Does Attacking DEI Now Legally Ratify White Privilege?

 

Does Attacking DEI Now Legally Ratify White Privilege?

White Afrikaners Welcome Here

Somehow that old adage – “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” – truly gets in the way of a political force trying to move the United States back to the ethos, economic manufacturing base and climate reality of the 1950s. As I was writing this blog, there was record flooding in Maryland and Virginia, the “new normal” of 100 degree temperatures hit the South way, way too early in the season, warming coastal waters in California are producing toxic bacteria blooms killing seals, whales and other sea life, disease-carrying mosquitoes are following the higher temperatures, wildfires were blossoming in the hot, dry southwest… and even with the “suspension” of the highest tariffs between our largest trading partners, prices were soaring and layoffs, and anti-DEI attacks against our universities were accelerating. None of those “uncomfortable events” were problems for the 1950s… race relations and Jim Crow laws were.

The vectors we call DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion – were the product of civil rights Supreme Court rulings (starting with the school integration rejection of “separate by equal” precedents set forth in the 1954 Brown vs Board of Education decision and continuing into the 1960s with supporting court holdings and voting/civil rights legislation). It is less-than-subtle that the Trump administration’s labeling the treatment of Afrikaners (white descendants of the Netherlands) as severe discrimination, now entitled to special US residency status as refugees desiring to emigrate from South Africa to “discrimination free” America. This seemingly minor gesture is probably the most obvious admission by the Trump administration that preserving and restoring white privilege is the main vector behind the “anti-woke, anti-DEI” initiatives.

Let’s look at that purported Afrikaner discrimination vector, claiming these white farmers were being attacked by Black SA citizens in droves. Is life so terrible for white South Africans? “White people account for roughly 7 percent of South Africa’s population of 63 million people, and of that number, Afrikaners make up about two-thirds, so roughly three million people in total. Despite having a vastly smaller population, white commercial farmers—the majority of whom are Afrikaners—still possess about half of the country’s land and produce a whopping 90 percent of its agricultural products. In 2024, South Africa’s agricultural exports were worth a record $13.7 billion.

“Afrikaners have therefore maintained a hefty chunk of the nation’s wealth. Only 1 percent of white South Africans live in poverty, compared to nearly two-thirds of Black South Africans. This accumulated land and wealth is the direct result of systemic historical racial oppression under South African apartheid.” Edith Olmsted, the New Republic, May 13th. The sheer numbers speak for themselves. That doesn’t say that a few farmers haven’t been attacked in some areas or support the general notion that Blacks run roughshod over white South Africans. Historically, among the most powerful adherents of apartheid laws were Afrikaners.

“Constitutional black rule in South Africa officially began on May 27, 1994, with the first democratic elections that included all racial groups. This marked the end of apartheid, a system of institutionalized racial segregation that had been in place since 1948. The first president elected in these elections was Nelson Mandela, a prominent anti-apartheid activist.” AI Google search. But Donald Trump looked at the status of white South Africans, and in the first days of his administration set out to protect those poor white Afrikaners from rampant discrimination and deprioritization in their homeland.

“The first group of refugees brought into the U.S. since Donald Trump became President followed an unusual path. On his first day back in office, he suspended all refugee admissions to the U.S.—upending resettlement plans for thousands fearing persecution and violence. Eighteen days later, he announced an exception for white South Africans who ‘are victims of unjust racial discrimination.’” Google search.

Brian Bennett, writing for the May 13th Time Magazine, embellishes that story: “On Monday [5/13], the U.S. welcomed a chartered plane carrying about 50 Afrikaners, marking a new phase of the U.S. refugee program that looks nothing like what came before it. Trump’s order specifically referred to Afrikaners, descendants of mainly Dutch colonial settlers who arrived in South Africa in the 1600s and controlled the country from 1948 to 1994 through the racial separation laws known as apartheid.

“Shortly after their plane landed at Dulles International Airport in Virginia outside of Washington, D.C., the South Africans stood in front of news cameras holding American flags as they were greeted by Trump administration officials. ‘You are really welcome here and we respect what you have had to deal with these last few years,’ said Christopher Landau, deputy Secretary of State. Landau called the Afrikaners ‘quality seeds’ who will ‘bloom’ in the U.S. ‘As you know—a lot of you I think are farmers, right—when you have quality seeds, you can put them in foreign soil and they will blossom. They will bloom,’ Landau told the families. ‘We are excited to welcome you here to our country where we think you will bloom.’

“Trump’s carve out for Afrikaners was partly spurred in reaction to a 2024 South African law that seeks to address the concentration of agricultural land in the hands of white South Africans.” Yet white citizens in South Africans were still generally wildly better off than their Black counterparts, as the above numbers prove. And even when Trump was questioned about this issue at a press conference, he bizarrely claimed his decision was race-neutral and would apply equally to South African Black citizens facing the same discriminatory dangers. Except it didn’t. Instead, Trump merely affirmed what we already knew, a priority denied by elected MAGA politicians: Trump’s and MAGA officials’ pursuit of anti-DEI policies is simply a restatement of their major underlying white Christian nationalist guiding principle. And while it ain’t broke, the MAGA movement is hell-bent to fix it! It is most consistent with Trump’s perpetual need to divide and conquer. 

I’m Peter Dekom, and while there is no force on earth than can restore the United States of the 1950s, you have to ask yourself if trying to undo progress and level the playing field to favor whites is really improving the lives of anybody… really.