A little more than 55 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have A Dream” speech captured the nation, demanding justice and equality. King envisioned a future built on character-based judgment, not skin color. Yet, today, it feels like this reality is slipping further away, and the Left’s diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda shares some of the blame.
As a black Southerner, I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of racial preferences in policy. At a young age, I was taught the nasty history of racial discrimination in America. I came to understand that all racists believe their preferred forms of racial discrimination to be the “good” kind.
No matter how well-intentioned advocates of DEI believe themselves to be, such programs breed resentment among nonpreferred racial groups. If it’s unfair to discriminate against blacks because of the color of their skin, then it is unfair to discriminate against anyone. After all, none of us choose the race we were born into.
Likewise, being one color is not an achievement; race confers no merit. In other words, there is no “fair” way to discriminate racially.
Diversity programming has always been sold to me and other black people as a way to get ahead or, at the very least, to secure fair treatment. We were led to believe that by focusing on diversity and historic injustices, our country would heal and everyone would be better off.
However, the evidence does not support this. The intensive focus on diversity over the last few years has failed to improve race relations. According to Gallup, in 2002, 68% of blacks and 70% of whites believed racial relationships in America to be somewhat good or very good. In 2013, support for this view began to deteriorate rapidly, and by 2021, it had inverted, with 41% of whites and 33% of blacks believing race relations between the two groups to be good. This decline has corresponded with an explosive growth of DEI professionals.
Furthermore, the worst-kept secret among scholars who research diversity programming is the prevalent and pesky fact that it doesn’t work. Many diversity researchers, such as Harvard’s Frank Dobbins, have consistently found diversity programming to be ineffective and sometimes even harmful. To be clear, most diversity researchers argue that these programs could thrive with a little more tweaking, funding, and enforcement. Yet, still, I have my doubts.
Instead of moving us forward toward unity, DEI emphasizes our historical conflicts and the differences between different social groups in the name of checking privilege. This is just neo-tribalism, and it can’t work because it shouldn’t work. Most people want to be valued for their contributions to society, not their skin color, sexuality, nationality, or ethnicity.
The public understands racism is wrong even if some elite left-wing social engineers don’t. As Chief Justice John Roberts once said, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” I couldn’t agree more. If you really care to create a better world for black people like me, start by understanding that DEI programs create a cause to question my success and talents. I have no interest in being treated as a novelty for liberals with a white savior complex. I am well read and capable, not a charity case, and certainly not a victim.
I firmly believe that we need more meritocracy and less top-down social engineering to advance society, promote human flourishing, and usher in the future of which Dr. King dreamed.
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Raheem Williams is a policy analyst and senior fellow at Do No Harm, an organization focused on keeping identity politics out of medical education, research, and clinical practice.
