{"id":23887,"date":"2025-02-12T17:21:41","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T01:21:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=23887"},"modified":"2025-02-18T15:41:03","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T23:41:03","slug":"diversity-is-out-racism-is-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2025\/02\/12\/diversity-is-out-racism-is-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Diversity is Out, Racism is In"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Military veterans say the trans ban is logistical nonsense;<\/li>\n<li>How Musk and Vance stood up for a self-avowed racist;<\/li>\n<li>How Trump and his administration are intentionally on the wrong side of history, favoring &#8220;competent white men&#8221;;<\/li>\n<li>How philosopher Richard Rorty anticipated a renewed era of public cruelty;<\/li>\n<li>How Republicans love spending cuts, just not in their own states;<\/li>\n<li>Another view from Canada: &#8220;It&#8217;s been nice knowing you.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/compote.slate.com\/images\/bda4cf5a-8f61-4872-b1a2-b881ce6aae32.jpeg?crop=1560%2C1040%2Cx0%2Cy0&amp;width=1280\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Slate, Timothy Soseki Kudo, Lindsey Melki, and Kenneth Zavada, 12 Feb 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/news-and-politics\/2025\/02\/trump-military-trans-ban-hegseth-defense.html\">We Served in the Military. Trump Has No Idea How Much Damage He\u2019s Just Done to It.<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;The trans ban isn\u2019t just immoral. It\u2019s logistical nonsense.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>However, as military veterans, we know that this [Trump&#8217;s] order will accomplish exactly the opposite. When it\u2019s 5 degrees out and expected to drop, and it\u2019s you and your battle buddy\u2019s turn on night watch to share a sleeping bag in the snow-covered mudhole the two of you have spent the past 12 hours digging, the last thing on anyone\u2019s mind is gender or sex. In those moments, all that matters is a person\u2019s character and the mutual trust that comes from living and training together until you\u2019re certain you have each other\u2019s back.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Trump, recall, had bone splints.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n\\\\<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Under the new standards, diversity is taboo, and racism is not.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/02\/12\/multimedia\/10goldberg-zpql\/10goldberg-zpql-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, Michelle Goldberg, 10 Feb 2025<\/strong> (but in today&#8217;s print paper): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/10\/opinion\/musk-vance-racist-education.html\">Why Musk and Vance Went to Bat for a Self-Described Racist<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If you want to understand the nature of our new regime, compare the fates of two federal employees who recently found themselves at least temporarily unable to keep doing their jobs. One is a West Point graduate, an Army veteran and a former prosecutor who was asked by political appointees in the first Trump administration to join a diversity committee. The other is a 25-year-old self-described racist. You can probably guess which of them Vice President JD Vance intervened to help out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It is clearly absurd for Vance to insist that Elez is at once a \u201ckid\u201d who should be forgiven for things he wrote last year and a man who deserves a major role restructuring the federal government. But his argument isn\u2019t supposed to make sense; Vance is asserting his freedom from the need to justify the administration\u2019s actions according to pre-existing standards. Under the new standards, diversity is taboo, and racism is not. This stark reversal of values is a signature of the Trump restoration.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>DEI means many things to many people.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/02\/12\/multimedia\/12bouie-vhmq\/12bouie-vhmq-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, Jamelle Bouie, 12 Feb 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/12\/opinion\/trump-dei-meritocracy-civil-right.html\">Trump Is on the Wrong Side of History by Design<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A good summary of many actions over the past three weeks.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>At the National Security Agency, it has meant an effort to purge all N.S.A. websites and internal networks of <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/popular.info\/p\/the-nsas-big-delete\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">banned words<\/a> such as diversity, diverse, inclusive, racism and racial identity. Over at the Department of Defense, led by Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host, it has meant the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2025\/02\/03\/hegseth-identity-months-dead-defense-department\/78178911007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">end of official recognition of Black History Month<\/a>, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/7212911\/west-point-disbands-cadet-clubs-affinity-groups-trump-dei-order\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the disbanding of affinity groups<\/a> at service academies and a move <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.military.com\/daily-news\/2025\/02\/10\/military-drops-recruiting-efforts-prestigious-black-engineering-awards-event.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">to curb military outreach<\/a> to Black professionals in engineering and the sciences. Diversity, Hegseth says, is \u201cnot our strength.\u201d At the National Institutes of Health, displays honoring women and scientists of color <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/antoniajuhasz.bsky.social\/post\/3lhosogl5ec25\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">have been removed<\/a>, and at the National Science Foundation, program officers have reportedly been directed to <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/darbysaxbe.bsky.social\/post\/3lhcvn4hxwk2o\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reject grant applications<\/a> that mention anything related to diversity, equity, inclusion or accessibility.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">There\u2019s more. In addition to purging the Department of Justice of anything that smacks of D.E.I., Attorney General Pam Bondi has <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/ag\/media\/1388501\/dl?inline\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">instructed the agency<\/a> to target private-sector diversity programs for potential \u201ccriminal investigation.\u201d A company that wants to increase its proportion of female employees or place more Black Americans in corporate leadership may find itself in the cross hairs of the federal government.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>For a long time, civil rights rules *banned* certain kinds of (what might be called negative, or exclusive) discrimination. Now, Bondi wants to ban, even in private industry, any kind of (positive, inclusive) discrimination. She cites that Darren Beattie guy.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cCompetent white men must be in charge\u201d is as close to a rallying cry as I can imagine for the Trump administration, although, of course, it strains credulity to say that either Trump or his subordinates count as competent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>More about that self-described racist, Elez, one of Elon&#8217;s boys.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.vox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/02\/gettyimages-2194950593.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;crop=0%2C0.02438174851968%2C100%2C99.951236502961&amp;w=750\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Vox, Zack Beauchamp, 12 Feb 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/on-the-right-newsletter\/399352\/marko-elez-elon-musk-jd-vance-richard-rorty\">An eerie prophecy of Trump\u2019s second term \u2014 from 1998<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Philosopher Richard Rorty predicted that someone like Trump might bring back public cruelty.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Yet forgiveness requires contrition, and there\u2019s no evidence Elez has any. He has not publicly apologized or even repudiated his ugly comments. In Trump\u2019s America, you can engage in this kind of publicly performed cruelty without any real consequence.<\/p>\n<p>This, for some, is actually the point of voting for Trump. <a href=\"https:\/\/nymag.com\/intelligencer\/article\/inauguration-trump-supporters-conservative-movement-post-maga.html\">New York\u2019s Brock Colyar<\/a> attended a swanky Trump party where one attendee said he voted for Trump because, in Colyar\u2019s paraphrase, \u201che wanted the freedom to say \u2018f**got\u2019 and \u2018r****ded.\u2019\u201d An anonymous \u201ctop banker\u201d recently told the Financial Times that they <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/cf876b19-8c69-498b-95f5-d018618d99ec\">felt \u201cliberated\u201d after Trump\u2019s win<\/a> because \u201cwe can say \u2018r***rd\u2019 and \u2018p***y\u2019 without the fear of getting canceled.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1agbrixi lg8ac51 lg8ac50 xkp0cg1\">The new ethos of cruelty reminded me of a passage in the philosopher Richard Rorty\u2019s 1998 book <em>Achieving Our Country<\/em>. Warning of the rise of a right-wing American strongman in the not-too-distant future, Rorty predicted that such a political shift would also herald an alarming new cultural era:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past forty years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. The words \u2018n****r\u2019 and \u2018k*ke\u2019 will once again be heard in the workplace. All the sadism which the academic Left has tried to make unacceptable to its students will come flooding back. All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>And here we are.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>We could have predicted this.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/02\/12\/multimedia\/12DC-GOP-Spending2-mzkh\/12DC-GOP-Spending2-mzkh-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, 12 Feb 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/12\/us\/politics\/trump-spending-republicans-agriculture-research.html\">Republicans Love Trump\u2019s Spending Cuts. Just Not in Their States.<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Even as they praise the president\u2019s unilateral actions to slash federal spending, G.O.P. lawmakers have quietly moved to seek carve outs or exemptions for their own constituents.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Spending cuts for thee, not for me.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Another view from Canada.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/FacebookCanada.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/FacebookCanada-254x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"254\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Vancouver Sun, Pete McMartin, 3 Feb 2025<\/strong>, via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Christopher.McKitterick\/posts\/pfbid02qqSKyucu4BBj4sBoqYtmcGKVgE7BKVwQSCF1SnKWBLiPsdeCZw3daiX57px3yr8xl\">Chris McKitterick on Facebook<\/a>: Pete McMartin, Opinion: &#8220;Farewell to my American friends. It&#8217;s over&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Goodbye, America.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been nice knowing you.<\/p>\n<p>Goodbye New York, and your Jewish delicatessens with corned beef sandwiches stacked as high as your skyline.<\/p>\n<p>Goodbye Detroit, my boyhood neighbour, and so long to Tiger Stadium, the Detroit Institute of Arts and Motown.<\/p>\n<p>Goodbye Bellingham, Seattle and Portland \u2014 how I\u2019ll miss my Cascadian cousins with our shared Pacific sensibilities. And while I\u2019m at it, goodbye to the cheap gas and shoreline cottages of Point Roberts, America\u2019s appendix dangling just below the border not a mile from me.<br \/>\nWhat was once so close has never been so far.<\/p>\n<p>Goodbye Stag Leap\u2019s Pinot Noir, Maker\u2019s Mark bourbon, and Hebrew National hotdogs. My tastebuds mourn.<\/p>\n<p>Goodbye to the cowards on both sides of the border who have demonstrated that whatever fidelity to democratic ideals they profess to have extends only so far as their self-interest. They should get a real job, say, in a chain gang.<\/p>\n<p>Goodbye to anyone, again on both sides of the border, who bends the knee to Trump, rather than standing up to him, as any self-respecting person would and should, and telling him to piss off.<\/p>\n<p>Goodbye to a culture that demands we bend the knee.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Most painful of all, goodbye to my American friends, some of whom I have known all my life, and some of whom I\u2019ve collected along the way. I can cross your border but no longer wish to: Your Narcissist-in-Chief has decreed that my countrymen and I have the choice of becoming destitute, vassals or enemies. I\u2019m choosing the latter<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, your silence and the silence of all Americans in response to this aggression leaves me disheartened. That silence speaks volumes. I \u2014 we \u2014 have heard you loud and clear how little our friendship as a country means to you.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Goodbye to what I envied as the country that prided itself on encouraging unparalleled innovation in science, art and business. Any good that remains of it has been overshadowed by rapacity, cheap commercialism and egotism.<\/p>\n<p>Goodbye to that ever-present sense of inferiority I once had when considering the relationship between Canada and America. What doubt I had of our own greatness is gone, and in its place is a certitude that Canada is superior to the U.S. in all the ways that matter. I look across the border now and see a violent, burgeoning autocracy now ever on the edge of civil war, and a population that is either cheering on this new brutalism or quaking in fear from it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>So, goodbye America, it\u2019s been nice knowing you, but I don\u2019t know you anymore. I\u2019ve reached that point in our relationship where any admiration I have had for you has been replaced by a new, angry resolve, which is: I won\u2019t consort with the enemy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>MAGA Americans won&#8217;t care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Military veterans say the trans ban is logistical nonsense; How Musk and Vance stood up for a self-avowed racist; How Trump and his administration are intentionally on the wrong side of history, favoring &#8220;competent white men&#8221;; How philosopher Richard Rorty &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2025\/02\/12\/diversity-is-out-racism-is-in\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,88,96,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservative-resistance","category-decline","category-human-nature","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23887"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23971,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23887\/revisions\/23971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}