What Republicans really mean when they blame 'DEI'
What Republicans really mean when they blame 'DEI'
Referencing DEI is the new rightwing abstraction deployed by Republicans to conceal their anti-Black racism
Summary
The term "DEI" (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) has become a coded way for Republicans to conceal their anti-Black racism, echoing past racist dog whistles.
This parallels with Lee Atwater’s 1981 admission that conservatives used abstract terms like “states’ rights” to mask racism.
Today, figures like Alina Habba, Tim Burchett, and far-right influencers use "DEI hire" to discredit qualified Black figures.
The media's failure to challenge this rhetoric allows racism to persist, making "DEI" a modern substitute for explicit racial slurs.
![[Opinion] What Republicans really mean when they blame 'DEI' | Mehdi Hasan](https://midwest.social/api/v3/image_proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.guim.co.uk%2Fimg%2Fmedia%2F491468491f3958b039d061fdda531348b8b0f95b%2F0_0_3000_1800%2Fmaster%2F3000.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1200%26height%3D630%26quality%3D85%26auto%3Dformat%26fit%3Dcrop%26overlay-align%3Dbottom%252Cleft%26overlay-width%3D100p%26overlay-base64%3DL2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctb3BpbmlvbnMucG5n%26enable%3Dupscale%26s%3Dcd299021b85df3d6b72b23b3156005b2&format=webp&thumbnail=196)
The insinuation that if you see any woman or person of color in a position of power, prestige, or even competence, they got there because of identity politics and not their own merit, is directly bigoted, not even concealed by the first or second degree. The corollary, of course, is that you can only trust white men to do these important jobs correctly.
This idea is so gross that I don't even want to entertain it mentally.
Thank you for your lucid and crystalline explanation though, internet stranger.
That’s sexist! They also think SOME jobs can be done by women but only if they are cis-women
But if you get too good at that job, the insinuation changes and you must've had sex with your manager in order to get a raise/promotion.
Someone (I think at Do) literally said the “we need white men in charge” line out loud in those words.
So, white men got there only based on their skin and gender? So therefore they are incompetent?
Isn't this why DEI needs to be pulled back though?
People of color and women do get their status on their own but the policy of DEI implies that they got additional assistance even if they didn't. This policy robs them of their achievements and it generates as much resentment towards protected groups as it provides protection. You can't just tell the people not to feel resentment, or you'll get republicans in office forever. We should start advocating for class based workplace assistance rather than dividing ourselves up by race and sex. You'll help out basically the same people, but you'll get class solidarity.
DEI isn't a hiring quota or mandate to prefer a minority candidate over a non-minority candidate. It is the mindset that different experiences, backgrounds, cultures, and viewpoints provide more variety and richer ideas than a single homogenous set, and as such, those differences should be considered as a positive along with other qualifiers as part of the hiring process. A company that values DEI still hires straight white men (speaking as one who works for such a company), as ours is still a viewpoint that should be represented and adds value. But they may also choose a minority candidate over a white male candidate with comparable qualifications if they fill a gap in experiences or culture that the company/team is missing. However, in fact, the reverse is true. If a team is oversaturated with, say, Indians, women, LGBT, etc., a straight American male candidate may be the preferred hire in that case. Should that white guy feel like he needs to justify his position?
DEI is popular in finance. If a bank is engaging in polices to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion it is because it makes them more money than not following these programs.
I won't say if I agree or disagree with you, but the argument you make is absolutely a legitimate one that we as a society should be considering in an ongoing process. Some level of forced integration was absolutely necessary after the end of slavery, but we all should want to live in a future where it's not necessary at all. How far along that scale we are, and how we push further in that direction are questions that current policy discussions largely ignore.
However, we also have to contend with the fact that overt racism is still rampant and that a large part of this country doesn't want a reasonable national conversation on the topic. The noise coming from the right makes it next to impossible for these conversations to occur. Sadly, that's why the politicians who rely on bigotry embrace that rhetoric, whether they are personally racist or not.
DEI, Woke, Left, Commie, etc are all the same word to them. There will be a new one too don't worry. It always means "stuff I don't personally like for either a religious or hateful reason and you can't convince me otherwise" and it's just a boogeyman of stories and ideas that never actually happen irl but somehow get quoted and shared around as if it were a real thing and then uninformed people get scared and vote for strong daddy man.
It's so dumb and telegraphed, make it stop already.
Meanwhile, people on the Left will spend weeks arguing the difference between Socialist and Social Democrat.
Yeah... the nitpicking in-fighting from people that spend waaaaay too much time delineating groups rather than working for a common cause was particularly fun in the last election. "We're not the Judean People's Front! We're the People's Front of Judea!"
There's a tradeshow a client of mine is attending where the DEI talk has been rebranded "Justice, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion" — JEDI.
Thought that was kinda clever actually.
They ALWAYS think DEI means hiring an inferior, less qualified person instead of the superior, more qualified white man.
That is because they cannot and will not believe any other race or sex could ever be equal to or better than the lowest white man.
They are certainly racist, they always have been and always will be. As far as I am concerned, every Republican is racist, and if they ever hire or appoint a POC or a woman, it's tokenism, not because they truly believe the hire is the best person for the job.
When they say "DEI," they mean no more affirmative action for the dimwit sons of rich and well-connected white people.
The GOP’s DEI panic is just recycled bigotry with a thesaurus. Trump’s crew rebranding exclusion as “anti-wokeness” — a moral panic for donors and pundits to feast on. They’re not defending merit; they’re erasing history.
Republicans framing equity as oppression is peak gaslighting. Every crusade against “divisive concepts” reveals their real fear: a future where their cultural monopoly crumbles. DEI isn’t the threat—their irrelevance is.
This isn’t policy. It’s a smokescreen for institutionalizing resentment. When they scream “reverse racism,” what they mean is “keep the hierarchy intact.” The roadmap’s clear: manufacture enemies, sell outrage, cash checks. Democracy as a looted storefront.
They're doing it because organizations run by white males aren't viable unless propped up by the power of the state.
I had the opportunity (OK, I was paid some serious money to do it) to run a team of software and systems people who were all gentile cis males, mostly white. I'm one of those myself. It was an international gig with some other peculiar restrictions as well. It turned out to be an interesting management challenge, of the "slow horses" variety. These were not the ultra-high-talent outliers, for the most part, though many were graduates of universities associated with the elite. Having such a restricted talent pool forced me (and my management team) to think hard about the work we were doing and how to minimize the risks of fuck-ups. We were successful, but it was like trying to ride a motorcycle with both eyes tied behind my back. Before that, I'd been on a job where I was empowered to recover a failed project, and I had carte blanche on hiring decisions and anything budgetary that wasn't outright silly. So this was a shock. When I finished the (very long) project, everything seemed easy afterwards.
All DEI is, in essence, is not going out of your way to support the current dysfunctional legacy hierarchy. Even now, I'm cautious about hiring from organizations and institutions that are frequented by the well-connected and privileged. Cronyism is a pig of a problem, and if I see someone operating an old-boy's network, their ass is gone. And that's not just true of WASPs. The elite recruitment and clannishness problem is also severe in many other countries.
As an aging white male myself, instead of whining about DEI, I used a different strategy to advance at work: I made myself able to compete with anyone in the world. If you're not prepared to do that, you shouldn't be in a global business. And rigging the system to protect your homies just leaves you fat, complacent and easy pickings for people who know what they're doing. Why do you think Musk is sucking up to Trump? It's because he knows that, in a fair fight, his ass will be handed to him. Even without his ketamine issues and egomania, he's not up to the job.
The crux of your argument is spot on: cronyism and insular networks are cancers to any system claiming meritocracy. Your experience managing a restricted talent pool highlights how fragility thrives when privilege shields mediocrity. But here’s the rub—your disdain for "old-boy networks" doesn’t just apply to WASPs; it’s a universal issue. Yet, the backlash against DEI disproportionately comes from those who’ve benefited most from these rigged systems.
You’re right that global business demands competition on a level playing field, but the resistance to DEI isn’t just fear of competition—it’s existential dread about losing cultural dominance. Musk pandering to Trump is a perfect example: a desperate bid to preserve a rigged status quo. The real challenge isn’t DEI; it’s dismantling the entitlement that masquerades as merit.
They mean civil rights. Our rights are being taken away.
Remember my friends, when Nazis started to control the Jewish population of Germany, the first restrictions inacted were limits to where the Jewish people could work, specifically it limited a Jewish person’s ability to be hired for a government position based on the bullshit notion that Jewish people weren’t as reliable as a German person. This was known as, “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" of April 7, 1933.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/anti-jewish-legislation-in-prewar-germany
The R in republican stands for racist
"DEI" is GOP's hard 'r'.
That's why I keep saying banning a word or making a world "not professional" doesn't do anything as long as people's though doesn't change. Like saying "don't say black, say african American" doesn't make them suddenly like them, they'll still be racist. Changing words will just make them use a new word to mean the same thing.
Yeah there might be emotional things about certain words and not wanting people to use it can be understandable. It might be a step is a direction if it's to be less humiliating or be inclusive. But just saying "don't use this word, use this word instead" will make the new word mean the same thing with same derogatory meaning if people use the new word derogatorily. Now DEI has become that new word, and instead of claiming the word back, owning it, people might go "don't say DEI" and come up with a completely new acronym while trying to "heal" from the past administration.