Do the sort of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” seminars and trainings pushed by many large universities, colleges and universities, and similarly bureaucratic and left-leaning organizations provide anything of value to those forced or encouraged to attend them? According to a former DEI trainer, quite the opposite is true: instead, they are “useless” to most people forced to attend them and “detrimental” to the very minority individuals they are meant to help.
That former diversity trainer is a man named Erec Smith. He recently joined “Jesse Watters Primetime” on Fox Ness Channel to discuss the problems with the general implementation of DEI training and went on to explain why he thinks it is “useless” within corporate culture.
Putting the glaring problems with the training quite succinctly, Mr. Smith said, “This was a while ago when I was a diversity officer, and I realize how useless it was because, A, you can’t really compel people to do certain things or think certain things. You can’t be a thought police when it comes to these things. And secondly, I was always preaching to the choir. It wasn’t working.”
Continuing, he noted that there is a conflict of interest for DEI trainers, as if racism goes away they are out of a job. “Think about it. If you’re making all that money off of racism, the last thing you want is for racism to go away. You are going to perpetuate it. You’re going to see it where it isn’t,” he said.
Using a metaphor to describe that situation, he said, “The major tenet of critical social justice pedagogy is don’t ask if racism happened. Ask how it manifests in this situation, which is to say there’s racism everywhere. And you know the saying, if you’re a hammer, then everything’s a nail. Well, if you’re a critical social justice activist, everything’s racist.”
Mr. Smith then added that, though the DEI trainings are not going to just disappear on their own, people need to summon up the courage to, strategically and carefully, stand up against the general state of things and prepare to take a stand for what they think is right.
He said, “It’s not going to go away tomorrow, but what we have to do is start pushing back. A lot of people are afraid. A lot of people are complying with this, but they don’t really want to. They just don’t want to be mobbed on social media. They don’t want to lose their jobs. They’re very much against this.”
Adding to that, Mr. Smith added that people like him, by which he seems to have meant black people upset with the state of DEI and it being pushed on everyone, need to stand up to it as well, particularly by noting the detrimental mindset it induces. He said, “The people who can speak out, people like me, need to be loud and clear about how detrimental this is to minorities.”
Watch that discussion here:
Diversity, equity and inclusion training is a $3.5 billion industry and now, a former diversity trainer is blowing the whistle. Erec Smith says, “if you’re making all that money off of racism, the last thing you want is for racism to go away. You’re going to perpetuate it. You’re… pic.twitter.com/3Rjv5kOKLe
— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) August 29, 2023
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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