Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is the functional iteration of critical race theory. It involves people policing what companies, schools, and governmental offices are doing to ensure enough diversity (of skin color or sexual proclivities, not of thought). DEI promotes an intersectional hierarchy that adversely discriminates against certain groups of people. It also seeks to abolish the notion of merit as the highest form of choosing individuals.

But if one were to ask Stacey Abrams, the twice-failed gubernatorial candidate from Georgia, she would say that DEI is essential. According to Abrams, questioning DEI or pushing back against its terrible precepts is akin to threatening democracy. She recently had this to say in an interview on MSNBC with fellow race huckster Al Sharpton:

What we know is that the attack on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion — DEI — is an attack on democracy, it’s an attack on education, it’s an attack on how our economy works because what … Senator [Jon] Ossoff and Senator [Raphael] Warnock represent are pathways to the American Dream. They are proof points. And those proof points scare those who want this world to be more narrow and more restrictive. And so we have to recognize that our opportunity to hold to those successes requires our constant attention… You know, voting is not magic; voting is medicine. But it also means that it’s a constant engagement — that we can’t have a moment of success. We have to keep working constantly at moving ourselves forward.

STACEY ABRAMS: “The attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), is an attack to democracy.” pic.twitter.com/uwQrcCMLkX

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) April 22, 2024

When leftists use the phrase “attack on democracy,” one can assume what they actually mean is “my preferred ideology being in power.” Abrams goes right to it in her defense of DEI, then utterly fails to explain exactly how DEI and democracy are intertwined. She then goes on to claim that questioning DEI is the same as attacking education and the economy. This is patently false.

Forcing people to meet diversity quotas as opposed to selecting the best individuals for the job or college admissions is good for the economy? Admitting students based on “equity” and not merit is good for their education or the schools as a whole? Diversity based on race, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity is what is narrow and restrictive. It also holds everyone back in the long run.

If you hire someone who checks all the boxes for DEI but cannot do the job they were hired to do, that’s going to stymie the economy of a workplace. If you admit a student who is not able to compete academically with his peers, his college experience is not going to be productive. And ultimately, if there are enough of these students who aren’t college-ready but are admitted because of their diversity status, that brings down the quality of education that teachers are able to impart to them. Finally, if a company or school has to hire a legion of DEI compliance enforcers, that is a blight not only on the budget but on the overall economy.

Although Abrams doesn’t get how her position is absurd, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet does. Mamet, who wrote the screenplays for “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” “The Untouchables,” and “Hannibal,” recently stated in an interview for the LA Times: “DEI is garbage. It’s fascist totalitarianism.” Apparently, he would know because he was a self-ascribed “red diaper baby” — i.e., both parents were communists.

He went on to excoriate the new DEI standards that are imposed on Hollywood writers. No one can win an award unless he or she complies with DEI, which stifles creativity. Mamet also pointed out, “The [film industry] has little business improving everybody’s racial understanding as does the fire department.” Given how out of touch with everyday Americans Hollywood seems to be, this is an appropriate insight.

Mamet, like many other older white males, is also finding that getting work in this current DEI-controlled climate is not easy. Though he attributes this to the bias of youthful directors only wanting to work with youthful screenwriters, it’s likely more than that. Either way, Hollywood rejecting the meritorious for either DEI or age discrimination reasons is why we keep getting films not worth seeing in theaters. With the price of movie tickets being so high, is it too much to ask that film quality also be high?

Abrams and Mamet represent the two sides of the DEI argument. DEI is slowly falling out of favor because it is demonstrably racist and counterproductive on every front. Let’s hope that this continued discussion expedites the process of its extinction.