It’s frustrating when you see words used wrong. A number of years ago, I saw an article about a school in rural South Carolina that showed a photo with a black teacher and a dozen black children. The article talked about the challenges of teaching such a “diverse” group of children. One could hardly imagine a less diverse group of students: they were all the same in terms of age, race, and economic background. The author had evidently come to believe that “diverse” was a euphemism for “disadvantaged.” But, of course, that’s not what “diverse” means at all.
It’s even more frustrating when you see intelligent people intentionally misusing words for rhetorical effect to mislead people and demonize marginalized populations, such as is happening now with diversity, equity, and inclusion or DEI.
The Trump administration has made eliminating “DEI” a priority. Research has disclosed a list of banned words they have been trying to remove from federal projects, publications, and websites. There have been many examples of this ham-handed approach being overbroad and destructive, sweeping in unrelated topics like the Enola Gay (the WWII bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb) or “privilege escalation” (an infosecurity term related to unauthorized administrative access), and on and on.
The principle of diversity, equity, and inclusion is to ensure that everyone has a fair opportunity to participate. We want diverse perspectives. We want everyone to succeed. We don’t want some people privileged over others for arbitrary reasons. The only people who could possibly oppose this principle are people who want unfair greater opportunities than others. Or who want to exclude people systematically for some arbitrary reason, like irrational hatred.
It should be self-evident that diverse perspectives are required for wisdom. If you’re missing perspectives then your understanding is going to be incomplete. Two eyes are better than one. And using all of your senses gives you a better understanding than not. We need perspectives that are different than our own to complement our understanding.
It benefits all of us to have everyone rise to their fullest potential. The more capable, productive members we have in society, the more our society prospers. Every person who is unable to succeed is a loss to all of us. And there’s no reason that we can’t let everyone develop their full potential. Life need not be a zero-sum game where only some people can succeed.
When arbitrary, irrelevant reasons (age, gender identity, race, religion, etc.) are used to exclude people, we lose those perspectives and cause those people to fail to realize their full potential. This injures all of us. This is what DEI aims to ensure: that everyone gets fair consideration.
Most people who knowingly oppose DEI are racists, transphobes, and homophobes, who want to exclude people out of hatred. Or who fear the loss of their privileged position in society over marginalized groups. It is abhorrent that these people have succeeded in electing leadership to act on their hatred to try to reassert their privileged position in society by discriminating against others.
What is more horrifying, however, is that most of the people who currently oppose DEI have been whipped up, like a mob, to keep the population divided, fighting among each other, and distracted. Many of them, in the absence of disinformation and propaganda, would probably understand that DEI benefits everyone.
Worst, however, is that the people who are fomenting the mob are intentionally crafting language to mislead people into opposing their own interests. They, themselves, are mostly indifferent to DEI and are only disingenuously exploiting the division that exists for their own ends: to consolidate power and prevent people, who should be natural allies, from uniting to oppose their nefarious goals.
It is said that the long arc of history bends toward justice. But it’s hard to watch when you see evil people trying to push it back toward injustice, intolerance, and hatred.
