“DEI hire” has become the latest insult to Black success, and presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris isn’t exempt.
An insult uttered in schools and boardrooms about many marginalized people has a new high-profile target: Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
“I think she’s one of the weakest candidates I’ve ever seen in the history of our country. I mean intellectually, just really kind of the bottom of the barrel. … I think that she was a DEI hire,” Rep. Harriett Hageman, a Wyoming Republican, said of Harris.
Earlier this month, Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said on X that the news media had “propped up” Biden, and then “dumped him for our DEI vice president.”
For Black diversity, equity and inclusion professionals, the attacks on Harris as a “DEI hire” or a “DEI candidate” show the ways racial tropes can be used against Black people in power, despite their successes. Burchett and Hageman did not respond to requests for comment from NBC News.
“DEI hire” = because we can’t say N-word.
– #maga handbook
They’ve coined and pushed “migrant crime” as a major American issue despite migrants committing less crime than non-migrants, and violent crimes being way down.
But if it sounds scary and Trump likes to yell about it, that’s good enough for the MAGA Media Machine.
Oh they absolutely can and will say the N word.
But it often has real world consequences.
So they make sure if they do say it, it’s within the same echo chamber.
They do have a point. She hasn’t even been a game show host!
it’s hilarious that they think the whole “she’s just a DEI” approach is going to actually sway anyone against harris
my own response is GOOD. get MORE DEI’s in there. GOP can go back to whining about black little mermaid while the grownups can clean up the fucking mess republicans made
This DEI rhetoric, while obviously racist and sexist, I think has deeper resonance than just the immediate backlash to Harris’ campaign. The escalation of racial and identity battles in the US today snacks of the rhetoric used in early 30s Germany to limit political access to both Jews and anyone else the Nazis were suspect of (basically any non-‘Aryan’ - whatever definition they chose to take that to mean). The law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service granted them the power to remove anyone from political or civil roles if deemed “unfit”. Basically an anti-DEI bill. We already know Trump has sworn vengeance, and we know the Republicans are not above cruel and discriminatory laws. I worry this renewed focus on DEI is priming their voter base to accept not just authoritarianism, but a power structure that openly persecutes groups they have defined as ‘the other’ (I recognize this is already happening at both federal and state levels, I’m just worried it becomes official, unbridled policy).
“Is this other person better than me, in policy and intellect? Let me throw insults and derogatory statements at them to bring them down a few pegs. That’ll make them cry at night and show my constituents I am superior”
And the constituents hop onboard because they are angry, hate filled, depressed people that have been led to believe that all the problems in their lives are because of someone else, and are unable to be introspective and deal with the emotional pain that brings them to hate so much.
