Time again to pause for some sips and savories, and some of the latest happenings.
Today’s Afternoon Tea is especially sweet as we talk about DEI’s very bad week. The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion movement — or destructive woke and racist scam, depending on your point of view — has had a rough few days recently.
Charlamagne Tha God Calls DEI “Mostly Garbage”
Influential urban talk show host Charlamagne Tha God smacked DEI silly while guest hosting The Daily Show, calling the movement “mostly garbage.” (We’re still waiting for Joy Reid to call him a racist.)
“The truth about DEI is that although it’s well-intentioned, it’s mostly garbage, okay?” he said. “It’s kind of like the black Little Mermaid. Just because racists hate it doesn’t mean it’s good. You know I’m right because every one of you has sat through one of those diversity training sessions and thought, ‘This is some bull****.’”
He added that DEI programs are just “corporate PR. They want good vibes. They want to cover their ***.”
But are corporations losing their shirts over it? Influential research insists corporations make money with DEI, but does that research hold up to scrutiny?
New Study Blows Out McKinsey Research Claiming DEI Programs Improve Profits
DEI proponents have made much of research from global consulting firm McKinsey & Company that found a correlation between DEI programs and significant profit gains for corporations. The greater the racial/ethnic diversity in corporate leadership, McKinsey says, the more money the company makes.
However, Econ Journal Watch actually studied the surveys McKinsey conducted in 2015, 2018, 2020, and 2023, and found the company’s conclusions unsupported, with results that could not be replicated.
To put another way, the McKinsey results are unreliable.
“McKinsey’s studies neither conceptually (in terms of the correct definition of causality) nor empirically (in terms of their set of large US public firms) support the argument that large US public firms can expect on average to deliver improved financial performance if they increase the racial/ethnic diversity of their executives.”
Over the past few years, @McKinsey has released at least 4 studies claiming a positive relationship between DEI and firm performance.
A new paper published today in @EconJWatch finds these results can’t be replicated.
”Our inability to [replicate] their results suggests that… pic.twitter.com/W2qKHasLRy
— Chris Brunet (@realChrisBrunet) April 1, 2024
It isn’t just American corporations that bought into the research. As The Federalist noted, the U.S. Navy cited McKinney’s 2015 study in its 2021 “Task Force One” report pushing the need for diversity and equity throughout our military. How’s that been working out? Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness wrote in The Federalist that “[r]ace-conscious ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion policies are making personnel shortages worse.” Recruiting among white people has dropped dramatically. Seems they aren’t too keen on serving in a military that calls them racist and privileged simply for being white. (“You stink, the nation stinks. Now go take a bullet for us in some foreign land.” Not exactly a winning pitch.)
The good news? More people are refusing to play the DEI game and looking to hire people based on merit.
NCAA Calls for Black Athletes to Boycott Florida Falling on Deaf Ears
In March, when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation eliminating DEI spending at state universities and elsewhere, the NCAA called for black athletes to boycott playing at schools in the Sunshine State.
“To all current and prospective college student-athletes – the NAACP urges you to reconsider any potential decision to attend, and compete at a predominantly white institution in the state of Florida,” their open letter said. “This is not about politics. It’s about the protection of our community, the progression of our culture, and most of all, it’s about your education, and your future.”
However, according to an analysis by The College Fix, top athletes are ignoring the boycott call. They’ve identified at least 35 of the top-ranked black student athletes in basketball and football who recently signed letters of intent with Florida universities.
They also were unable to find a single black athlete who rescinded his or her commitment to a Florida school.
Now the bad news: Although accruing evidence suggests the nation is recognizing the toxicity of DEI, the White House remains all in on dividing and demeaning Americans through it.
New State Department Diversity Czar Describes America as “Failed Historic Model”
The State Department building is located in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of the District of Columbia. Thanks to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, we might want to start calling it “Foggy Bottom of the Barrel.”
You’d think the primary qualification you’d be looking for in the head of a department tasked with representing America is someone who doesn’t hate America. But that’s not how the current administration rolls.
Take the State Department’s new “diversity and inclusion” officer. (Please.) Her name is Zakiya Carr Johnson. Appointed last week by Blinken, Carr Johnson believes America is a “failed historical model,” and she wants to dismantle the “traditional structure” of our society “at every juncture.”
As Fox News reports, she said in 2019:
“[There] are chinks in the armor of traditional leadership that refuse to reconcile with a colonizing past, or recognize that time has run out for experimentation and tweaking of a failed historic model.
“We cannot have equity without dismantling structural racism, patriarchy, and heterosexism … What does inclusion mean for example, if White supremacy remains intact?”
Heterosexism? Really? That’s a thing? White supremacy? Are we still stuck in the Democratic South of the 1950s?
In 2020, Johnson declared during a feminist webinar:
“Because we live and work within systems… so deeply rooted in patriarchy and colonialism and racism and otherism, we tend to be very resistant to shifts and changes.”
Otherism? Isn’t DEI all about “otherism”?
“A culture of misogyny has allowed men to act without consequence and it becomes part of what we believe is normal, right? In order to make any change, we’ve literally got to be about the work of dismantling that traditional structure at every juncture.”
Oh, but don’t think this “feminist” celebrates white women. She gripes that female-oriented diversity initiatives benefit too many white women “at the expense of women of color.”
This Critical Race Theory devotee further showed off her racist stripes in 2020, signing a letter with the organization Fair Share that declared, “We will do our part to uplift and amplify feminist leaders of colour, counter White-centered feminism trends and narratives, and share Black and Brown feminists’ wisdom and recommendations.” (Emphasis ours.)
Nothing against amplifying voices of color, but declaring war against “white-centered feminism”?
Again, we’re not talking about some radical blowhard mouthing off on The View or NPR. We’re talking about a top State Department official who is bent on jamming all this poison into her personnel and elsewhere through the power of her office. And we are talking about the white male Secretary of State who appointed her and signs off on her views.
Can we really tolerate America being represented by people who hold that America is a racist, misogynistic, failed experiment that must be torn down and rebuilt in the image of radical racists?
I don’t think so. Every day brings evidence the tide is turning — but can we wash out this toxic DEI ideology before too much more damage is done, not just here but abroad?
Let’s keep pushing. Let’s keep taking out what Charlamagne Tha God calls “mostly garbage.”
So, Should We Stay Open for Business?
We’re halfway through our second week of Al’s Afternoon Tea. What are your thoughts and suggestions? Should we keep serving it up? Are you tired of seeing my mug so much on The Stream‘s home page? Let us know via [email protected].
Al Perrotta is managing editor of The Stream, coauthor with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and coauthor of the counterterrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.
