(Todd A. Smith)
Racist White people have often used code words that they believe will hide their bigotry.
Affirmative action.
Reverse racism.
And now, the new term is DEI, as in diversity, equity and inclusion.
Racists have long known that using such words as the N-word and other racist slurs would only prove to everyone how racist they are.
But racists have recently shown how unintelligent they are if they think that Black people cannot use context clues to figure out, they are still referring to us as N-words and inferior when they refer to us as DEI hires or other more “acceptable” terms.
The DEI term now seems to be used every time a Black person has a coveted job or every time something goes wrong on a job where some Black people are employed.
To a racist, a Black person like New York’s Attorney General Letitia James or Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott did not get their jobs or win elections because they were the most qualified.
They only got those jobs because the entity they work for wanted a diverse workforce.
When a cargo shipped, possibly driven by White people, ran into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, it was not the conductor’s fault.
It was the fault of Baltimore’s DEI (code for N-word) mayor who had nothing to do with the ship’s path.
When Attorney General James held former President Donald Trump accountable for fraud, somehow the fact that she is Black had something to do with Trump being held accountable for something the average person would have been in jail for decades ago.
Unfortunately, it is not the fact that some White people find Black people inferior and unqualified that is alarming because that is nothing new.
It is the fact that so many prominent White leaders so openly use the term DEI hire to address Black professionals that is so alarming as if Black people cannot discern their true feelings about us.
From businesspeople like Elon Musk to Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), many White leaders are openly admitting that they are racist, and they are not intelligent enough to realize that.
If a person thinks that the only reason a Black person can get a professional job is because of diversity, equity and inclusion, then that person is the definition of racist and White supremacist.
When a person says that a politician like Mayor Scott won an election in Baltimore because of DEI, even though the person won with over 7o percent of the vote, they cannot admit that people might have preferred him for the job because he was the most qualified, not because of preferential treatment.
Merit had everything to do with it.
But why do some racist White people ignore when merit is not the reason for a White person’s success, but assume no Black person earned anything by merit?
Should Black people call out White people as nepotism hires?
Should Black people call out White people as cronyism hires?
Should Black people call out White people as racism and White privilege hires because there are many times when a Black person was more qualified for a job, but was bypassed for a less qualified White person, simply because a White person was in a decision-making role?
Is the Trump family the ultimate cronyism and nepotism hires?
Infamously, Fred Trump, Sr. did not build his real estate empire from just hard work and his own ingenuity.
He used government grants, worth millions (in modern value), to build affordable housing for World War II veterans coming back home from the battlefield.
From the million-dollar handouts, Trump was able to build a real estate empire that he gave to his son.
The son went on to take the company to greater heights because he frauded banks out of hundreds of millions of dollars by inflating the value of his properties and his own worth.
Yet and still, many racist White people still worship the former president as if he earned his position in life, while at the same time assuming that Black people who pulled themselves up from their own bootstraps got where they are in life because of diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
And the Trump family is not alone in getting government contracts and handouts based on cronyism and nepotism.
Many government contracts are awarded to White-owned companies because the CEOs of the companies are friends with the politicians making the decisions.
Many White male politicians have even received government contracts in the past because they put businesses in their wives’ names because White women also benefit from programs like affirmative action.
Yet, not as many people seem to have a problem with diversity, equity and inclusion efforts helping White women.
At least, I have yet to see a Republican politicians brand a White woman as a DEI hire.
However, when a Black person succeeds in life, it cannot be based on their own hard work, intelligence and perseverance.
In the minds of racist White people, Black people can only be successful if a White person is the victim of discrimination because good jobs are reserved for White people.
Or White people are the only ones qualified for good jobs.
Yes, people like Musk and Crenshaw will say they are not talking about all Black people when they blame diversity, equity and inclusion for Black success.
However, they only complain about Black people every time they blame diversity, equity and inclusion for the White man losing power in America.
That is code for I am racist.
That is code for I am a White supremacist.
And that is code for I think Black people are less than.
It would just be great if they were bold enough to admit it already.
