President Trump is eradicating DEI from the federal government, and private companies are following his example. We return to a show we did two years ago about the turning point that led to this moment. Our Executive Producer Emanuele Berry guest-hosts and shares stories about Black people who found themselves caught in the middle of this cultural fight when the country shifted decisively away from diversity, equity, inclusion, critical race theory, and affirmative action. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: As a new high school principal, Dr. Whitfield felt moved by the national renouncement of racism he saw all around him in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. It prompted him to write a thoughtful email to parents and teachers in his district. He got lots of praise for it. Less than a year later, that same email would threaten his job. (12 minutes)Act One: During her sophomore year in high school, Nevaeh was targeted in a secret text message chain by a handful of her peers. She’d come to learn the text chat was a mock slave trade where her photo and photos of other Black classmates were uploaded, talked about as property, and bid on. Emanuele Berry talks to Nevaeh about what these messages mean to her now as well as how she’s navigated her town’s reaction and her close friendships with kids who mostly aren’t Black. (20 minutes)Act Two: After the murder of George Floyd, sales of books by Black authors skyrocketed. Now, there are efforts to ban many of the same books. Producer Chana Joffe-Walt talks to author Jerry Craft, who is caught up in this backlash with his graphic novel New Kid. (21 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.
Chapter 1: What is the backlash against DEI and how did it start?
From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Emanuel Berry in for Ira Glass. In the last year, DEI programs have been blamed for an astonishingly varied set of disasters.
The Los Angeles wildfires, the Baltimore Bridge collapse, Boeing jets falling apart, the Secret Service failures leading to the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, and memorably, the midair collision between a helicopter and a passenger plane in Washington, D.C. last month. All of that, obviously, was the fault of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
In other words, marginalized people having jobs means bad things happen. I'm a Black person. I'm doing my job right now. And so, of course, today's episode may very well fall apart because I'm hosting. Let me read you a list. Disney, GM, Google, Toyota, McDonald's, and Walmart. All of them have rolled back DEI efforts. These companies are really just following President Trump's lead.
He signed an executive order on January 20th, ending all federal DEI initiatives. To comply, research agencies have scrubbed words from their work like women, disability, bias, Black, and gender, as well as socioeconomic and systemic. Three years ago, we did an episode about the pushback to critical race theory, which is really just DEI in a different font.
And we thought we'd play it again today because it tried to describe a turning point. The beginning of the backlash that's playing out with such force in the first few weeks of Donald Trump's return to office. Not just diversity programs being wiped out of existence, but being blamed absurdly for anything bad that happens in America.
The story that started the episode began before the backlash in the summer of 2020. That was kind of, you know, peak woke America, if you remember. The murder of George Floyd had forced the country into another racial awakening. That summer, everyone was sending out emails and tweets about race and racism in America, statements of unity from corporations.
One shoe brand tweeted, we are not asking you to buy our shoes. We are asking you to walk in someone else's. Remember when everyone on Instagram posted black squares for a day to show solidarity with the black community? I'd started to roll my eyes at all the MLK and Baldwin quotes.
In a school district outside Dallas, Texas, Dr. James Whitfield had just been promoted to high school principal, the school's first black principal. And he was watching everyone send out these emails. Not just corporate brands, but also his peers, other educators, and administrators.
I had been up pretty much all night, could not sleep. And I woke up at 4.30 in the morning, and I said, I have to craft something.
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Chapter 2: Why was Dr. James Whitfield's email controversial?
Now he's so depressing, you know? So I have to be in a really good mental space for that.
So you knew, I mean, it sounds like you knew that that was something that you weren't going to want to watch.
Yeah, I did not want to go down that rabbit hole.
What did you imagine was down that rabbit hole that was scary to you?
The complaint that I saw was that I'm teaching kids critical race theory. So the college course that mentions things such as institutional racism and all these really heavy, deep things that they are studying and picking apart in college, I was now breaking that down for fourth and fifth graders, apparently. So... Oh, is that for me? Is that Katie Texas? Like, we want equal opportunity.
They want to know what you're talking about.
We have to give an opposing viewpoint.
That's how I do my interviews. I just, like, in the middle, I get a call from the opposing side, and then the two of you duke it out.
Right, there you go.
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