injustice have come when society or the law have chosen to focus on immutable characteristics such as race.
Freedom-loving Americans must always appreciate the control that liberals attempt to have over the language we use. We’re seeing it right now with the debate over “book bans.”
Even conservatives are again falling for the trap. They’re using the misleading term, coined by the left to demonize efforts to remove sexually explicit and other inappropriate material from school and public libraries. The book ban moniker was intentionally chosen to recall the days of the Nazi book burnings.
Of course, the books aren’t banned. You can still buy them, sell them, write them, own them and read them. Those facts and long-standing, completely legal time, place and manner restrictions on certain speech, don’t matter to Democrats who want this perverse material in schools.
The same people who came up with that scheme came up with DEI and have legacy media calling illegal immigrants “irregular migrants.”
Our founders struggled with the issue of slavery, as evidenced in part by both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson’s strong discomfort with the institution. The father of the Constitution, James Madison, wrote that “if slavery, as a national evil, is to be abolished, and it be just that it be done at the national expense, then the amount of the expense is not of paramount consideration.” His point was clear: Removing what he called a “sad blot on our free country” was well worth perceived societal costs.
Americanism, however imperfectly executed, has never truly been about using race or gender or who you sleep with as a fulcrum against equality. In as diverse a nation as this one, it is inevitable that differences cause friction, resentment or even active efforts at discrimination. Those who have been victimized in this country include many people, including White Americans (the Irish and Italians), Asians — including the forced internment of Japanese Americans — and the Chinese.
The left has attempted to infuse identity politics into virtually every aspect of American life. This movement is far more than a political fad.
This week, an appeals court rebuked even the Nasdaq and its CEO, Adena Friedman, for attempting to force gender, race and sexual orientation quotas on the boards of the companies listed on the exchange.
As Americans end 2024 and prepare to begin a new year having made some progress against DEI, no one should let their guard down for an instant. As a nation built on equality, not equity, we must keep pushing back against those who wish to forever splinter and weaken this country. They want to reduce people to labels or veneers, not celebrate them as souls with depth and agency.
Battles have been won, but the fight for a nation where character and hard work are the barometer of success is far from over.
• Tom Basile is the host of “America Right Now” on Newsmax TV and is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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