Is DEI dying? Trump turns tide on America's racial reckoning

Diversity, equity, inclusion practices now seen as racially divisive by some in the US

- Bhagyashree Garekar

Mr Elon Musk, the world's richest man and possibly the loudest voice in the incoming Donald Trump administration, shared a story in 2023 to explain what he thought about "wokeness," a term that loosely means being alert to racial injustice.

As Mr Musk related it, a father asked his children, studying at a liberal San Francisco high school, what they knew of America's first few presidents. His daughters named George Washington, and could come up with nothing more about him than that he was a slave owner.

To Mr Musk, the takeaway here was that while slavery was a horrific institution, Americans should know more about the country's first president than just the fact that he inherited slaves from his father in 1743, gained some by marriage and bought still more.

Many - perhaps most - Americans, would readily agree with him.

The anecdote approximates the ground being covered in the current national debate on the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices that were meant to redress social injustice but are now seen as racially divisive.

Or, more specifically, criticized as being anti-white men.

This snapshot judgment feeds upon a sense of betrayal.

It rues what it sees as the tendency to caricature the country's historical figures and its national journey.

And above all, there is a big hurry to change this narrative, perhaps reflected in the depth of the mandate for Trump in the Nov 5 presidential election.

"DEI is just another word for racism. Shame on anyone who uses it," Mr Musk wrote on X in January.

"DEI, because it discriminates on the basis of race, gender and many other factors, is not merely immoral, it is also illegal," he added in a subsequent post.

Prominent Trump appointees have fallen over themselves to explicitly say they will end DEI.

Trump's Vice-President-elect J.D. Vance is a co-author of the Dismantle DEI Bill, currently being debated in Congress.