From politics and media, to HR and academia, DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) is all the rage throughout our nation as more attention is devoted to issues of race and ethnicity. The DEI issue garnered much attention earlier this year on college campuses as story after story revealed numerous controversies surroundding DEI policies and practices that created more questions than answers about whether the DEI realities actually promote true diversity, equity, and inclusion versus division, exclusion, and intolerance. DEI certainly came to a head late Spring as Palestinian proterstors waged a PR war on campuses throughout the country resulting in buildings occupied, classes interrupted, and Jewish students taunted and threatened.
Most recently, DEI once again captured the media spotlight as Vice President Kamala Harris became the replacement Democratic candidate when President Biden was pressured into submission by Democrat insiders. On Sunday July 21st, Biden announced that he would not run for re-election. This decision suddenly elevated Vice President Harris to become the heir apparent Presidential candidate for the November 5th elections.
Not long after Presidednt Biden's announcement, Republicans began referring to Harris as the "DEI Candidate". To be clear, this was not because of her embrace of "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" practices and policies. Rather, she was crawned with this label thanks to Biden and the media. No more than six months after Biden and Harris entered the White House, Biden signed Executive Order 14035, which establishes DEI as a government-wide intitative because, "As the Nation’s largest employer, the Federal Government must be a model for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, where all employees are treated with dignity and respect."
The Biden-Harris Executive Order on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce spells out in great detail the parameters and expectations for how this government-wide program will be implemented and executed. The document proceeds to explain the broader context of how it originated and the overall mission with the following example:
This order reaffirms support for, and builds upon, the procedures established by Executive Orders 13583, 13988, and 14020, the Presidential Memorandum on Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in the National Security Workforce, and the National Security Memorandum on Revitalizing America’s Foreign Policy and National Security Workforce, Institutions, and Partnerships. This order establishes that diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility are priorities for my Administration and benefit the entire Federal Government and the Nation, and establishes additional procedures to advance these priorities across the Federal workforce.
It is crystal clear that the Biden-Harris Administration takes great pride in projecting itself as THE diversity administration by virtue of it's explicit commitment to extolling the virtues and values of DEI and highlightihng its DEI trackrecord above and beyond any other adminstration in our nation's history.
That said, the pushback from the Biden-Harris administration and the left, media included, has been a sight to behold. Collectively, while they flippantly argue that the GOP is racist for labeling Harris a "DEI Candidate", their collective amnesia has overlooked numerous DEI details straight from the mouth of Biden that have either crowned her as a "DEI Candidate" or celebrated her DEI credentials.
Consider this August 30, 2019 CNN article headline, Biden says he would prefer a person of color or a woman as his vice president. From there, the article captures Biden's own words on the Vice Presidential candidate selection:
Spartanburg, South CarolinaCNN —
Former Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday that when picking a running mate, he would prefer someone who was “of color and/or a different gender.”
“Whomever I pick, preferably it will be someone who was of color and/or a different gender, but I’m not making that commitment until I know that the person I’m dealing with I can completely and thoroughly trust as authentic and on the same page [as me],” Biden said while speaking to a roundtable of black journalists.
The comment echoed previous statements he’s made. When asked by CNN’s Chris Cuomo in July if he would need to have a female running mate, Biden replied, “I think it’d be great to have a female VP.”
Correct me if I'm wrong, but If that's not in the spirit and intent of DEI, then DEI is more elusive than a runaway Barry Sanders in an open field surrounded by Green Bay Packer defenders! Good luck trying to grasp, understand, and coherently apply DEI consistently. Better yet, maybe we need to change DEI altogether to somethign like DEC....Diversity, Equity, and C-O-N-F-U-S-I-O-N! But wiat, there's more.
In another example, consider this statement from the "WHITE HOUSE INITIATIVE on ASIAN AMERICANS, NATIVE HAWAIIANS, and PACIFIC ISLANDERS: NATIONA L STRATEGY to ADVANCE EQUITY, JUSTICE , and OPPORTUNITY for ASIAN AMERICAN, NATIVE HAWAIIAN, and PACIFIC ISLANDER COMMUNITIES", January 2023:
On his first day in office, President Biden signed Executive Order 13985, Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. The Executive Order committed to a whole-of-government equity agenda and recognized that although the ideal of equal opportunity is the bedrock of American democracy, entrenched disparities in our laws, public policies, and institutions too often deny equal opportunity to individuals and communities.
After highlighting the Biden list of DEI accomplishments, the document goes on to further state the following:
The Biden-Harris Administration reflects the rich diversity of America, with a series of historic firsts. In addition to having groundbreaking Asian American representation with the election of Vice President Kamala Harris, the President’s Cabinet also includes U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Katherine Tai and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Dr. Arati Prabhakar.
The evidence is undeniable that racial and ethnic identity for Biden is to be elevated, celebrated and promoted as DEI credentials, and it is because of this, that Harris has been branded as a "DEI Candidate". The criterion that makes "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" functional and relevant in politics, employment, academia, and elsewhere makes it equally applicable in the labeling of candidates whose racial and ethnic identity have already been celebreted in prior situations, which I have highlighted above. To deny this racial and ethnic manipulation is absurd, dishonest, and duplicitous. I say duplicitous because it is a double standard and contradictory when you assert and celebrate racial and ethnic identity when it's convenient and advantageous for self-serviing pruposes. But when rivals do the same as a critque of the misuse of racial and ethnic ideinty or to highlight candidates based on a questonable selecton process that disregards important deficiencies, DEI advocates erroneously cry foul, as if they're the only ones permitted to speak on the issue, which for them can only be in the affirmative. This is the heights of hypocrisy and is what makes politics detestable.
Biden's DEI duplicty was also on center stage duing a campaign speech on May 29th at Girard College. This speech is proof positive of Biden's role in the elevation of Kamala Harris's DEI credentials that ultimately led to and inspired the Republicans' use of the "DEI Candidate" term to critcally highlight the DEI system and to call into question the fitness of her Presidential candidacy given her leadershp failures on issues ranging from her role as "Border Czar" and the ongoing immigration woes we face nationally, to foreign policy and US energy independence, and everything in between. In the quote below, you'll see Biden celebrate Vice President Harris as the embodiment of all things DEI.
To me, the values of diversity, equality, inclusion are literally — and this is not kidding — the core strengths of America. That’s why I’m proud to have the most diverse administration in history that taps into the full talents of our country. And it starts at the top with the Vice President.
Again, and in closing, going back to the White House Initiative document mentioned a few paragraphs above, if Kamala as Vice President was history-making in the 2020 Presidential Election because she became the first "Asian American Vice President", her candicacy in this year's Presidential race, as selected by Biden himself, is the fulfillment of Executive Order 13985, which for Biden is what made DEI "a whole-of-government equity agenda". Kamala's candidacy is DEI in action through-and-through, and to argue otherwise is nothing but DEI Denial.
Yorumlar