Democratic systems thrives when Black Americans progress. Research demonstrates: citizenship by birth, constitutional due process, equal opportunity legislation across education, housing, and employment sectors and equitable small business investments are all byproducts the systemic corrections currently called DEI. However, recently, DEI has been used as a smokescreen by cynical politicians and campaigners to roll back progress and strengthen control.
The effect of these tactics is substantial and unquestionable. Beginning this year, studies indicate showing 306,000 Black women have lost their jobs while $3.4bn in funding initiatives investing in Black communities has been eliminated – including $9.4 million in sickle cell disease research, $42 million for initiatives designed to address maternal death rates in Black communities and $31 million in reductions targeting asthma prevalence and environmental contaminants harming Black children.
Concerted attempts to stifle the progress within African American populations isn't novel; however, historical evidence shows that when progress for Black people are removed, all communities face negative consequences. During Reconstruction, Black Americans achieved remarkable progress – serving in government, building businesses and founding schools. Rarely mentioned is the way additional marginalized groups, including poor white farmers to Latino gauchos, similarly gained from expanded opportunities to legal and economic systems.
Misrepresentation represents among the most deceptive strategies. It alters truth in ways that narrow our expectations and institutionalizes prejudice through legislation.
When Black people faced a century of Jim Crow and government-approved bias, other communities saw a similar retreat on their access to complete civic participation. When the civil rights movement worked to remove the remnants of segregation, its methods of peaceful protest increased liberty and opportunity not just for Black Americans, but for communities of all backgrounds. Including Indigenous rights activism to the advancement of gay rights to women's economic empowerment, African American equality efforts broadened the scope for greater civil liberties.
However, every time Black communities gain ground, forces threatened by change work to push us back. While confronting the current regime, DEI is the bulwark ensuring a pluralistic democracy. Its strength is rooted not in politics, but from the ideal of America itself: that all people possess equal worth and merit opportunity to thrive.
It's essential to recognize these assaults as part of a deliberate campaign. The goal is to alter the country's narrative and limit the prospects for African Americans, and by extension, any American considered inferior. It's easy to view their actions separately, but this is intentional.
Scholarships and education programs are being cut, causing African American scholars with reduced opportunities to pursue a quality education. These cuts also affect Indigenous learners and served as a predicate for assaults against Latino scholars. African American households still reside in areas with underfunded schools because of longstanding practices of segregation and inequality, and the resulting impact of slashing services unequally affects every disadvantaged youth and individuals with disabilities.
Funding for Black-owned businesses and vital health initiatives has been reduced, leaving our nation lacking the information necessary to address systemic disparities within the economic system and healthcare system. The follow-on effect will undermine studies and funding for women across racial categories. Through altering who counts, who is appreciated and which narratives are shared, these approaches compound the barriers that communities have fought for generations to overcome.
Removal and censorship operate together, and practitioners typically begin with the African American community. Those seeking to cripple democracy have eliminated African American narratives from curricula, exhibits and collective consciousness, costing us the lessons of confrontation, remediation and redemption. Rising autocracies know to pressure schools, colleges, businesses and public agencies into silence.
The question before us now is: how will we respond in response? Will we allow fear, disinformation and autocracy to write the next chapter? Or should we take action, determinedly and intentionally, to defend the truth, honor Black progress and protect access to chances for every American? The response will influence not only the present, but the very future of our country.
Safeguarding and preserving the historic progress we've made is a moral imperative, requiring concerted civil action. As the struggle for freedom has demonstrated, when we fight for liberty, we win. We certainly confront organized assaults on truth, which are intended to sow despair or lead to inaction – but we must prevent this.
Our nation's future won't come automatically. Achievement or downfall will depend by what we choose to do and resist today.
The national narrative started with the principle that from many, we could become one. E pluribus unum is the essence of diversity, equity and inclusion, the actual experience for African Americans and the proof that we can build something greater beyond anxiety and hopelessness. Collectively, we can maintain access, respect reality and reinforce our democracy for future eras.
Elena Vance is a digital strategist and creative director with over a decade of experience in transforming brands through innovative design.