While boarding both my Delta flights home yesterday, I was happy to see the now familiar signs to the right of the door still there. As I tapped my dad pennies (don't ask) against the fuselage on my way in (again, don't ask), the bottom of the sign still declared that Delta is a strong proponent for DEI initiatives.
Now, for those who have rabid-dog latched onto those three letters the way you did CRT, without any real understanding of what the program stands for, let alone the three words themselves, let me help you out.
Diversity. Equity. Inclusion.
That's it, that's all. Nothing sinister, deep state, or satanic, or deep statanic. Just indicators that a company supports leveling the playing field in their hiring and workplace practices.
OK, ok, sit down. I know you have been Pavlov conditioned to start barking right about now. You people already have bad-telephone-gamed that the air traffic controller in the fatal crash between the Black Hawk and the airplane was a DEI hire with zero experience. Facts be damned, DEI!!!!!!! Bark, bark, bark!!!!
In truth - you know, that stuff that hurts your head - experienced controllers and supervisors were on duty, but the other truth is that our ATC body of employees has been woefully understaffed for quite a while. Yes, yes, yes, I know your Nectarine Napoleon was out there blathering right after the crash that it was all down to DEI hiring. No evidence. Hell, the recovery efforts had barely begun when he was reading off the ticker tape in his head.
The reply from the ATC union was swift:
“Air traffic controllers earn the prestigious and elite status of being a fully certified professional controller after successfully completing a series of rigorous training milestones. The standards to achieve certifications are not based on race or gender,” Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), said in a statement.
“The proud men and women that comprise the national aviation safety professionals bear the immense responsibility of ensuring the safety and efficiency of the national airspace system, while working short-staffed, often 6 days a week, and in facilities long overdue for modernization.”
That did not stop stubby fingers from taking to Truth Social to regale you with more bullshit stating that a push happened during the Obama administration to get more black people in there (because, of course, OBAMA, and the insinuation that black people are not bright enough?) and that the FAA pushed to hire individuals with “severe intellectual” and “psychiatric” disabilities.
Bull and shit. Full stop.
I grew up in this industry. I grew up around all the pieces and parts from the administration of the actual airlines to the operations of the facilities to being able to go up into ATC towers with my father as an adult. The people at those consoles are highly skilled, incredibly focused individuals who excel at multi tasking. No one with a "severe mental disability" would get past the hiring door. These people know they are responsible for the safe passage of 2.9 million people daily in the United States.
Can people in wheelchairs do the job? Of course, and they do. As do people of all cultures, colors, religions, genders. This notion of his (and yours) that only white cis het men are capable of anything is so fucking laughable. Sorry, but the stock in white men is at an all time low. What your favorite flavor seems to excel at are mass shootings, child rape, and whining.
Poor you. DEI makes it possible for women who are just as qualified as you, if not more, to be taken seriously in the hiring / workplace space. The same for people of color, people with disabilities, people who may be transgender.
A great explanation from a hiring site states: Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is a concept and practice used by organizations to recognize and value differences among people, ensure fair opportunities for everyone and foster a work environment where all feel welcomed and respected.
It is shameful that the words diversity, equity and inclusion set your hair on fire.
What is wrong with diversity in the workplace? Aside from your inbred racism.
How about equity? This is about employers recognizing that there are disadvantages and barriers at play. Take women. That woman working next to you has had to fight harder, longer, and prove herself repeatedly to get where she is at. And she still doesn't make equal pay. And do boobs really distract you that much? Get a grip. In fact, here's some lotion in case it gets too much for you to take.
Inclusion? I know, it gives you the ickies that someone might be somewhere else on the human spectrum or not look like you. Child. Inclusion means when they enter the workplace each day they do not feel the need to code switch or hide part of their identity. They should not have to shoulder your ignorance while trying to do their job.
DEI threatens you for two reasons:
1. It helps level the playing field which in turns risks YOU being found to be lacking.
2. Your latest marching orders are to hate it without truly understanding it.
Translation: You continue to be so easy to manipulate. Rube.
But with the renewed advent of the man-who-should-have-been-a-mattress-stain, DEI programs are beginning to DIE. Company after company, fearful of his rheumy eyed gaze, are erasing them. And now, with the latest introduction of yet another yes-woman into his administration, Pam Bondi - aka Powerwhore Barbie - as Attorney General, DEI is headed for extinction.
In a series of memos she has instructed the Department of Justice to begin criminal investigations into companies that maintain their adherence to DEI practices. There could be resulting criminal penalties to private companies for being - let's be honest here - DECENT. And decent is completely anathema to anything in this dumpster fire of a sadministration.
From allowing Sissy SpaceX and his band of nerdy incels to infiltrate all government systems and download all of our personal and private information, to trying to erase transgender people, to announcing that we will own Gaza? There is not a shred of hope or light or redemption anywhere to be seen.
Honest question for every person, young and old, who were out in full force protesting during the campaign, demanding some purity test of Harris in regards to Israel and Palestine - happy now? WE. WARNED. YOU. We warned you to stop with your petulant insistence that you completely get your way in any of this. We pleaded with you to educate yourselves somewhere other than Tik Tok. To see what was so clearly at risk by allowing him back into power. But no. You completely personified why "Perfect is the enemy of good." And now you have a leader whose plan is to take all those people you championed and relocate them elsewhere - ethnic cleansing, anyone? - and turn the Gaza strip into a series of Trump Towers on the new "Riviera of the Middle East".
Seems finally having some diversity - aka a woman of color - in the Oval may have been the right move, huh? I wish you luck with your protest vote keeping you warm at night, food in your fridge, or gas in your tank as the months move on. And when granny receives her social security in the form of DOGE coins? I hope your couch is supportive enough for her bad back. Or when bird flu makes the big jump to humans and we have no idea because the CDC is mute and a brain worm ravaged nutjob is in charge.
While there is still much investigation to be done into what subterfuge took place in regards to our votes, I refuse to let off the hook the people who did not vote, who voted third party, or who voted for that orange sack of hubris and hamburger grease. In two weeks, everything we warned of, and worse, has come to pass. And your regret won't fix a damned thing.
But back to DEI. Trump is going after it because he and his cadre of little white men are threatened by it. Threatened by anything that levels the playing field and makes their (in their mind) biggest advantage - that of being white - moot. Or at least mootish. And they can't have that.
Because as the saying goes, "When you're accustomed to privilege, any form of equality feels like oppression."
RIP, DEI.
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