When Racism and Social Justice Collide: A Critical Race Theory of DEI

It is clear, that white people have a problem with Blacks and other minorities advancing in society, because every time they do, there is a white backlash to stop the advancement and put “them” back in their place: after the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Era, the election of Obama, and now with the MAGA Movement.

Regardless of how hard this country tries to convince white people that no one is out to harm them, no one wants their jobs, their homes, their daughters, their property or their guns, conspiracy theorist cannot resist preaching otherwise. These theories do not only come from tin-foil hat wearing mountain men, but they also come from corporate CEOs, lawyers and judges, and politicians in Congress and state offices.

These are policy makers that write the laws of the land. These laws make up the doctrine of what Critical Race Theory outlines in its message; that the United States have structured a system that favors white people and is designed to keep Blacks and other minorities at arm’s length where it pertains to social and economic advancement and any say-so in legislation or the national laws.

Thus, we have the current political, economic, and social atmosphere in the country that has conflicting laws and policies toward Blacks and others. We will help you own a home, but we reserve the right to be racist on the job; and we will forgive your student loans, but once we give you a criminal record, you cannot have a loan. 

The student loan forgiveness program was recently enacted to “narrow the nation’s racial wealth gap. But a generation of Black and Hispanic Americans was disproportionately shut out of one of the keys to Biden’s plan: the Pell Grant program.”

Here are two systems that have individually blocked progress for minorities in the past, higher education and the judicial/prison system. Now that minorities are given a supposed break in one of the systems, the other was put in place to stifle any future benefits of the former. This is how systemic racism works hand-in hand.

“As part of the “war on drugs” — a consequential, anti-crime legislative agenda that Biden championed as a U.S. senator — an estimated hundreds of thousands of convicted drug offenders had their access to federal financial aid delayed or denied, including Pell Grants and student loans. If they wanted to go to college after their prison terms ended, these offenders had to take on larger, often predatory, private student loans.”

In another example of how racist systems collide, Bank of America has recently launched a program “To help narrow a homeownership gap among Black and Hispanic-Latino communities, Bank of America is launching new zero down payment, zero closing cost mortgage products to help people in minority communities buy their first homes.”

Of course, anyone looking to purchase a home needs a job, and here is where a competing racist system steps in to hinder that. In an article entitled “The work of critical race theory falls on employers now,” S. Mitra Kalita, the co-founder and CEO of URL Media, a network of Black and Brown news and information outlets” explains how opponents of Critical Race Theory claim that CRT is included in diversity training (which is a training to reduce discrimination against people of color and women in the workforce) and is therefore divisive by integrating racist sentiments into the work culture.

Mind you, no one had a problem with diversity training before 2016. Training sessions were done by professional psychologist and behavioral consultants that informed employers of the laws against workplace discrimination, and to help ease any racial tensions in the workplace. However, conspiracy theorist joined the conversation and created a fear among white parents and employees that CRT (that no one ever heard of before 2016) was coming to get them, their jobs, and their children in school.

In an unprecedented move of political heresy, conservative politicians shouted from the roof tops that CRT must be banned from life all together or the country would crumble from an implosion of white guilt, shame, and actual truth of America history. So,  “In September 2020, President Trump issued an executive order (since rescinded by President Biden) saying any diversity training that included “divisive concepts” or “race and sex scapegoating” would not qualify for federal funding.

“Many of the parents who support the removal of the CRT concepts from the classroom are in the workplace and don’t want to hear it there either,” says Shindale Seale, CEO of the cultural equity and diversity firm SEADE Coaching and Consulting. With the current backlash to CRT and DEI reaching a fever pitch, “We may see a strong push in the workplace to limit diversity, equity, and inclusion training or revamp it significantly, so these groups are not uncomfortable having to face the truth of American history.”

In the near future, unfortunately, Blacks and other minorities may have a chance to purchase a home, but only if they have a job, and to get a good job, you must have an education, but only if you avoid prison from under a system of the current police state out to criminalize and exterminate minorities, particularly Black men. 

In the current atmosphere of the white backlash, succeeding may be questionable. Bank of America may be on to something though; they may see a chance to con minorities again seeing they may be approved for a home but lose it when they are harassed out of their job because some white person feels the need to vindicate their whiteness.