There Is No Context In Which Trump's Attacks On 'DEI' Are A Good Thing
Also, please leave the economic justice vs. social justice arguments in 2016 where they belong.
The New York Times is unhelpful. Not that this should come as news to anyone, but it needs to be said.
For some reason, the paper of record decided that in the middle of all of this chaos, it would be a good idea to run an article titled “As Trump Attacks D.E.I., Some on the Left Approve.”
Now, first of all, I think anyone even nominally on the Left, even if they have concerns about how effective DEI programs actually are — reminder, that’s “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” — does not have the same issues as Trump does with it, and understands that his rhetoric around it is horrifying. Trump’s issues with “DEI” are literally that someone, somewhere is working a job or in a graduate program who is not a white man. As Karen Attiah of the Washington Post keeps pointing out, “ban DEI” is now a very out-loud, hardly coded at all, term for resegregation.
But this New York Times article’s purpose, I assume, is to get the Left to shut up about Trump for a minute and return to bickering amongst ourselves about the most absurd debate of all time — economic justice vs. social justice!
Before we jump into this ourselves, allow me to note that the reason this is an absurd argument is because the two concepts are so deeply entwined that they are more or less the same thing. One cannot exist in any meaningful way without the other. This is why “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” was never a real thing — because it’s not “socially liberal” to be cool with people starving to death and it never will be.
The article starts out by discussing how the Rev. Al Sharpton led a “buy-cott” to Costco after they announced that they would be keeping their DEI program (good!), but also a few days before Costco union members were set to strike (bad!).
But the gesture by the civil rights activist did not win universal acclaim on the political left. In interviews, self-identified socialists and other leftists worried that Mr. Sharpton’s action helped bolster the company at a moment when it faced pressure from unionized workers, who had threatened to strike beginning Feb. 1.
“Al Sharpton making Costco into a titan of progress that needs mass support days before a potential strike,” Bhaskar Sunkara, the president of the progressive magazine The Nation, grumbled on the platform X.
Now, I am also a socialist, but I don’t see why we can’t praise Costco for keeping their DEI program at a time when every other company is cowering before Trump, while also demanding that they treat their workers right in other ways as well. I actually see no conflict here. The only problem is if you think the former excuses the latter, which … who does?
But The New York Times really, really wants us all to get back to bickering amongst ourselves (probably so no one notices how unhelpful they are being at this critical time).
The episode at Costco, which did not respond to a request for comment, illustrates an underappreciated tension on the left at a time when Mr. Trump has targeted diversity initiatives: Some on the left have expressed skepticism of such programs, portraying them as a diversion from attacking economic inequality — and even an obstacle to doing so.
“I am definitely happy this stuff is buried for now,” Mr. Sunkara said in an interview. “I hope it doesn’t come back.”
Well, that’s certainly a bad take from one guy.
It’s one thing if DEI is being replaced by more effective initiatives — perhaps even ones in which white women are not the primary beneficiaries — if it’s used as a stepping stone to get to those things. It’s another, entirely, for a sitting president to pretend as though we live in some alternate dimension in which white men are the downtrodden victims of oppression. Especially when every study on earth still shows that, all things being equal, white names get more interviews than Black names and male names get more than female names. Or when there is literally a guy working in the State Department who tweets things like this:
That is extremely racist and sexist! That man is saying out loud that only white men should be in charge! He said it right there! That man is now the (acting) Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy!
The article includes quotes from two guys — Sunkara and Faiz Shakir — who somewhat align with its inflammatory headline.
The debate over diversity initiatives even surfaced during the recent race to lead the Democratic Party. At a candidate forum before the party selected a new chairman last weekend, candidates were asked if they would commit to appointing more transgender people to at-large Democratic National Committee seats, and to making sure the holders of the seats were ethnically diverse.
One of the candidates, Faiz Shakir, refused, saying he disagreed with constituting the committee based on people’s identities.
In an interview, Mr. Shakir, a former manager of Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign, said D.E.I. programs often served to divide the working class and “soften the actual confrontation with corporate power we need in society.” Workplace D.E.I. policies essentially buy off workers on the cheap, he said, adding: “You get a penny for your efforts. A little trinket here or there, that should mollify you.”
I mean, aside from the “divide the working class” nonsense, he’s not entirely wrong. But just to be clear, DEI is not pushing white people who would, under normal circumstances, be allies, to be frothing racists; we are not really talking anymore about “annoying corporate presentation you sit through once a year.” Because DEI now means, because Trump and all his Chris Rufos have made it mean, “white men in charge or else.” I’m not sure you can fix that with a union, particularly when the NLRB has just been decapitated, and also attorneys general are going after companies (like Costco) that say they will continue to hire diverse staff.
The other “critic” they cite is Stanford Professor Jennifer C. Pan, who wrote a fairly reasonable sounding book addressing the way corporations have used these programs to undermine unions.
While some on the left nonetheless support D.E.I., leftist critics argue that these programs tend to advance the interests of companies rather than workers. “D.E.I. is fundamentally a tool of management,” said Jennifer C. Pan, author of “Selling Social Justice: Why the Rich Love Antiracism,” a book to be released in May by the publishing house Verso, which characterizes itself as radical.
In her book, Ms. Pan cites examples of how employers and anti-union consultants deploy D.E.I. programs as a way to undermine union campaigns by defusing pressure from workers.
Yes. Any tool is a weapon if you hold it right, and it’s best to be aware of these things. I think it’s clear that this sort of critique has absolutely nothing to do with “approving” of Trump’s attacks on DEI. Big “three is a trend” failure there.
The other people interviewed were pretty much all on Team DEI Is A Step In The Right Direction Culturally, But Also We Need Unions. Which is the team I think most of us are on, as we are rational people who understand the limits of things.
I don’t know a single person who thinks DEI is going to solve discrimination writ large, or who is under the impression that corporations were ever doing it out of the goodness of their hearts and not because they wanted to avoid lawsuits, retain staff, broaden their customer bases, and get good PR. Pretty much every study out there shows that it is very good for business.
I do, however, think we all should understand that a society that decides that bigotry is bad and treating people fairly is good is headed in a better direction than one that is doing the opposite of that. I think we should all understand what is behind the Right’s war against DEI: It’s not actually about the specifics of these programs but rather is an insane narrative of white men as an oppressed underclass, so that they can go back to oppressing everyone else. So what we’re going to do right now is defend it on principle and, whatever kinks, we’ll work them out later. Because they are not the point right now.
We should always be debating and reevaluating what’s effective and how things can be improved — and we do need to stop seeing disagreement on our side as some kind of existential threat. But there is a difference between that and the “my thing is the really important thing and your thing is stupid,” which we don’t need to be doing right now.
We don’t all need to be doing the same thing or worrying about the same thing or mad about the same thing, all the time, in unison. If we try that, at this moment, we will lose our damn minds, we’ll never keep up, we’ll get burnt out and, also, we will never stop fighting about what that “thing” should be.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
There are people even here that I believe are well-meaning that say stuff like "the Dems went too far with pushing DEI" and it' just bums me out that we collectively have let the grievance-driven right define the Overton window.
Analogy on how DEI helps everyone:
You know those little sidewalk ramps / dropped curbs at major street intersections? Those we installed under the Americans With Disabilities Act, so that people in wheelchairs wouldn't have unnecessary difficulty crossing a street.
Turns out anyone pushing a stroller or cart, or dragging luggage loves having them, too!