Diversity, equity and inclusion — the idea that America should more accurately reflect its population — is under attack by conservatives everywhere, who wield “DEI” like it’s a curse word.
To many conservatives, the knee-jerk reaction to any minority in a position of power is that the person must’ve gotten his or her job merely to satisfy racial quotas. That they DEI — Didn’t Earn It. For conservatives, it comes down to a choice between color or qualifications — there is no possibility that the most qualified and the minority are the same person. On the other hand, the conservative assumption is that whites earn their places of power and are always qualified.
The Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals just addressed this same issue, concerning the qualifications of Black pilots.
The latest DEI attack target is Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, who was decried on social media and elsewhere after a bridge built 50 years ago was rammed days ago by a cargo ship weighing millions of pounds, causing the bridge to collapse and killing at least six workers. Conservatives, apparently in a desperate attempt to gain political traction amid tragedy, blasted Scott as a “DEI mayor.”
This is Baltimore’s DEI mayor commenting on the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge.
It’s going to get so, so much worse. Prepare accordingly. pic.twitter.com/slw0lCooin
— iamyesyouareno (@iamyesyouareno) March 26, 2024
Blaming DEI when they want to say something else
But Scott was ready.
“We know what these folks really want to say when they say ‘DEI mayor,’ ” Scott retorted. “Whether it is DEI or clown, they really want to say the N-word. But there is nothing they can do and say to me that is worse than the treatment of my ancestors. I am proud of who I am and where I come from.”
It wasn’t just on social media that these attacks came. Florida congressional candidate Anthony Sabatini declared “DEI did this” in response to the collapse.
DEI did this pic.twitter.com/U8HIbFNAUE
— Anthony Sabatini (@AnthonySabatini) March 26, 2024
Utah Rep. Phil Lyman, a GOP gubernatorial candidate in the Beehive State, said the bridge collapse is, “What happens when you have governors who prioritize diversity over the wellbeing and security of citizens.” Just in case there was any doubt about what Lyman meant, he rearranged the letters in another post to read “DEI=DIE.” He later blamed overzealous campaign assistants for posting on his behalf, claiming it was “not our best moment,” but also declined to remove the post.
Wait! There were other bridge collapses
According to sources with a knowledge of history, there were other collapsed bridges. One happened on Interstate 35 in Minneapolis on Aug. 1, 2007. Thirteen people were killed. The Minneapolis mayor that day was R.T. Rybak. Unless something has changed in the last 17 years, Rybak is still white.
Another bridge, this one on I-40 in eastern Oklahoma, this one on May 26, 2002, collapsed under similar circumstances as the one in Baltimore. Fourteen died and 11 were injured. The mayor was white — Jewell Horne-Hall. The pilot of the barge that hit the bridge was white, but said he “blacked out” because of a heart condition before hitting the bridge, so maybe DEI is at fault. Or perhaps a far more sensible take on that is that, apparently, white mayors have as hard a time preventing collapsing bridges as “DEI mayors.”
What makes this racist dog-whistle attack even more nonsensical is that Scott wasn’t given his position. He entered the mayor’s office the same way all the white mayors do — by winning the position in an election. But Scott says maybe he really is a DEI mayor because he is a “duly elected incumbent.”
Scott has been mayor of Baltimore since 2020, a place where a white mayor might be subject to such taunts because the city is 62.3 percent Black. Scott was elected with 70 percent of the vote, but said he wanted to set the record straight against “bigots” and the belief that “white men should only be in control of things.”
Scott said he will continue to combat those spouting “untrue and wrong ideology” because “the fact that I am very proud of my heritage and who I am and where I come from scares them.
“Because me being in my position means that their way of thinking, their way of life being comfortable while everyone else suffers is going to be at risk and they should be afraid because that is my purpose in life.”
