Bingo. That is literally how the people (term used loosely) currently dismantling government DEI programs have been spinning it — “These programs divided Americans by race […] and resulted in shameful discrimination” — the fault is more in the assumption that this is something unique to DEI programs, and not that any program could be doomed from the start so long as a sufficiently-motivated demagogue is willing to lie through his teeth to see it dismantled. Or that the ones opposed to such a program need to be lied to in the first place. They could probably just say “we’re ending DEI 'cause fuck 'em” and get near-identical results.
In other words, you don’t actually know what DEI means.
Or they understand that the population at large doesn’t and is easily and willingly lied to about it by grifters.
Bingo. That is literally how the people (term used loosely) currently dismantling government DEI programs have been spinning it — “These programs divided Americans by race […] and resulted in shameful discrimination” — the fault is more in the assumption that this is something unique to DEI programs, and not that any program could be doomed from the start so long as a sufficiently-motivated demagogue is willing to lie through his teeth to see it dismantled. Or that the ones opposed to such a program need to be lied to in the first place. They could probably just say “we’re ending DEI 'cause fuck 'em” and get near-identical results.