Do y’all remember during Donald Trump’s campaign when the president-elect spent significant time faking solidarity with Black people by likening the systemic racism we face in the justice system to his own legal problems, which he considered to be unjust prosecutions by “racist” Black prosecutors? Remember how he went on about how he’s the best president for keeping Black people employed and that if Vice President Kamala Harris ascended to the White House, all of our “Black jobs” would go to illegal immigrants?
Well, it has barely been a full week since Trump won the election, and already he’s doubling down on his promise to wipe the very concept of diversity, equity and inclusion — initiatives that help qualified Black people receive opportunities we wouldn’t receive otherwise in industries that are traditionally dominated by White men (*gestures widely towards every major industry in the nation*) — and he’s out here promising reparations for White people who have been “victims” of DEI.
This week, Trump dropped a couple of video messages detailing his plans for his second term as president, which include directing the Department of Justice to go after DEI and “pursue federal civil rights cases against schools that continue to engage in racial discrimination and schools that persist in explicit unlawful discrimination under the guise of equity.” He also said that schools engaging in DEI initiatives would have their endowments taxed and he proposed that a “portion of the seized funds will then be used as restitution for victims of these illegal and unjust policies, policies that hurt our country so badly.”
It’s just wild, man. It’s such an uphill battle for Black people to convince White America that we’ve ever been “victims” of systemic racism, despite all of the data that backs the assertion. No such data exists that indicates White people are discriminated against in America, which is why White conservatives rely on the many myths surrounding affirmative action and DEI — namely that they offer White people’s positions to undereducated and under qualified non-white people — to make their case for anti-white discrimination. All White people have to do is cry about largely fictitious anti-whiteness and the president-elect is essentially offering them the reparations that have been denied to Black people after two and a half centuries of slavery and another century of legally-sanctioned second-class citizenship limited (or eliminated) Black access to the same educational resources and hiring practices that White men have enjoyed throughout American history.
This article first appeared on crusader.com
