Why DEI is not a problem but those opposed to it are

Denouncing evil in all its forms and regardless of its target must not be an exception but the norm in our society’s response to injustice. Although we refer, in this article, to Trump’s MAGA movement (aka Trumpism), the article looks at the problem of the regeneration of white supremacism today. We discuss white supremacists’ rejection of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes.

Mischaracterising diversity, equity and inclusion, as Donald Trump’s MAGA-filled administration is doing, tramples on society’s mechanisms to cope with injustice. It is immorality delivered as governance. By portraying DEI as patently unfair to White straight men as reverse injustice, Trumpism is gaslighting, and instead fuelling injustice in society to protect its beneficiaries.

How Trump and MAGA perceive DEI is typical projection. What they allege to be the objectives and effects of DEI to Whites is what in effect are the objectives of the MAGA project and how they see and aim to treat non-White communities. They dehumanise and degrade non-Whites, create perceptions of incompetence and highlight their imagined risk of allowing certain population groups access to equal opportunities into some skilled roles in government and the corporate world.

It is apparent that since Trump came into office, the US civil rights movement has been pushed back centuries; racism has been given a fresh lease of life in the US; straight Christian white men now feel emboldened to openly express their racist take on life. The positive thing remaining is that good citizens still have the power to put empathy back into politics.

Trumpism, is heavily dependent on White grievance and straight-up racism and prejudice. Trump is the archetype of white supremacism, and along with his MAGA regime, he suffers from the nostalgia of racial hierarchy and subscribe to white race superiority. They view DEI as a real threat to their fragile egos, privileges, and delusions of a whites only USA. To them DEI is an ultimate threat to the American way of life; but the truth is that they, and NOT DEI, are the threat to the US way of life.

It is clear that Trumpism is attempting to rewrite rules, demonise, bring doubt and erase DEI programmes. Its worldview is founded on a racist American Christian patriarchy only serving to project the world through the lens of straight white men. In the MAGA world concept, the US has been deconstructed and reconstructed as a white country, and the DEI deliberately misrepresented to portray a sense of betrayal and incompetence that threatens the very existence of white spaces everywhere.

MAGA racists have been relentless in their attack of social and political institutions geared towards helping the US address past injustices and turned them on their head. This has included co-opting the term DEI and assigning new meaning to its programmes to create the perception they were anti-white people. Trumpism’s ultimate mission is to kill DEI before it causes some imaginary harm to Whites. This explains the purge of black, brown and competent women from the Trump administration.

In reality, Trumpism is the one inflicting pain by pretending bigotry is not behind Trump’s attempt to erase DEI programmes. By repeatedly attacking DEI, MAGA aims at gradually achieving social fatigue — a form of psychological and emotional exhaustion from persistent racism and microaggressions.

MAGA hopes the public will yield and find fault in DEI. Arguably, they are on their way to achieving that goal seeing more and more people, including those from communities DEI programmes are aimed at, are increasingly and unwittingly using DEI exactly as MAGA prescribes which is counterproductive and against them.

What is evident is that since Trump took office, social fatigue has intensified due to his rhetoric and policies, which have escalated racial tensions, eroded civil rights protections and public trust, further compounding a long history of unacknowledged, unaddressed racism and discrimination.

Reclaiming DEI and debunking MAGA lies must be everyone’s concern. DEI does not promote incompetence because it has never been about promoting people because of just their skin colour or other protected characteristics, but it is all about addressing past injustices, promoting meritocracy, and ensuring skilled people are not passed for opportunities because of their characteristics and our workplaces and institutions reflect society.

Expunging historical injustices is not favouring previously oppressed population groups neither is it unfair nor denying white people of opportunities to access power and resources; it is humanity. Through DEI programmes, we seek to improve equal access to opportunities for everyone.

Facts matter, as Trumpists are aware, DEI programmes do not take away from White Americans, and they do not extend favour to victims of systemic discrimination and marginalisation but all they do is take the unjust system’s feet off their victims’ necks. DEI programmes are devoted to improving access to equal opportunities via skills development, making reasonable adjustment, change of legislation, etc.