Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Even though Black people aren’t the primary beneficiaries of so-called DEI policies, we are the target of campaigns to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion. Let that sink in. We live in a country that is so steeped in anti-Blackness that the masses are upset at the thought of “equity” for Black people. Enough so that they will hurt other groups to keep us in our place. When they say “DEI,” I hear the “n—-r” loud and clear.
These DEI lawsuits, executive orders, and outcries flooding our headlines? They’re not about “discrimination against white people” or “merit-based decisions.” They’re about maintaining the chokehold on Black economic progress. As someone who’s moved through elite spaces as a lawyer, founded and sold a successful tech company, and now leads a venture fund, I know tech is the new frontier for wealth creation. They know it too, which is why the anti-DEI movement is so focused on tech.
And it’s not just Elon Musk. Tech bros have cultivated a false myth of meritocracy in the tech, venture, and startup spaces because it makes them feel good to explain their success in these terms instead of being steeped in the same white privilege that slave-holding ancestors leveraged to build extractive wealth (which they also claimed was accumulated by “pulling themselves up by the bootstraps”).
For example, Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, said at an event last year, “If you think of the woke DEI whole coalition as a combination of true laborers and useful idiots, and, you know, from the capitalists or people who are in some corrupt racket, that’s probably a far more powerful coalition.” Would you be surprised to learn that Peter Thiel was born in West Germany, lived in apartheid South Africa as a child, and then went on to Stanford University and law…
Read the full article here
