DEI is an acronym.
Believe it or not, some acronyms are cleverly designed to intimidate you.
How can you possibly be against "diversity, equity, inclusion"?
It’s easy to be against it with when it becomes crystal clear that it’s left-wing code for: "Merit and individual ability do not matter. Only race and gender matter. And we’re going to pretend that’s the truth."
So now, let’s properly redefine DEI as "Didn’t Earn It."
No one could survive five minutes going on DEI principles.
If you were stranded on a desert island with three other people, you’d figure out how to survive by encouraging the best qualities in every individual.
You wouldn’t say, "Let’s give the dark-skinned person the most important roles, and the person confused about his gender the final say on everything." You would say, "How can we survive? Who’s better at what? How can we get this done in all our interest the quickest way?"
Life in an advanced civilizations requires more than bare survival skills.
Oftentimes, we exercise simple choices about whom we wish to associate with, and whom we wish to stay away from. It's OK. It’s every individual’s prerogative.
It’s called progress. Having more choices is one of the perks of progress.
DEI is an imaginary one-size-fits-all fix for nonexistent problems.
Yes, some people are racist or biased, though most are not, and most accused of it are not.
Even so, DEI does nothing to solve anything. By taking the focus off individual performance and favoring (or unfavorably considering) skin color over training or qualifications, you do a disservice to everyone.
You’re also acting and thinking like a racist — indeed, you are a racist — the moment you elevate race as the most important factor in anything.
Here's the news flash: The same goes for gender.
When an individual white man has more demonstrated ability, you’re cheating him out of his right to be all he can be by forcing someone of less ability to do the job.
You’re also cheating the improperly elevated persons out of the opportunity to enjoy those benefits from their superior colleague.
And when you give the elevated DEI persons more responsibility than they can handle, you make them look foolish and incapable, further generating unfounded racial and gender biases, rather than eliminating them.
Sadly, DEI is not new.
In the 1970s and 1980s DEI went by another name, "affirmative action."
The euphemism and the concept disappeared.
Now DEI advocates act and sneer as if this B.S. has never been tried before.
Good grief. How stupid do they think we are? And more importantly, how stupid are we to play along with it?
Advocates of racially based admissions in universities and other such standards are detached from reality. They focus on the social-political, apart from reality.
By ignoring the individual, they ignore all things that make human beings what they are, including their aspirations, needs, wants, desires and fundamental motivations.
Psychologically entrenched and politically connected adherents of affirmative action and forced "diversity" are great at congratulating themselves and others in their peer groups, including the federal government and the grants and favors that the federal government hands out.
This manifests as, in so many words:
"Look at us," "We favor diversity," We're morally pure, morally superior people," "You don’t agree with us?" "What are you, a racist? A hater?"
And who cares what you think? We hold the power over the funds."
It’s not that difficult to understand.
When you put human beings into a context where the rules are determined by factors having nothing to do with one’s actual achievements or choices (such as race or gender), then you demoralize people.
The supposed beneficiaries of these policies --- Blacks, women, Hispanics, the members of any politically connected group --- are told they were lifted higher not for their accomplishments, but for factors they could not control.
They’re not told this directly, but it’s self-evident from the fact they are asked their race or gender, and where they know full well this will be an asset.
It all sets up a cynical form of competition where everyone knows accomplishment is not the defining or ruling standard.
It’s fundamentally unjust, and everyone knows it, no matter how afraid they are to say so out loud, due to the intimidating influence of political correctness mentally strangling our society.
Being objectively capable of something? That’s an achievement.
Being a female? Or Black? Or Asian? Or gay?
Those are not achievements. They happened by chance.
Consider the recent fires in California, a disaster which could have been prevented with more competent people in charge.
The people in charge were the byproduct of DEI policies or attitudes rampant in the Golden State.
Witness the results. Ironically, those who suffered most were people who voted for all this woke DEI nonsense.
When you elevate irrelevant factors above competence, you get incompetence.
With incompetence, you get death and despair.
It’s as simple as that. DEI hampers and kills.
Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Psychology. He is the author of "Grow Up America" and "Bad Therapy, Good Therapy," available exclusively at www.DrHurd.com. He has been quoted in and/or appeared on over 30 radio shows/podcasts (including Rush Limbaugh and Larry Elder), on Newsmax TV, and writes two self-help columns weekly. Dr. Hurd resides in Charleston, South Carolina. Read more of Dr. Hurd's reports — Here.
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