Is "Diversity" Really About Diversity?
Or does the D in DEI mean something else?
I’m late to realize the true meaning of Diversity, but it’s something the country’s grappling with as the Republican majority attacks DEI mandates, which catalyzes state legislatures and redounds to thousands of institutions. Soon, anti DEI trends will even make their way to our culture like TV series, movies and more.
Is capital “D” Diversity a policy goal that needs defending?
Should we rally to protect the past decades of initiatives that emerged from the center and far left and, until recently, have became mainstream?
To answer, I think we first have to ask: what do DEI proponents mean by Diversity?
Don’t worry, I’m not going to detail a history of these policies stemming from the LBJ administration, which is when they started with programs like Head Start and the origins of Affirmative Action. (My undergrad Politics studies has stuck with me, thanks UC Santa Cruz!)
I want to talk about what capital “D” Diversity means today, but, to do so, we have to go back, way back, to slavery. Gimme a minute to see why.
We live in a country with a 246 year history of African slavery, and there have also been countless other slaves: Chinese railroads slaves, unpaid Latino farmworkers working this very moment and young women from Ireland, Scotland and England laboring in 19th century textile factories.
The Federal minimum wage in 2025 is $7.25 per hour. Add sales tax and other regressive fees, and it adds up to zero pay for work. What’s that called again?
An emerging America built its economy on the back of free African labor. To me, African enslavement is the sin the “D” in DEI seeks to redeem. It’s strange, passive and I think ultimately manipulative that Diversity is used as a euphemism for slavery reparations, but that’s the explanation I think makes sense, based on how predecessor, LBJ-era policies and current DEI practices manifest. Heck, as someone who has talked about slavery every Passover his entire life, I’ve long been in favor of repairing the injury of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation and redlining of black people.
And, also as a Jew, I’ve seen how vital West Germany’s reparations have been to Israel's struggling economy in the 1950s. They gave Israel 3 billion marks in 1952 and provided critical diplomatic support.
Those reparations worked because Israel invested the money in infrastructure. Seventy years later Israel is a thriving country despite constant Arab Muslim warfare and global opprobrium. Danke schön!
Maybe reparations can work here too in a different and delayed context. Maybe not. But if that’s what liberals and leftists are talking about when they say Diversity, they should be honest about it.
Many generations of Americans have pushed for slavery reparations in one form or another, starting with Abolitionists and in Reconstruction. It’s been a long conversation with successes and setbacks. A quick glance at today’s statistics shows that black Americans are more than twice as likely to be poor as white Americans. This demonstrates, to me at least as a voter, how ineffective reparative policies have been in my lifetime. Note that these policies originate from the left, and, characteristically have a poor track record, no pun intended.
When people, especially on the left side of the aisle, say they prioritize Diversity, I think what they really mean is, “I want to help black people” or “I want better outcomes for black people irrespective of individual circumstances like wealth or background or even capability, I just want to see more black people in visible jobs.”
Black people are 13% of our population. Capital “D” Diversity goals don’t focus on 13% representation of black people in every taxable job category according to the IRS. Because that would be ridiculous. I think the NBA might agree.
What is it they want exactly?
More fundamentally, why can’t people even acknowledge that this is the goal?
What is gained or lost by ignoring what I think is obvious about DEI intentions? Why is even naming the goal a taboo?
Does not acknowledging the true policy goals of Diversity undermine it’s efforts by ensuring the maintenance of the status quo?
Hmmm…
Do any of these observations dovetail with the reality that the Democrats are now the party of high income educated whites, while more and more black people vote Republican?
Hmmm….
Is Diversity a conspiracy to ensure black people never gain power? Sounds like I’m crazy, right?
If I am, tell me why we have massive human warehouses for poor black people in New York City called projects where you can’t start a business or earn equity, which guarantees generational poverty. These buildings are falling apart, there’s one half a block from me wrapped in scaffolding after a wall collapsed. That’s benefiting whom exactly? Are these the multigenerational “refugee” camps in the West Bank, but for black Americans?
Is DEI like the policy performance art of land acknowledgements and Free Palestine, which I’ve described earlier as profoundly insincere, no matter their intended sincerity, because they’re not designed to help black people, Native Americans or Palestinians. They’re designed to help wealthy white people feel better.
When most people say, “I live in a diverse neighborhood” or “my workplace isn’t very diverse” or incredibly, some young people say “I’m diverse,” they are almost always referring to black people.
Diversity of opinion, social background, religion, worldview, economics, education or geography are never the considerations. It’s not even about the spectrum of skin color, since melanin is so important to the left. Take the liberal invention of “people of color” which includes everyone who isn’t “white” — another problematic and overly broad term for categorizing humans.
Do South or East Asians count for capital D Diversity mandates? What about darker Jews, be they from Poland or Yemen? What about a pale Lesbian millionaire gun-owner who votes Republican?
You get it. We’re talking about black people. Perhaps not exclusively.
The only addition I can think of is the status of high income white women. I think that’s the second and last item on the Diversity list. How you measure paycheck inequality for high earning women is a rabbit hole of statistics beyond the scope of this essay, but I can’t be the only person to observe that white educated women seem to be doing pretty darn well, while almost all female-specific jobs for minorities, like child care, house cleaning and elder care, suffer from crushing poverty.
Is pay parity with male home health aids the solution, or are better jobs what’s needed, which requires a more prosperous economy that has little to do with gender?
Why proponents of DEI don’t acknowledge their goals are about helping black people and perhaps wealthier white women is strange to me. As I stated, I think the mix of euphemism and smoke-and-mirrors ultimately undercuts their efforts. Perhaps that's the true intention.
Is Diversity just a gaslighting for the puppet masters pulling the strings?
Put another way, I'm not the first person to decry tokenism.
Black people have been talking about it forever.
Let’s keep going. How durable are these ideas? DEI has spawned a national conversation and hundreds of panicked headlines, but DEI as policy is weak. Yes, there are aggressive moves by the Trump administration, but that’s not the only reason it’s quickly collapsing for hundreds of millions of people.
If you listen carefully, you hear a lot of people cheering. Many of them are black.
Apart from a wealthy, parochial Democratic base, there’s no popular backlash to restore diversity initiatives. There are no protests or labor strikes. There’s no new grassroots effort helmed by a charismatic leader urging DEI restoration, or an organic, internet-networked movement like the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street or, most tellingly, there’s no new Black Lives Matter.
“Asked to share whether they have positive or negative feelings about DEI programs, a slightly higher share of voters (43%) say they have negative feelings, while 39% have positive views and 14% are neutral.” — NBC poll, March 18 2025.
I can’t develop detailed policy proscriptions for improving the economics, physical security, employment and home ownership rates for black people, but it’s tempting to imagine better moves than performative DEI mandates that are proven not to work. From my limited perspective, I think slavery reparations will only be successful if they involve a targeted one-time program that acknowledges it’s a targeted one-time program, and if it’s coupled with a plan that benefits every citizen.
Let's consider a single, large cash payout to black Americans who can prove their great-grandparents were born here. Then make sure those payouts happens in parallel to bipartisan legislation that increases everyone’s prosperity in a non-inflationary way. While politicians struggle with this, I’m thinking of laws that shred anti-housing environmental reviews perhaps via eminent domain, deploy Federal funds and borrowing terms to force universities to reduce or remove tuition, and launch huge new infrastructure projects that spur wealth creation, like better transportation, tons more housing and cheap energy.
How you keep payments to 13% of the country anti-inflationary isn’t easy, but there’s a way. Remember, far too many black people are poor. Poor people spend money on immediate necessities, and if the payment is big enough, hopefully on housing and cars, which boost the economy if there’s already available supply.
Some center lefties now call my bigger picture ideas Abundance. Most think it’s just common sense to improve the economy. Those people are called moderate Republicans.
Whatever the case, I think addressing slavery narrowly and focusing on prosperity broadly has a decent shot of achieving the supposed goals of DEI initiatives, with almost no bureaucracy. Just cut checks and pass a few laws. It could all be done in six months.
The fact that I can dream this up in between work meetings, while Democratic politicians and leftwing think tanks stuffed full of Ivy Leaguers never mention it, is troubling, but now you know why I’m off the Democrats.
I don’t trust the Republicans either, they don’t build anything and skew tax subsidies to the elite, but at least they’re listening and telling the truth that DEI is a hoax.
If Diversity isn’t about diversity, and if you have the courage to read and hear this, perhaps we have a chance of doing things better. Until then, Diversity mandates are either manipulative and ineffective, or sincere and ineffective.
Time for something new.