EVERY year, thousands of unenthusiastic Scots take part in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) training at work. Usually, it just consists of questions about the Equality Act.
If you’re lucky, a PowerPoint plastered with boke-worthy stock images of different coloured hands holding and crass quotes about how we’re all the same deep down. The message always the same – we all deserve equal opportunities to succeed in society. The most powerful man in the world, however, disagrees. Don’t worry, though, it was never going to solve racism anyway.
Donald Trump has been open about his hatred of DEI initiatives, branding them wasteful and even appointing Elon Musk to a fake government department to help him get rid of it across the US government. But it still came as a shock to me when, after a plane collided with a military helicopter in Washington last week killing 67 people, he laid blame at DEI’s door.
Trump announced that it was likely unqualified minorities in the military and air traffic control that had caused the crash. This dystopian word salad was broadcast live from the White House while bodies were still being pulled from the Potomac River. It was so cruel that the family of a female helicopter pilot killed in the tragedy begged the media not to name her for fear she would be blamed because she was a woman.
His vile comments come against the backdrop of a dramatic tone shift in our politics where progressive initiatives are routinely demonised as “woke”. However, the debate around DEI in recent weeks has left me particularly uncomfortable because, to tell the truth, I’m not a big fan either.
As an anti-racist activist, I have been a vocal critic of DEI, though not for the same reasons as Trump.
DEI initiatives seek to address historic imbalances in our society by providing people from marginalised groups opportunities in areas they are typically underrepresented in. Think here about the lack of women in big tech or the fact that not one of the FTSE 100 CEOs is Black. The work of DEI is about creating inclusive organisations and addressing things like unconscious bias within hiring. Done correctly, diversity initiatives should ensure that a wider pool of people can have the chance to be hired or promoted.
What I find frustrating is that DEI and anti-racism are often lumped into the same category. In reality, they have little in common.
There’s nothing radical about DEI and I believe there’s a limited amount it can do to address hundreds of years of systemic racism, ableism and misogyny. This is in part because of the obsession it has with representation.
Now, representation is not unimportant across the board but personally, I couldn’t care less if there are more Black leaders in big oil – and do we really need women having equal opportunities to kill unarmed civilians in the world’s largest military? Social justice doesn’t mean we should all have equal means to harm one another while enriching ourselves.
DEI initiatives all too often ignore the liberating tools of anti-racism. A corporate DEI training is unlikely to ask you to have an honest discussion about white supremacy, let alone anti-capitalism or reparations for descendants of enslaved people. All of these are conveniently cleansed in favour of tick-box compliance quizzes.
If we are really being honest, DEI’s largest impact has been in its use as a marketing tool for corporations who can virtue signal their support for marginalised communities while they continue to harm them for profit. Tech giant Apple has one of the most expensive DEI schemes in the world, but poor Black children still mine the cobalt used to make its products for pennies. DEI doesn’t address the structures that hoard institutional power for the wealthy. As a marginalised person, they just slightly increase your odds of making it to the top of the pyramid.
Despite its drawbacks, it’s impossible to feel any sense of smugness with the way the DEI industry has come under attack. The fact that even the most sanitised types of equality work are being ousted is a troubling omen.
While there have always been legitimate critiques of DEI, we cannot ignore the fact that the issue is being used as a Trojan horse. To Trump, it’s yet another code word, a dog whistle for white nationalists.
The war on DEI isn’t about policies – it’s a war on marginalised people themselves. It’s an attack on our abilities, education and competence. Blaming plane crashes on fictional disabled people serves the purpose of moving the Overton window, dragging us back to a time when it was acceptable to blame minorities for all of society’s problems.
Now more than ever, we must think critically about what type of activism we really need in order to protect them.
