I thought we’d reached the height of ridiculousness when President Donald Trump blamed DEI for a tragic mid-air collision of a passenger plane and a Blackhawk helicopter. When asked by a reporter how he was able to connect the deadly crash to DEI, Trump replied, “Because I have common sense.”
It seemed a stretch, given that the pilots of both aircraft and the air traffic controller were all white. A soldier not involved in the flying of the helicopter was a woman. The family initially asked her name not to be released so as not to get caught up in Trump’s foolishness.
There was initial outrage that Trump blamed DEI for the crash without a factual basis.
“To say those things that had no bearing on any facts and a lack of credible information is just, it’s just jarring," said Reed Kimbrough, former helicopter pilot. While families are grieving, to turn this into an attack on DEI is disturbing. The lack of empathy, the lack of decorum — using profanity at a press conference — and to politicize a tragedy is really unconscionable.”
“The President has made his decision to put politics over people abundantly clear as he uses the highest office in the land to sow hatred rooted in falsehoods instead of providing us with the leadership we need and deserve,” added NAACP President Derrick Johnson.
And then there was former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg's clever use of illiteration. “As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying.”
Then came the surrogates in defense of Trump’s statements.
“He’s exactly right,” said Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense.
“I think you have to look at this with eyes wide open, see what happened," added Rep Andy Ogles. "Human error. Was it some sort of equipment failure? Did DEI play a role in this type of thing?”
“The Federal Aviation Administration is riddled with DEI problems and hiring problems and it’s inevitable that something is going to happen,” said Rep. Eric Burlison.
DEI is to blame for everything that goes wrong in America. Ask twenty haters, and you’ll get twenty definitions of DEI. Some have summed it up as “Didn’t Earn It,” which has been used to disparage highly qualified Black individuals like Kamala Harris and Barack Obama. I’ve written elsewhere that DEI has become a way of saying ni**er without saying the word. It’s more widespread than that in that it includes women, people with disabilities, and other minorities. But if when you see or hear DEI, you replace it with ni**er, you’ll know that it fits.
DEI has become a catchphrase now blamed for anything you don’t like and used to diminish minorities and often women. Some of the same people wanting to rid us of the menace called DEI are opposed to women having the right to vote and serve in the military or jobs outside the service industry.
A second plane was involved in a crash in Philadelphia two days after the plane collision Trump Blamed on DEI. Trump has yet to link the second crash to DEI publicly. Fox News seems to have a fixation on reporting that the Learjet 55 was registered in Mexico, though built in Witchita, Kansas. The Mexican heritage of the family flown on the medivac flight was also emphasized. Three family members are among the seven known dead.
While claiming to want a world based on meritocracy, those opposed to DEI need an excuse for not achieving their goals in life. If they lost a promotion to a woman or minority, blame DEI. It’s DEI’s fault when your workplace looks more like America than your social circle. If you get called out for making an insensitive joke or racist comment, it’s that damned DEI.
Get cut off in traffic, miss your bus, your alarm clock doesn’t go off. If you look hard enough for the connection, you can find a way that DEI is at fault. I’m about to take what should be an hour-and-a-half drive to Orlando. If traffic is backed up, I know what to blame.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of William Spivey's work on Medium. And if you dig his words, buy the man a coffee.