A Black Executive Perspective now presents Need to Know with the award winning hyphenated Dr. Nsenga Burton. Dr. Burton. What do we need to know?

Hi, this is Nsenga Burton bringing you your need to know moment today. And today we're going to be talking about the wonderful DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is under attack by many, many different factions. Of our society, um, DEI which is really about inclusion and belonging and making sure that people who are usually qualified and overly qualified, um, have access to the same, um, types of jobs, education, you know, various institutions as. Those who have been part of the, um, ruling class is what we would say in academic setting, but those who have been historically empowered. So, you know, diversity, equity and inclusion is really about historically disenfranchised populations and how to bring them into the fold in a way that is equitable as we try to create a more fairer society. Fair and just, or some would say egalitarian society. So it's been really interesting, um, as of late that DEI, um, has become sort of a Republican dog whistle, um, and has been presented as something other than the desire to create a more equitable and just society, but it has become, uh, a term that is now, um, aligned with being less than, uh, with being, um, Unqualified with being, uh, part of a movement and this is not true. Right? These are just what people are saying and doing in order to take away opportunities from historically disenfranchised populations and these options that they otherwise would not have because we do know when these Members of a historically disenfranchised populations met all the criteria, met all of the qualifications exceeded those qualifications. They still were not given the nod. They still were not admitted to schools. They still were not given jobs or awarded jobs that they had applied for. Some weren't even allowed to have interviews. Right? And so all of these things, um. Are tied up in diversity, equity and inclusion and why, you know, diversity, equity and inclusion is important. So, an example of what I'm talking about when we talk about a dog whistle is when you change the meaning of something so that it becomes, um, it becomes a, A negative, right? It becomes, uh, something other than what is an original intent is. So example, uh, you all have been watching the unfolding of, or the aftermath of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore last month, you know, it's in Maryland and, um. You know, it was purely an accident. It's still under investigation, but for all intents and purposes, it was an accident that happened. In fact, the people who warned, uh, the police, uh, who subsequently died in the accident, the only people to have died in the accident, uh, were, uh, immigrants, right? So, um, and Latinx immigrants, um, who were working. Um, on the bridge at the time of the collapse. So had they not been employed, we don't know what would have happened or might have happened, but we do know that they did warn the police, um, and the police were able to keep people from going onto the bridge, which would have led to a greater catastrophe. I say all of those things to say, this is an accident that happened. The mayor of Baltimore is Brandon Scott, a young man. He's 39 years old, native Baltimorean. And the governor of Maryland is Wes Moore again, native Baltimorean, um, African American. Um, and the port commissioner is a black woman named Corinthia Barber, again, native Baltimorean. I lived in Baltimore for 10 years. So, I am familiar with Baltimore, its politics and all of the, the things, um, um, that, uh, are surrounding this particular case. I've driven across the Francis Scott Key Bridge many, many times. Um, so when this happened, what happened, uh, or some of the things that you might have seen is, um, people on Twitter saying, oh, the DEI Mayor. Um, this is why this accident happened because they have an unqualified DEI Mayor in place. This is why this accident happened because they have an unqualified DEI port commissioner in place. This is why this accident happened because we have the DEI governor unqualified governor in place. Right? So, this idea that anything that is diverse, particularly black, right? It's rooted in anti black racism, but anything that is diverse anything that is black has to be less than an unqualified. Right? Even when the facts state the opposite, it was an accident. Accidents do happen. It was awful that this happened. Um, and there was no attention paid to the quick response, um, by the governor who looked very presidential to me. Um, by Mr. Scott, you know, Brandon, um, who looked like a leader of a city and a, uh, uh, county and a state. You know, that was under great duress because of this. Um, and so you have like, Phil Lyman, who's a GOP Republican gubernatorial candidate out of Utah. Who's saying, you know, calling them the DEIs right versus. Calling them by their names and so what this does is 1st of all, it makes people have, um, an incorrect understanding of what is right. And my lines and miss labels. This is the 2nd part lines and this labels people and what they're doing. Third, it dehumanizes whole human beings like Wes Moore and Brandon Scott and Corinthia ba uh, barber, uh, it dehumanizes them so that you feel okay about calling them less than or underqualified, um, because you know, you value them less, right? All of those things happen when you use these dog whistle tactics, right? You, you use these tactics. To bring out the conservatives, to bring out the people, to criticize, um, who have no real information. Um, and the same thing would have happened had you had Republicans in office at that time, right? This was an accident was that was unavoidable, um, to a large extent. Um, and then the challenges that were happening, um, have nothing to do with those individuals or their qualifications. So why would you do that? Um, Other than to mislead people, so I'm gonna wrap this up, but I just wanted to be clear that DEI which is actually a positive thing. It's about diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, creating a sense of belonging so that people can be a part of whatever institution business church. Educational institution, whatever institution, um, they can be a part of it. If they are qualified, if they want to, and then if they do gain admittance that they are treated fairly and equitably once they are there, that is what diversity equity and inclusion is about is not about. You know, given handouts to people, it's not about putting people in places who are unqualified, even though we've seen a lot of that happening, particularly under this previous administration, national administration, which is why the mail system is in a complete disarray and horribly run currently. But, you know, we don't talk about that person. We don't say, oh, they put another white man in there. So it's gonna be terrible. Because it's ridiculous. That sounds ridiculous, right? Yeah. Okay. And I know it's not equally yoked. What I am saying is, and it's not an equal argument because of the power dynamics. But what I'm saying to you is DEI is a good thing. DEI is about giving people who are qualified and who have paid their dues and who have done what they needed to do a shot. In a place, often a workplace, often an educational institution that they normally would not get the nod for just because they're actually black or they're actually Latinx or they're Asian or they're whatever, right? They wouldn't get the nod necessarily. So that's what it is about. It's about inclusion, right? Not about unqualified people getting jobs they don't deserve and running the country into the ground. So I just wanted to make that clear. And that is your need to know note from Nsenga.

A black. Executive perspective.