In Defense of DEI

I write in response to the recent article criticizing race-based diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. I don’t aim to tear down, but to contribute to this conversation and offer my perspective, particularly that of a biracial/Black person who has been involved in DEI efforts in the past. I believe I am in alignment with the goals of the piece’s author: to work towards the abolition of race, and a world in which skin color is only an incidental phenotype, an accident of birth rather than a shaper of one’s life trajectory.

I adopt, at least for this article, prison abolitionist and geographer Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s materialist definition of racism alongside a more conventional one of personal prejudice. Gilmore writes that racism is “the state-sanctioned and/or legal production and exploitation of group-differentiated vulnerabilities to premature death.” Racism, in her definition, extends beyond individual hearts and minds — it is structural, embedded deep in society, defined in a way that foregrounds the material effects on racialized people. “Premature death” is the most crucial part of that definition. In the United States, we unquestionably live with the effects and aftereffects of a society that has exposed racialized people to premature death. Slavery, settler colonialism, Indigenous genocide, lynch mobs, and forced internment all reflect the fact that this country has a long and excruciating history of brutalizing its non-white inhabitants. Racism kills, whether it be by poverty, police brutality, incarceration, deportation, or any of the many other state mechanisms that produce the unnatural, premature deaths of its victims. Life expectancy is literally lower for Black and Indigenous Americans than for white Americans. Given that this country was built off of the labor of enslaved Black people and that the Declaration of Independence includes a reference to so-called “merciless Indian savages,” it is no exaggeration to say that racism is inexplicably intertwined with this country’s origins. The premature death of racialized people is part of this nation’s DNA. Although racism has been rigorously combatted, it has not been expunged from our contemporary moment: The reelection of notorious white supremacist Donald Trump has brought this fact into sharp relief.

DEI’s existence is an attempt at a remedy. DEI is not necessary because there exists some innate, natural distinctions between white and racialized people, but rather, because racialized people’s pasts, presents, and futures are profoundly influenced by racism rooted in our everyday structures. Our differences are not biological, but sociological. Examples abound: People with white-sounding names are more likely to be called back for jobs. Black students experience higher rates of harsh disciplinary action than their white peers, and Indigenous girls are more than thrice as likely to be suspended than white girls. Black and Asian college graduates are more likely to be unemployed after graduation. Black men receive longer sentences than white men for the same crime. Black couples are more likely to be denied a mortgage, reducing their homeownership rates and therefore their prospects at generational wealth and long-term financial stability and prosperity. Black women are more likely to die due to pregnancy-related causes than white women — regardless of whether they are college-educated.

While I don’t believe that there is some universal “Black experience,” (or “nonwhite experience”) Black and other racialized people are undeniably more likely to be oppressed for their race across various facets of American society. Even the mere existence of widespread biases is an obstacle to racialized people’s success. “Stereotype threat,” or the performance-hampering anxiety that one will confirm a negative stereotype about their group, is a “self-fulfilling prophecy” that actively hinders marginalized people’s success.

DEI, certainly, is no absolute panacea to these issues but it observes the differences in the way people are treated, and rather than allowing them to continue unfettered, it attacks them. Although major changes are required, DEI is a temporary response, a beginning to a long endeavor of meaningful social change. It is an example of equity, instead of equality — raising racialized people up to level the playing field, lifting them (us) up as a form of compensation for the long-standing injustice at the heart of an ugly system. The so-called “merit-based” approach is inadequate when racialized people’s extraordinary depth of intellect and talent have historically been devalued by hegemonic systems that supposedly measure “merit.” In the words of Frankie Heyward, founder of the National Black Postdoctoral Association, “There’s a lot of privilege masquerading as merit. DEI efforts are needed to level the playing field, so that merit can start to be accurately assessed.”

To abolish race, we can’t take a colorblind approach. We have to redress and correct for the (rampant, ongoing) harm instead of proceeding as if it never happened in the first place. In a society rife with racialized inequities, DEI is a first step towards a more just world.