In regard to Claudine Gay, black excellence has its limits.

Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge fund manager, called out Harvard University president Claudine Gay as a beneficiary of diversity, equality, and inclusion. DEI, like CRT (critical race theory) is a concept I can do without. Both bowls of socio-politico alphabet soup are used by the political left to garner electoral votes. The concepts in the end do not help the average black, “the folk” as the late Charles Billings would say, win any real political or economic territory in America.

(For more of my take on the political economy, purchase my book at amazon.com/author/altondrew )

I have no doubt that Mr Ackman was not thinking about DEI’s lack of utility for the black community. Mr Ackman’s beef with President Gay is that she is allegedly a diversity hire and selecting a candidate from a reduced pool of applicants to run a prestigious university does not ensure that Harvard or any other elite school has the best leader at the helm.

Just what the hell is DEI? According to my good friends over at ABC, DEI, according to experts they cited, is defined in the following way.

“Diversity” refers to the representation of people from a variety of backgrounds – particularly referring to people of different races, genders, sexual orientations, disabilities, religions and more – at all levels in an organization, including the leadership level.

“Equity” focuses on fairness and justice, particularly referring to compensation and whether people are being paid or treated fairly.

“Inclusion” is about whether people feel like they belong, and whether they feel heard or valued in an organization.

Sounds noble enough. But when I peruse my LinkedIn notifications, the majority of people caping for DEI are educated, degreed black folk. I see plenty of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in the rank and file of the food and leisure industry. I also see plenty of DEI at the teller windows of Atlanta’s banks and plenty of DEI among the paralegal and administrative assistant staffs of local law firms. The transportation and delivery industries are crawling with DEI. I see plenty brothers and sisters driving UPS, Amazon, and U.S. Postal Service trucks. As a matter of fact, in the fifteen years that I have been back in Atlanta, I have yet to have an Anglo, European, or Asian deliver my mail or other packages.

No, only the boule, bourgeoise Blacks bitch about and cape for DEI. DEI is about putting our hard-earned college degrees to optimal use by getting the positions and salaries that compensate for the struggle involved in getting them. I can understand that practical aspect of getting a return on investment, but unfortunately the real reason is that rather than investing as much energy into creating their own paths, most degree-toting blacks simply need to be closer to “zaddy.”

Blacks have long exhibited a preference for adjacency to power rather than taking power itself. Most blacks would argue that grabbing power is much easier said than done, that the best path for survival is to get on the majority’s capital, economic, and political infrastructure and reap its rewards. The hope is to rely on the majority’s sense of fairness and the laws that codify the requirement of diversity, equality, and fairness.

DEI, in my opinion, does not maximize fairness, access, diversity, inclusion, or equality. A DEI officer cannot distribute employment or capital without the permission of the same white power infrastructure that has been denying access from day one. DEI may provide some human resources officer with a longer title, but there is no distribution power that comes along with the title or its status.

In addition, what President Gay was reminded of was that sitting at that table with the big boys comes with a millstone wrapped around your neck. While she was correct in pointing out the importance of context within which hate speech was allegedly used, her need to keep the seat at the table nullified her ability to empathize with the Jewish students under her care. 

President Gay was instructed to stay on code, instructed by a group less seen but as weighty as the Jewish alumni pushing back against President Gay. President Gay could have easily said that the while she and other members of leadership found the call for harm against Jewish students appalling and intolerable, the student code would have to be reviewed to ensure that the leadership and faculty’s opposition to such comments were also expressed in the written code.

The problem with “black excellence” is that there is always a group of white boys ready to throw you under the bus.

Alton Drew

20 December 2023