Zone1 Why the term 'DEI' is being weaponized as a racist dog whistle

[MizMolly]

Blacks and whites have had different experiences in America. Whites tell a story of a group of people who came over on the Mayflower. Blacks tell stories about being stuck in the bowels of ships like the Amistad. We did not see the Beaver Cleaver nation many whites talk about. During the 50s, we were protesting having to sit on the back of the bus and segregated schools. We didn’t have time to worry about Lumpy Rutherford. Let me add this, and maybe the whites who are the problem can understand better how things are now. Today no freedom riders are going into towns to teach children how to read and then finding whole communities of adult blacks who also can’t read. Those days are over. Blacks are educated now, and more blacks than ever before are entering colleges or post-secondary training. We know what you mean when you say certain things. Dogs don’t whistle, and “Make America Great Again,” means that “we want white dominion.” The use of various terms have been weaponized by the racists subculture and used as dogwhistles that members of that subculture uses then claims plausible deniability when called on the obvious racism of the statement. DEI is one of those terms.

Why the term 'DEI' is being weaponized as a racist dog whistle​

In right-wing rhetoric, the DEI label is often used to play upon racial resentments. It is increasingly appropriated as a racist dog whistle used to question and undermine the positions, qualifications and abilities of racialized people.

A dog whistle is a term that also does something else—something less socially acceptable—below the surface. It is a coded, deniable bit of language that allows people to communicate ideas that would be too offensive if done explicitly.

As podcaster Peter Shamshiri puts it:

"What they're doing is trying to create a framework whereby any person of color's position is inherently suspect…It's about building a sociocultural mechanism for reinforcing the existing hierarchy."

There's nothing new about this sort of effort. But the way DEI is used to play into racist sentiments is uniquely powerful, and more potent than other culture war terms.

Condemnations of critical race theory played a key role in educational gag orders and book bans in states like Florida. But that is limited to educational contexts.

"Affirmative action" is also used to attack members of underrepresented groups who find their way into desirable positions, but it's no good for book bans. Other terms like "woke," "snowflake" and "politically correct" can readily be used to discredit anti-racist activists, but they can't be easily applied to someone who integrates into a white workplace.

DEI can cover all of these. Those books you don't like? Blame DEI initiatives. Black people getting prestigious jobs? DEI is at fault. Annoying young student activists? Too much DEI on university campuses. It's hard to find a hot-button issue or social context where DEI can't be hurled as a term of abuse to undermine marginalized people.

MSN

We are looking at a fascist movement by the extreme right element in the white community. It is now time for all who oppose white supremacy to stand up.

More ASSuming on your part. I don’t like Trump but MAGA is not about making America white again. You are the racist fueling racism by ASSuming the worst about whites, yet you want all blacks absolved of anything they should be personably responsible for.

 

[MizMolly]

Your posts show that you are not a better man than me. You have less education and less skill. And far less intelligence. You have proven that. But again instead of this personal attack answer the question,

Have you ever consdered the fact that white men have only been hired because of their skin color and the fact they have a dick?

Once again you believe white people have zero skills, zero experience, zero intelligence to get a job based on job related qualifications.

 

[Hector12]

Diversity , equity, and inclusion are the enemies of merit, excellence, and qualifications.

 

[Markle]

Blacks and whites have had different experiences in America. Whites tell a story of a group of people who came over on the Mayflower. Blacks tell stories about being stuck in the bowels of ships like the Amistad. We did not see the Beaver Cleaver nation many whites talk about. During the 50s, we were protesting having to sit on the back of the bus and segregated schools. We didn’t have time to worry about Lumpy Rutherford. Let me add this, and maybe the whites who are the problem can understand better how things are now. Today no freedom riders are going into towns to teach children how to read and then finding whole communities of adult blacks who also can’t read. Those days are over. Blacks are educated now, and more blacks than ever before are entering colleges or post-secondary training. We know what you mean when you say certain things. Dogs don’t whistle, and “Make America Great Again,” means that “we want white dominion.” The use of various terms have been weaponized by the racists subculture and used as dogwhistles that members of that subculture uses then claims plausible deniability when called on the obvious racism of the statement. DEI is one of those terms.

Why the term 'DEI' is being weaponized as a racist dog whistle​

In right-wing rhetoric, the DEI label is often used to play upon racial resentments. It is increasingly appropriated as a racist dog whistle used to question and undermine the positions, qualifications and abilities of racialized people.

A dog whistle is a term that also does something else—something less socially acceptable—below the surface. It is a coded, deniable bit of language that allows people to communicate ideas that would be too offensive if done explicitly.

As podcaster Peter Shamshiri puts it:

"What they're doing is trying to create a framework whereby any person of color's position is inherently suspect…It's about building a sociocultural mechanism for reinforcing the existing hierarchy."

There's nothing new about this sort of effort. But the way DEI is used to play into racist sentiments is uniquely powerful, and more potent than other culture war terms.

Condemnations of critical race theory played a key role in educational gag orders and book bans in states like Florida. But that is limited to educational contexts.

"Affirmative action" is also used to attack members of underrepresented groups who find their way into desirable positions, but it's no good for book bans. Other terms like "woke," "snowflake" and "politically correct" can readily be used to discredit anti-racist activists, but they can't be easily applied to someone who integrates into a white workplace.

DEI can cover all of these. Those books you don't like? Blame DEI initiatives. Black people getting prestigious jobs? DEI is at fault. Annoying young student activists? Too much DEI on university campuses. It's hard to find a hot-button issue or social context where DEI can't be hurled as a term of abuse to undermine marginalized people.

MSN

We are looking at a fascist movement by the extreme right element in the white community. It is now time for all who oppose white supremacy to stand up.

 

[Ms. Turquoise]

LOL Fifty plus years of affirmative action, quotas, and blacks keep falling behind. Si. ow the crap of DEI is brought in, and more fail is guaranteed.

D Didn't

E Earn

I It

Look at South Africa 30 years

The reason South Africa is still having problems is because the MONEY wasn't given to the Black majority. It is still in the hands of the White minority.

 

[Hector12]

Didn't Earn It. DEI. How about I Got White Privledge. IGWP. When you have the correct skin tone, you don't have to earn anything. It's given to you.

Every white has not earned white skin privilege, but the white race has. We have created the most advanced, the most affluent, and the most humane civilization in history. Orientals are catching up with us, but Negroes are lagging further behind.

 

[Ms. Turquoise]

"If you can convince the lowest White man he's better than the the best colored man, he won't notice you picking his pocket. He'll give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pocket for you".--------President Lyndon Johnson.
This is what the resentment over DEI is all about. Some Whites absolutely hate the idea that there may be a Black person who is better than they are. To dispel that notion, they have weaponized DEI, Critical Race Theory, Affirmative Action etc. They try to make their fellow Whites hate those terms.
President Johnson was a very smart and honest man.

 

[Hector12]

"If you can convince the lowest White man he's better than the the best colored man, he won't notice you picking his pocket. He'll give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pocket for you".--------President Lyndon Johnson.
This is what the resentment over DEI is all about. Some Whites absolutely hate the idea that there may be a Black person who is better than they are. To dispel that notion, they have weaponized DEI, Critical Race Theory, Affirmative Action etc. They make their fellow Whites hate those terms.
President Johnson was a very smart and honest man.

I am well aware that there are blacks that are more intelligent, more successful, and more prosperous than I am. I do not mind that at all. I do mind the fact that affirmative active action has advanced many Negroes to positions where they cannot perform adequately.

 

[Ms. Turquoise]

Every white has not earned white skin privilege, but the white race has. We have created the most advanced, the most affluent, and the most humane civilization in history. Orientals are catching up with us, but Negroes are lagging further behind.

"We have stolen, pillaged, colonized, murdered and cheated to get to the top of the heap". There. Fixed it for you.

 

[Hector12]

"We have stolen, pillaged, colonized, murdered and cheated to get to the top of the heap". There. Fixed it for you.

We have created wealth where non existed.

 

[IM2]

Who's "whining" about discrimination? You're the only one here whose every thread is about how you've been treated unfairly.

Dude, you're the Litwin of the Race Relation/Racism forum. Every thread you post reeks of self pity.

I have posted about the effects of white racism at a macro level. Do you understand what that means?

 

[AZrailwhale]

The reason South Africa is still having problems is because the MONEY wasn't given to the Black majority. It is still in the hands of the White minority.

So, you think black South Africans would do better than they have done ruining their electrical grid, transportation system and driving out the mostly white farmers. South Africa used to be the breadbasket of Africa, now it can't even feed itself.

 

[IM2]

I like the case made in video for EMC (Equality, Merit and Color Blindness) over DEI.

​

That is a case made by delusinal people suffering from psychosis. Had America operated that way for all 258 years of its exisence then people could argue about the unfairness of race based policies. But since whites have been given preference for all 258 years that argument is bullshit. How are you going to fix the weath disparity created by 258 years of white racism in this country. By equality, merit and colorblindness? So whites will continue having 15 times the wealth of everybody else but we can say they have it because of merit and nobody sees color anymore. No, you ain't going to fix problem created by color conscious policies by enacting colorbind policies.

 

[IM2]

Robert Jones stated it perfectly.

“From its inception, the country’s legal foundations, political architecture, and civic fabric were designed to privilege the well-being of those who declared themselves white at the expense of Native Americans, African Americans, and other people of color. Generation after generation, as the baldest tactics were challenged, white America creatively renewed and reworked this pact to protect ourselves from political disempowerment, economic uncertainty, legal jeopardy, and physical violence. When the weight of the blood spilled by over 750,000 Americans shattered outright slavery, white America picked up the shards, fashioning them into a ramshackle but effective system of sharecropping, lynching, convict leasing, segregationist Jim Crow laws, restrictive immigration policies, appeals to “states’ rights,” voter suppression, and mass incarceration.”

 

[my2¢]

So whites will continue having 15 times the wealth of everybody else but we can say they have it because of merit and nobody sees color anymore.

I see a lot of that as stemming from slavery and at least through the civil right period. After the reconstruction era a lot of wealth was denied blacks because of restrictions in place concerning jobs and real estate. That indeed should be addressed.

It's been a few days from watching the video. The part that struck me was when the DEI advocate used the fence as an analogy. It went something like how a tall person can see over the fence, while we need to provide means to lift up those unable to see. I totally agree with her but one of the problems with DEI is that instead of a boost, they choose to lower the fence. It seems as though they view those needing that boost as having limited intelligence.

 

[MizMolly]

"If you can convince the lowest White man he's better than the the best colored man, he won't notice you picking his pocket. He'll give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pocket for you".--------President Lyndon Johnson.
This is what the resentment over DEI is all about. Some Whites absolutely hate the idea that there may be a Black person who is better than they are. To dispel that notion, they have weaponized DEI, Critical Race Theory, Affirmative Action etc. They try to make their fellow Whites hate those terms.
President Johnson was a very smart and honest man.

There are idiots in every race.

 

[EvilCat Breath]

Your posts show that you are not a better man than me. You have less education and less skill. And far less intelligence. You have proven that. But again instead of this personal attack answer the question,

Have you ever consdered the fact that white men have only been hired because of their skin color and the fact they have a dick?

They are hired because they don't run around demanding what they never worked for.

DEI is ending. It didn't work. You might say it DIEd.

 

[Ms. Turquoise]

We have created wealth where non existed.

I could "create" wealth too if I were allowed to enslave other humans, steal land and rob natural resources.

 

[Hector12]

I could "create" wealth too if I were allowed to enslave other humans, steal land and rob natural resources.

Whites did not enslave Negroes. They were enslaved by other Negroes and sold to white slave traders.

While the European slave trade in Negroes was happening, the Arab slave trade in Europeans was also happening. Europeans did not cooperate with the Arabs. They fought back.

The French conquered Algeria to stop the Arab slave trade in Europeans. The line in the Marines' Hymn "to the shores of Tripoli" commemorates the work the U.S. Marine Corps did to stop the Arab slave trade.

Negroes in Eastern Africa built the Nubian and the Ethiopian civilizations, but they never compared with the civilizations built by Caucasians and East Asians.

American Negroes are nearly all descended from the Bantu. The Bantu built weapons from Iron and practiced agriculture. They never developed indigenous systems of writing and mathematics.

 

[Ms. Turquoise]

Whites did not enslave Negroes. They were enslaved by other Negroes and sold to white slave traders.

While the European slave trade in Negroes was happening, the Arab slave trade in Europeans was also happening. Europeans did not cooperate with the Arabs. They fought back.

The French conquered Algeria to stop the Arab slave trade in Europeans. The line in the Marines' Hymn "to the shores of Tripoli" commemorates the work the U.S. Marine Corps did to stop the Arab slave trade.

Negroes in Eastern Africa built the Nubian and the Ethiopian civilizations, but they never compared with the civilizations built by Caucasians and East Asians.

American Negroes are nearly all descended from the Bantu. The Bantu built weapons from Iron and practiced agriculture. They never developed indigenous systems of writing and mathematics.

I have heard these pathetic talking points so many times. Can't you tell me something I've never heard before? First of all, there is no demographic called Negro. There is no country called Negro. That name was given to African people by the parasites who took them from their ancestral homes.
Whites have colonized, enslaved, murdered, raped and pillaged EVERY race/nationality of people they have ever came in contact with. Europe was poor, so Whites left Europe on ships to search for riches and natural resources of other lands and peoples. And they found: the Americas, Africa, Australia, Asia, the Middle East. They did the same thing to ALL of them.
So, when you talk about the wealth of Whites, remember where that wealth came from. Europe always been POOR as far as natural resources are concerned. Everything they have has been stolen.
It's been a pleasure talking to you, Hector12. Have a nice day. Bye.

P.S. Do you know a guy named JackDallas?