7-30-25

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion…..three innocent words that have developed a very

sinister meaning……there is a strong movement underway led by Republican state

legislators (to include in Alabama and Tennessee) to abolish DEI practices in

government offices and public education…..basically, in some states now, if you

want to receive your annual appropriation from the state budget you’d better get

away from those practices that exhibit favoritism and race-baiting based on a

persons skin color, sexual identity, or so-called “under representation”…..We’re

seeing it as a strong movement from the federal government now as well….the

Trump admin has issued orders to the whole of government, including the US

military, to disband DEI offices and stop DEI practices…..no more pronoun

seminars, no more hiring preferences, no more inclusion memos and passing over

the best candidates for the most woke candidates……DEI is truly where merit goes

to die……When someone’s appearance, or lifestyle, or claims of victimization are

the toplines on their resume the job will suffer…..why? because it means they are

not rewarding productivity and achievement…..it means that success of the

mission is secondary to the feelings of the employees…..which means that the

mission could fail, but hey! The boss will feel good about themselves for giving the

poor downtrodden unqualified wretch a very important position…….

I hope that you’ve all seen the movie “Hidden Figures”….an amazing true story

starring Octavia Spencer, Kevin Costner and others about the efforts to combat

racism in the early days of NASA’s Apollo….the best mathematician in NASA was

Katherine Goble, a black woman….but because of her skin color her work was

deemed unfit…..until one day her calculations won the approval of her boss, and

then they won the approval of Astronaut John Glenn…..she was the best, but her

merit was being suppressed because her supervisors wanted only one skin color

on the job…..flip that script to today and we’ve come full circle…..the effort to

allegedly “overcome” the racism and marginalization of the past is not met with

cries to always promote the best no matter what their skin color….oh no….the

race baiters and charlatans of today are back to the days of meritless work

environments based only on lifestyle and skin color….and thus merit fades into

obscurity like some weird scene from Idiocracy……

Just the other day it was discovered that the Boston Police Department is in a

recruiting drive for Muslim police officers….because everyone knows that your

religious preference is key to being a good cop…….In King County, Washington,

not long ago a DEI training session for firefighters was suspended when it became

centered on the notion that white first responders were dangerous……let’s just

say the firemen were having none of it…… Not long ago a school board meeting in

Pennsylvania got DEI-weird when one of the members openly stated that she

could not support one individual for the position as President of the Board

because “he was the only Cis White Male” running…. even though she

acknowledged that he would likely do a good job she thought that it would send

the wrong message……she was compelled to resign days later…..

and you may recall a story about the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science

and Mathematics…. one of the most renowned High Schools in the nation…… the

administration there had become so woke that they began withholding

information from students who became National Merit Scholars…..can you

imagine?! You, or your child, with long years and grueling hours of study, earns

the right to be named as a National Merit Finalist or Semi-Finalist….a fact that can

make all the difference in the competitive world of college admissions…..and the

school deliberately refuses to make it known…….why? because it clashed with the

new Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Mathematics equitable

grading standards…..basically the pinheads in charge of Thomas Jefferson High

School for Science and Mathematics were concerned that if one student excelled

that other students would feel badly about themselves so in their narrow and

woke-minded view they just chose to “dumb everyone down” instead of allowing

excellence to rise to the top……

It sounds like fiction…..like “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut……. “Harrison

Bergeron” is a short story written in 1961…maybe 6 pages…..and wow, is it on

point…….let me read you the opening lines:

“THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal

before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter

than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was

stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th,

212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance

of agents of the United States Handicapper General.”…..the story goes on to

describe the very average lives of George and Hazel Bergeron……it describes Hazel

as being of average intelligence but George was actually determined to be very

intelligent so the government office of the Handicapper General made him wear a

device that blasted erratic noises in his ears every few minutes to keep him from

having clear and cogent thoughts that might exceed that of others……in the story

it was described as “a sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair

advantage of their brains”……..George and Hazel sat watching a ballet on TV but

each of the dancers, based upon their individual skills, were saddled with bags of

birdshot to weigh them down so that no one could dance better than

another….each of the dancers also wore masks so that no one could be perceived

as more beautiful than the other……the title character, Harrison Bergeron, was

the son of George and Hazel, but the Office of the Government Handicapper had

removed him from their home when he was 14 because he was too perfect, too

attractive, too athletic, too smart, and no one should have a child that much

better than someone else……Harrison himself was featured in the story as the

anti-equality character and I won’t try to spoil it for you by telling you what

happened next…….But it was spot on….Spot. On. ……the story of Harrison

Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut sounds creepy and yet you can compare the same

attitude to what we see in the ridiculous decisions by the people in charge of the

Thomas Jefferson School for Science and Mathematics…..Let me tell you, when

those in charge become determined to suppress excellence in favor of equity then

failure becomes the norm and success becomes a crime…..let me say that again

with as much emphasis as I can, when those in charge become determined to

suppress excellence in favor of equity then failure becomes the norm and

success becomes a crime…..

Make no mistake, I’m not for discrimination or trying to keep someone down

because of their race, sex, religion or pregnancy……but the race to DEI is not

that…..DEI, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, are just synonyms for refusing to allow

one persons merit to be the guide to their ability to serve, or succeed……it is

farcical to think for a second that good will come of giving someone a job, or a

title, or a security clearance, or some power over others, merely because they

checked a DEI box and not because they were the best candidate for the

job…..cases in point:

Samuel Brinton, the cross-dressing non-binary radical kink fetish lecturer should

have never been given a top-secret clearance and access to sensitive government

information……it was wrong, and it failed…….

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, an extremely accomplished jurist and with a sound

legal mind, should never have been put in the position of having an asterisk by

her appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States merely because she

was a black woman……she may well have earned it otherwise but President Biden

tainted her appointment by announcing that DEI was his first motive……

Republican George Santos should never have been elected to Congress from the

State of New York because he habitually lied about his own resume in an effort to

be something he is not…..Santos is gone now…..removed from office by his peers

in the House……Santos is a product of a society that believes that no one is okay

the way God made them…..you must be adjusted to able to achieve an equitable

outcome…..

DEI is where merit goes to die……when we allow ourselves to believe for a minute

that no one is allowed be the person that God intended them to be, or to exercise

their own gifts, talents and personal disciplines in such a way as to earn a

position, then we have become nothing more than a society filled with empty

average characters like George and Hazel Bergeron….saddled with bags of

birdshot and noise makers so that no one person can rise to their personal

best……DEI is where merit goes to die and where failure becomes acceptable……

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way!