DEI isn't about diversity, equity or inclusion, writes Bari Weiss on Tablet. It is "an ideological movement bent on recategorizing every American not as an individual, but as an avatar of an identity group, his or her behavior prejudged accordingly, setting all of us up in a kind of zero-sum game."
"Basic ideas of good and evil" have been replaced by "a new rubric: the powerless (good) and the powerful (bad)," she writes.
As Jamie Kirchick put it: “Muslim > gay, Black > female, and everybody > the Jews.”
A worldview that "measures fairness by equality of outcomes rather than opportunity" and rejects merit and excellence is dangerous for Jews, writes Weiss. (Tablet is a Jewish publication.) "If underrepresentation is the inevitable outcome of systemic bias, then overrepresentation — and Jews are 2% of the American population — suggests not talent or hard work, but unearned privilege." This calls to mind "the hateful portrait of a small group of Jews divvying up the ill-gotten spoils of an exploited world."
It's not just the Jews. Strivers of every race, ethnicity, and class are suspect, she writes. Look at Asian-American success. "The percentages are off. The scores are too high. From whom did you steal all that success?"
"The answer is not for the Jewish community to plead its cause before the intersectional coalition, or beg for a higher ranking in the new ladder of victimhood," writes Weiss. Instead, Jewish (and non-Jewish) liberals should "end DEI for good."
(DEI) calls itself progressive, but it does not believe in progress; it is explicitly anti-growth. It claims to promote “equity,” but its answer to the challenge of teaching math or reading to disadvantaged children is to eliminate math and reading tests. It demonizes hard work, merit, family, and the dignity of the individual.
This ideology "is undermining America, and that for which it stands — including the principles that have made it a place of unparalleled opportunity, safety, and freedom for so many," Weiss concludes. Don't go along.
In How The Elites Ate The Social Justice Movement, Freddie DeBoer calls for the left to refocus on economics and build a broad-based movement. “You can’t build unity by fixating on difference," he writes. “As we busily undermine faith, national identity, and all other ways human beings create meaning, we risk standing for nothing and thus losing everything.”
Forget microagressions. Focus on transit, health care and wages.
The elite invented “Social Justice," writes Katrina Gulliver in a review of the book in Law & Liberty. The new philosophy calls for "the distribution of equity (vaguely defined) along a hierarchy of identity-based deservingness." As a bonus, some of society’s most advantaged get to "declare themselves as members of this new deserving proletariat" by claiming a minority ethnic heritage. (Pretendians seem to be everywhere these days.)
DeBoer advocates expanding social programs, writes Griffin. That takes broad public buy-in. “'This is for everyone!' is a strong message. 'This is for [niche group you are not in]' is not going to resonate with most voters."
Creating "a society whose members see themselves as part of a larger whole" is a worthy goal, even for those who don't support DeBoer's social goals, she writes.