#NNPA BlackPress

COMMENTARY: There They Go Again – Gut or Shutdown DEI Initiatives

CINCINNATI HERALD — Erasure of African American and Native American history justifies the opposition to DEI initiatives. It denies the need to correct the imbalance resulting from generations of a privileged/marginalized social construct. If there is no cause, there is no effect, there is no need to take institutional corrective measures.
The post COMMENTARY: There They Go Again – Gut or Shutdown DEI Initiatives first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Published

2 years ago

March 6, 2024

admin

By Rev. Norman Franklin | Herald Guest Columnist

Does America have a race problem? Is systemic racism permeating every fiber of the socioeconomic, sociopolitical institutions of America? Are race-based theories, particularly the Critical Race Theory, liberal extremism, or is it a reality that remains unacknowledged – the big grey elephant always in the room?

Answers trending from conservative Republican majorities grant us some perspective. Racism does not exist. And if history is properly presented, it never existed.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R.Fla.) signed into law a bill that bans initiatives on diversity, equity and inclusion. He viewed them as discriminatory practices. This was in April 2023. In May, Gov. Greg Abbot (R.Tx.) followed suit with legislation that shuttered all DEI initiatives. A June 2023 SCOTUS decision gutted Affirmative Action.

A July Harvard Business Review article, “Why Companies Can – and Should- Recommit to DEI in the Wake of the SCOTUS Decision” debunks a myth. African Americans have been the face of Affirmative Action. The article by Tina Ople and Ella F. Washington, reveals that White women benefited the greater from Affirmative Action policies.

America has a proclivity for scapegoating African Americans. Ronald Reagan’s fictitious Cadillac Welfare Queen pictured Blacks as milking the Welfare System. When in fact, Whites were the greater number on the welfare rolls.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) is the latest boogeyman. DEI is about promoting awareness of our differences, addressing structural inequalities, and creating an environment of community and respect for human differences and social identities.

Opponents portray an ominous goal of DEI.

More than 20 states have a combined 50 bills pending or signed into law that restrict or eliminate DEI programs. They purport to protect First Amendment free speech and shield potential employees and students from coercive practices. They are forced to align with divisive, discriminatory policies of DEI initiatives, they assert.

Legislators take the floor and pontificate destruction to our democratic system of government. Some draw analogies to Marxism and Communism. There is no mention of the centuries long system of chattel slavery or the decades of codified discrimination that fostered the inequities that must be righted.

According to Acts 17:26, God made every nation and people from one bloodline. “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth.”

But we are different. We were made that way. We process our experiences differently and come up with perspectives influenced by our experiences. In our nation of Christian leadership, this “great melting pot” of democracy, those differences should not erect invisible fences that keep us opposed to the goodwill of one another. The truth should tear down the fences and set us free.

We cannot deny the interconnectedness of the past and the present. We cannot deny America’s history and its imprint on the discord in our society, the imbalance in our economy, and the ambiance of conflicted dysfunction in government – state and federal.

Conservative legislatures move to prohibit the inclusion of African/African American history in academic curriculum. Native American history is equally shunned.

African American history and Native American history is American history; however, the amalgamated and comfortable version legislators prefer castrates our experiences and insults our heritage.

The genesis of the opposition is that Whites should not experience guilt when learning about history. That’s a misappropriation of guilt. Knowledge of the past bears no guilt; it could lead to shame, and shame spurs corrective action to ensure that mistakes are not repeated.

Erasure of African American and Native American history justifies the opposition to DEI initiatives. It denies the need to correct the imbalance resulting from generations of a privileged/marginalized social construct. If there is no cause, there is no effect, there is no need to take institutional corrective measures.

When the seats of government — the legislative and the executive branches – rests in the hands of one ideological movement, unrestrained by the weakness of opposition, legislative measures born out of the simmering angst of decades of feigned “go along” with social correctives are pushed through that roll back the progress towards the more perfect union.

The legislative body is comfortable with the imbalance of power and inequalities of society. They wield the sphere of authority over the marginalized.

The African American could feel a sense of betrayal; but we felt the sting of ingratitude when we returned from the battlefields in Europe and the Pacific Theater. Our red blood soaked into foreign soils, but many were denied access to the GI benefits that fueled postwar prosperity.

Those who govern are the descendants of those who enslaved us; they deny the inhumanity of this immoral and unjust system.

Those who govern are the generations of those who codified Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws into a social construct that devalued Black life and castrated their dignity.

These are the progeny, the sons and daughters of those who have benefited from systemic injustice but deny that inequality permeates every fiber of the social construct of America. It’s all they have known; it feels so normal. They can feel justified in the unjust laws they legislate; they can feel comfortable in the rollback of corrective measures. They can see no wrong in ending DEI initiatives.

As the Ronald Reagan, the quintessential Republican, said during a presidential debate. “There you go again.”

Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this commentary piece do not necessarily the express the opinions of The Cincinnati Herald.

The post, “There they go again – gut or shutdown DEI initiatives” appeared first on The Cincinnati Herald .

____________________________________________________________

Excerpt:

Photo Caption:

Website Tags and Keywords:

Twitter Tags/Handles:

The post COMMENTARY: There They Go Again – Gut or Shutdown DEI Initiatives first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

admin

Posts by admin

Up Next

Trucking Company Owner Jason Burroughs Uses Mentorship to Help Many

Don't Miss

UAB Computer Science Students Earn Big Wins at Alabama’s Largest Hackathon

admin

Click to comment

#NNPA BlackPress

LIVE from the NMA Convention Raheem DeVaughn Says The Time Is Now: Let’s End HIV in Our Communities #2

Set against the backdrop of the NMA conference, Executive Officers from the National Medical Association, Grammy Award Winning Artist and Advocate Raheem DeVaughn, and Gilead Sciences experts, are holding today an important conversation on HIV prevention and health equity. Black women continue to be disproportionately impacted by HIV despite advances in prevention options. Today’s event […]

Published

3 days ago

February 3, 2026

Oakland Post

Black women continue to be disproportionately impacted by HIV despite advances in prevention options. Today’s event is designed to uplift voices, explore barriers to access, and increase awareness and key updates about PrEP, a proven prevention method that remains underutilized among Black women. This timely gathering will feature voices from across health, media, and advocacy as we break stigma and center equity in HIV prevention.

Additional stats and information to know:

● Black women continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV, with Black women representing more than 50% of new HIV diagnoses among women in the U.S. in 2022, despite comprising just 13% of women in the U.S.

● Women made up only 8% of PrEP users despite representing 19% of all new HIV diagnoses in 2022.

● Gilead Sciences is increasing awareness and addressing stigma by encouraging regular HIV testing and having judgment-free conversations with your healthcare provider about prevention options, including oral PrEP and long-acting injectable PrEP options.

● PrEP is an HIV prevention medication that has been available since 2012.

● Only 1 in 3 people in the U.S. who could benefit from PrEP were prescribed a form of PrEP in 2022.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

#NNPA BlackPress

TRUMP: “Washington, D.C. is Safe”

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — President Trump, who typically travels with a full contingent of high-level protection, insinuated that he finally felt safe enough to go to dinner in the District of Columbia. “My wife and I went out to dinner last night for the first time in four years,” said the nation’s 47th president.

Published

3 days ago

February 3, 2026

Oakland Post

By Apriil Ryan
BlackPressUSA Washington Bureau Chief and White House Correspondent

“Washington, D.C. is safe,” President Trump declared from the Oval Office today. Those words came while Trump was hosting Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. During the question-and-answer session, which primarily focused on a peace deal in the Russian-Ukrainian war, Trump explained, “You did that in four days.” He was speaking of how fast the National Guard quelled the violence in what was once called Chocolate City.

The President deployed the National Guard to D.C. a week ago, to a city with reduced crime rates over the previous year. Violent crime dropped by 26%, marking the lowest level in 30 years. Homicides also fell by 11%.

President Trump, who typically travels with a full contingent of high-level protection, insinuated that he finally felt safe enough to go to dinner in the District of Columbia. “My wife and I went out to dinner last night for the first time in four years,” said the nation’s 47th president.

Trump reinforced his claim about the newly acquired safety in D.C. by relaying that a friend’s son is attending dinner in D.C., something he would not have done last year.

After the president finished his comments, a reporter/commentator in the room with close connections to Marjorie Taylor Greene jumped into the high-level conversation to affirm the president’s comments, saying, “I walked around yesterday with MTG. If you can walk around D.C. with MTG and not be attacked, this city is safe.”

That reporter was the same person who chastised President Zelenskyy months ago during his first Oval Office meeting with Trump for not wearing a business suit. Zelenskyy, a wartime President, has been clad in less formal attire to reflect the country’s current war stance against Russia.

Without any sourcing, President Trump also said, “People that haven’t gone out to dinner in Washington, D.C., in two years are going out to dinner, and the restaurants the last two days have been busier than they’ve been in a long time.”

The increase in policing in Washington, D.C. is because a 19-year-old former Doge employee was carjacked in the early hours of the morning recently.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

#NNPA BlackPress

Rising Energy Costs Weigh Heaviest on Black Households

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — For many African American families, the cost of keeping the lights on and homes heated or cooled is not just a monthly bill — it’s a crushing financial burden.

Published

3 days ago

February 3, 2026

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

For many African American families, the cost of keeping the lights on and homes heated or cooled is not just a monthly bill — it’s a crushing financial burden.

A new national study from Binghamton University and California State University, San Bernardino, finds that Black households spend a far larger share of their income on energy compared to white households, even when income levels are the same. “We often say that African Americans suffer more, but we often blame it just on income. And the reality is, there is something more there,” study author George Homsy, associate professor at Binghamton University, wrote. “It’s not just because they tend to be poor. There is something that’s putting them at a disadvantage. I think what happened is it happens to be where they live.” The study, published in Energy Research & Social Science, analyzed 65,000 census tracts across the United States. It found that while the average American household spends about 3.2% of income on energy bills, households in the majority African American census tracts spend an average of 5.1%.

Homsy and researcher Ki Eun Kang point to the age and condition of housing stock, along with lower homeownership rates, as key drivers. Their research concludes that “energy burden is not simply a matter of income or energy cost but also race, which might be driven by place.” Older, less energy-efficient housing and high rental rates in Black communities mean residents often cannot make upgrades like improved insulation or new appliances, locking families into higher bills.

Tradeoffs and Health Risks

The consequences go beyond money. Families forced to spend 10% or more of their income on energy — what experts classify as “unmanageable” — may cut back on food, medicine, or other essentials. More than 12 million U.S. households report leaving their homes at unsafe temperatures to reduce costs, while millions more fall behind on utility bills. The health effects are severe. High energy burdens increase risks of asthma, depression, poor sleep, pneumonia, and even premature death. The issue is especially acute for African Americans, who are disproportionately exposed to housing and environmental conditions that amplify these risks.

Washington, D.C.: A Case Study

In Washington, D.C., the problem is particularly stark. A recent analysis by the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) shows that SNAP-eligible households spend more than 20% of their income on energy bills. Across the metro area, nearly two-thirds of low-income households devote over 6% of their income to energy, and 40% face what researchers call a “severe financial strain,” paying more than 10%. Pepco, the District’s primary electricity provider, has implemented three consecutive annual rate hikes, pushing the average household bill to $114 per month as of January 2025. Shutoffs have followed — nearly 12,000 customers lost service in 2024, with disconnections doubling after a summer rate hike. Washington Gas has also sought a 12% rate increase and pushed a controversial $215 million pipeline replacement project, rebranded as “District SAFE.” The plan could ultimately cost D.C. households an additional $45,000 each over several decades, or nearly $1,000 annually added to bills.

Historical Roots

Researchers argue that these inequities are not accidental but rooted in history. The ScienceDirect study reveals that African American communities living in formerly redlined neighborhoods continue to face disadvantages today — from poor housing quality to higher climate risks. Homsy says policymakers must make targeted efforts. “It is harder to get to rental units where a lot of poor people live,” he noted. “We need to work harder to get into these communities of color.”