(Todd A. Smith/Photo Credit: Kevin Bussey for Bussey One Photography)
The term diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) has become a political and racial lightning rod over the last couple of years.
Proponents of DEI believe that it blunts the impact of racism and creates a more level playing field for minorities.
Opponents believe that DEI programs discriminate against White Americans.
While I am a big supporter of DEI programs, others have a right to believe differently.
But for the love of everything that is holy, keep the same position and energy no matter what the circumstances and/or facts are.
During the Democratic National Convention last week, several of Vice President Kamala Harris’ line sisters showed up to support their soror as she officially became the Democratic nominee for President of the United States in 2024.
While many people of all races praised the love that she received from her sorors, some on the social media platform X criticized her line sisters’ picture because all the women gathered for the photograph were African-American.
One X user asked where is the diversity, equity and inclusion?
I am not professing to know the user’s views on diversity, equity and inclusion.
But one would think that such a statement means he/she is of the conservative viewpoint when it comes to DEI programs, which means he/she does not support them.
However, if a person does not support DEI efforts when it benefits African-Americans, they should not support DEI efforts when it benefits White Americans.
What is good for the goose should be good for the gander.
More importantly, statement like that made by this X user shows why teaching true American history is so important because with the banning of books and African-American history, many White Americans have no clue of what they are talking about when the subject of race or ethnicity is brought up in the public discourse.
Therefore, RegalMag.com will attempt to give a quick history lesson for those who do not know why some organizations and institutions are predominantly African-American, when most things in this country are all, or majority, White.
Vice President Harris is a proud initiate of the Alpha Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. (AKA) at Howard University.
For those not in the know, the AKAs are members of the Divine Nine, a collective of predominantly African-American fraternities (five) and sororities (four).
Furthermore, Howard University is known as the Mecca of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and is in our nation’s capital.
The reason America has colleges known as HBCUs is because White institutions would not allow African-Americans to attend for years, decades and even a century or two.
As a result, African-Americans created their own institutions of higher learning so that they could purse whatever careers they chose as opposed to being forced into menial work to maintain a White racist caste system.
In fact, the term HBCU came from White politicians, not African-Americans.
However, many African-Americans have embraced the term HBCU and take pride in being graduates, students or supporters of HBCUs.
Like African-Americans did in slavery, they took the scraps that the White man allowed them to have and made masterpieces out of them from soul food to the soul found during halftime of an HBCU football game.
When White schools were forced to integrate, or realized that integrating their sports teams were financially beneficial, HBCUs did not go out of business voluntarily because predominantly White institutions (PWIs) would now accept our tuition money just like PWIs did not go out of business because White students now attend HBCUs.
Those institutions stayed open because millions of students choose to go there every school year.
Most HBCUs remain predominantly African-American, while other HBCUs now have a predominantly White student body.
Howard University is still predominantly African-American.
Therefore, many pictures from Harris’ matriculation at the Washington, D.C. college will feature mostly African-American peers.
The same thing basically applies to Divine Nine fraternities and sororities when it comes to their formation.
The first two predominantly African-American fraternities (Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. and Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.) began at PWIs because African-American students could not participate in normal campus life, or join White fraternities, because of segregation and discrimination.
Therefore, African-American men founded their own organizations.
In a nutshell, the Divine Nine organizations did not form to exclude non-African-Americans.
Those organizations began because White organizations excluded them.
Although there are many people of all races in those nine organizations, the numbers are still predominantly African-American.
Therefore, any picture that shows Harris’ sorors will probably be a picture of mainly African-American women.
Ultimately, the critic on X should not have asked the AKAs or Harris where the diversity is.
They should have asked more people outside the African-American race why they do not consider joining a sorority if they are not in the majority because those organizations welcome all regardless of race, creed, color or religion.
Without statistics to back this up, it seems that more African-Americans are willing to integrate White society than the other way around.
That does not reflect poorly on the AKA’s diversity or lack thereof.
That reflects poorly on White society not wanting to be in the minority in any situation.
Just look at a church service on television this weekend.
You will probably see more African-Americans in attendance at a church with a White pastor like at Lakewood Church in Houston than you will see White worshippers at a church with an African-American pastor like The Church Without Walls, also in Houston.
African-Americans should not have to diversify if many of their White brethren do not feel the need to reciprocate.
But maybe, just maybe, the Alpha Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. did not find any qualified, talented and likable White women to include as an initiate during Harris’ intake group.
If they had given a spot to an unqualified White woman, that would have taken a spot from a better qualified African-American woman.
And giving that hypothetical White woman a spot on the line would have made her a DEI or affirmative action selection.
They probably did not want to do that because it would have upset so many of her White peers because she would not have earned her spot and everything should be merit-based, right?
