“Contemporary DEI cannot stand without prescriptive racism.” – Professor Erec Smith
“When moral law stands alone and DEI initiatives are based on that somebody gets to play God.”
– Pastor James Ward, Jr.
Psychologist Dr Phil (McGraw) and his guests, Pastor James Ward, Jr. and Dr Erec Smith (PhD English University of Chicago), recently clashed with “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion” advocate, Rachel Kargas (BS Child and Family Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison), on his show. About 9 minutes into the discussion Dr Phil asks Kargas what she means by “equity”. She employs what she describes as “a great visual.” A cartoon of several children, one tall and one short, trying to look over a fence to watch a game. If one gives them both the same sized box to stand on the taller one can see the game but the shortest one cannot. One must give the shorter one several boxes to stand on “lift them up” to the same level as the taller one. This simplistic cartoon is extremely common in apologies for DEI. Dr. Phil replies, “So you are trying to create equality of outcome.” Kargas nods “Yes.”
It sounds nice. One wants both children to be able to see the game. In order to do that one cannot treat them equally. One must help the shorter child more than the other. One does, of course, want to help both children achieve their potential. Further, let it be granted that some demographics suffer greater disadvantages than others. Many black communities, for example in the Democrat stronghold of Baltimore, suffer from sub-standard schools. But how is Kargas’ “great visual” supposed to be applied to real life? She explains: “We are talking about the fact that some demographics come to the table and have to overcome racism, unconscious bias, misogyny, and so, how do we help ‘level the playing field’.”
Note first that she ends there with a question, not an answer. This is something one regularly finds in discussions with the Left. They ask emotive questions as if the answer to these questions is obvious: One must adopt their leftist solutions.
Note second that she never explains why this simplistic cartoon of children peering over a fence explains how one should try to recruit someone to fly a 747 with 300 lives on board. What “box” can one give the “shorter” pilot from a sub-standard school (not their fault) to help them fly the plane safely?
At about 3:25 of the video, in response to Dr Phil’s claim that studies show that DEI does not work, Kargas, claims that that the Harvard Business Review shows that DEI works, at which point Dr. Phil pulls out the Harvard Business Review study charts that show the exact opposite! DEI does not work. Kargas caves immediately and says, “I can only lean on my experience.” That is, after falsely claim objective evidence for her views, she retreats to her purely subjective claim that counts for nothing.
In fact, racism, misogyny, etc., are all complex issues that must be discussed in great detail, not slung around as if everyone already knows exactly what they are and how to solve them. Unfortunately, cartoon images do not explain, in concrete terms, how DEI is supposed to help a poor but innately bright child coming out of a substandard school in Baltimore.
At the very end, Kargas attempts to explain how DEI is supposed to solve these problems: “I have been doing recruiting for 25 years and [since] the way we have recruit[ed] traditionally relies heavily on networks, referral programs, [etc.]” we end up recruiting from a population that “looks very much the same.” Kargas is referring to the fact that traditionally people who came from a predominately white community tended to recruit from other predominately white communities and, therefore, recruit more white people.
There is no doubt that this has at certain times been true but how is DEI supposed to solve the real problem that some demographics come from substandard schools? Suppose one needs to recruit someone to work in a hospital laboratory and that this has in the past always been done by white people. DEI mandates that one must look outside that privileged community, perhaps to the Baltimore school system. But how does looking to the Baltimore school system solve the problem that its graduates, despite their possibly great innate potential, cannot read or do mathematics at grade level, which, in turn, means they cannot perform their live-saving laboratory job as well as others?
It never seems to occur to Kargas to address the real problem: the sub-standard minority school systems. For if one solved the real problem and brought sub-standard school systems up to parity, one would not need DEI and she would be out of a job.
This is related to the fact that solving the real problem, sub-standard minority schools, would be hard. This would require real courage and intelligence, not cartoons and slogans. One would have to challenge the teacher’s unions that are massively allied to the Democrat Party and seem more interested in teaching the Democrat racial agenda than they are in teaching children to read and do math. Kargas’ DEI is a central part of the “justification” to recruit more people that support that political agenda. This is why pastor Ward, near the end of the video, states that DEI is really “a power grab”. That is, it is not really about helping minorities but about helping the Democrat Party increase its power. The moral guise of helping the disadvantaged is actually used to help themselves.
Consider the “Open Secret” report that the teachers unions are all massively biased towards “liberals” and Democrats: In 2023-24, the NEA gave $1,211.771 dollars to Democrats compared with only $8,741 to Republicans. That is over 130 to 1 in favor of Democrats. In addition, they gave $7,372, 677 to “liberal” groups and $0 to conservative groups. One gets comparable numbers for all of the various teacher’s groups, the American Federation of Teachers, Aft Solidarity, Ohio Education Association, California Teacher Assn, New York State United Teachers, Nea Fund for Children & Public Education, and United University Professors. Not one gave a single dollar to a conservative group! How about a little diversity, equity and inclusion (of conservatives) in these groups? Not a chance!
Given that Kargas, despite her constant smirk as if she is lecturing peasants, has given literally nothing to support her views, it is worth examining the psychology of DEI. Early in the video, Kargas says: “I really don’t want to come off as a white savior [but,] as somebody with privilege … there is usually going to be less bias towards somebody who looks like me.” Then why did she try to come off as a “white savior” who would, because of her race, be more effective than minorities? And didn’t she just give the prescriptive racist argument that all DEI teachers should be white since they are much more persuasive? In fact, a great deal of the motivation of DEI proponents is so that they can pose as moral heroes playing God. As Dr. Phil has shown, one does not even have to actually accomplish anything. Becoming a beloved hero is easy now. One gets paid to promote leftist agendas that don’t work, proving once again that sanctimony is inversely proportional to actual knowledge.
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