In 1981, Lee Atwater, essentially the most influential Republican get together strategist of the late twentieth century, sat down for an off-the-record interview with the political scientist Alexander P Lamis. On the time, Atwater was a junior member of the Reagan administration, however he would later go on to run George HW Bush’s presidential marketing campaign in 1988 after which turn into chair of the Republican Nationwide Committee in 1989.
In maybe essentially the most revealing, and most notorious, portion of the interview, the hard-charging Republican operative defined to Lamis how Republican politicians might masks their racism – and racist appeals to white voters – behind a sequence of euphemisms.
You begin out in 1954 by saying, ‘[N-word, N-word, N-word]’. By 1968 you’ll be able to’t say ‘[N-word]’ – that hurts you, backfires. So that you say stuff like, uh, compelled busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and also you’re getting so summary. Now, you’re speaking about chopping taxes, and all these stuff you’re speaking about are completely financial issues and a byproduct of them is, blacks get damage worse than whites … ‘We need to minimize this,’ is way more summary than even the busing factor, uh, and a hell of much more summary than ‘[N-word, N-word]’.
Acquired that? No have to utter the N-word out loud as there have been loads of different “summary” methods to say it.
Immediately, greater than 4 a long time later, DEI has turn into the brand new N-word; the brand new rightwing abstraction deployed by Republicans to hide their anti-Black racism. DEI – brief for variety, fairness and inclusion – is thrown round by high-profile conservatives, from the president of the USA downwards, for the categorical goal of undermining Black individuals in public life.
Don’t consider me? In a latest interview on Fox Information, the White Home counselor and former Trump lawyer Alina Habba declared that the administration’s 27-year-old press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, “is overqualified, sensible and was well-versed and prepared … she didn’t want a thick binder … not like our final press secretary who was put in there for … DEI causes”.
For the document, the “final press secretary”, Karine Jean-Pierre, is the Black daughter of Haitian immigrants. Is she much less certified than her successor? Nicely, let’s examine résumés, lets?
Neither Habba herself, nor Leavitt, are Ivy League grads.
Jean-Pierre is.
Neither Habba herself, nor Leavitt, labored in two completely different administrations earlier than securing their high White Home positions.
Jean-Pierre did.
Neither Habba herself, nor Leavitt, has served on three completely different election-winning presidential campaigns throughout three completely different a long time.
Jean-Pierre has.
So when Habba says Jean-Pierre was appointed White Home press secretary for “DEI causes”, what else might she be alluding to aside from that she is a Black lady?
When the Republican congressman Tim Burchett referred to as Kamala Harris – the then sitting vice-president, former senator and former legal professional normal of the nation’s most populous state; a girl who would have entered the Oval Workplace with an extended document in elected workplace than Invoice Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump – a “DEI rent” inside 24 hours of her changing into the Democratic presidential nominee, what else might he have been referring to aside from that she is a Black lady?
When a viral tweet (26m views and counting) from a preferred far-right account (that can also be amplified by Elon Musk) referred to Brandon Scott – the mayor of Baltimore who was elected with 70% of the vote and beforehand served eight years on the town council, together with a stint as metropolis council president – as the town’s “DEI mayor”, what else might it have been making an attempt to level to aside from that he’s a Black man?
DEI is the brand new N-word. In actual fact, the Black podcaster Van Lathan argues that DEI is now “worse than the N-word” and has turn into “the worst slur in American historical past”. The time period “DEI rent”, he explains, “isn’t just getting used to undermine the {qualifications}, functionality and readiness of Black individuals … DEI is inserting the blame of all of society’s ills on the ft of those individuals.”
Aircraft crash? Blame DEI. Wildfires in LA? Blame DEI. Bridge collapse? Blame DEI.
DEI is a racist dogwhistle. Blame Black individuals is the not so unsubtle message.
You now can not activate the tv or go browsing to social media with out coming throughout a outstanding conservative blathering on concerning the evils of DEI. To quote the loathsome Fox host Greg Gutfeld, DEI “can be utilized to clarify every thing … besides, not like racism and local weather change, which the left discovered underneath each rock, each difficulty, DEI is, certainly, underneath each rock as a result of the Democrats put it there.”
This isn’t a good-faith critique of variety packages or insurance policies – whether or not they truly work or not; whether or not they limit free speech; whether or not they’re company box-ticking workouts. No, that is the weaponization of a three-letter time period to denigrate Black individuals and faux the political and financial development of minority communities over the previous 60 years was a mistake. (“If I see a Black pilot, I’m gonna be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s certified,” the rightwing activist and high Trump ally Charlie Kirk casually remarked final 12 months.)
So why on earth is our “liberal” media credulously giving Republicans the advantage of the doubt on this? Treating their obsession with DEI as something aside from what it’s? Anti-Black racism. The brand new N-word. A 3-letter slur that seeks to, as soon as once more, mainstream bigotry and discrimination in the USA. (“DEI halftime present,” tweeted the far-right influencer Jack Posobiec throughout the Tremendous Bowl on Sunday evening.)
For years, Donald Trump has been suffering from allegations that he used the N-word whereas filming The Apprentice. In 2024, a former producer on the NBC actuality present claimed Trump used the racial epithet in 2004 to explain Kwame Jackson, a Black finalist on the primary season of The Apprentice. In 2018, the previous White Home aide Omarosa Manigault Newman claimed in her e-book Unhinged that Trump was caught on tape throughout the making of The Apprentice saying the N-word “a number of instances”, in accordance with three of her sources.
On the time, Trump vociferously denied that he had ever used the N-word: “I don’t have that phrase in my vocabulary, and by no means have.”
However the terrible fact is that, today, he doesn’t even have to have such a phrase in his vocabulary. He and his acolytes have one other, extra insidious one which serves the same racist goal: DEI.
