Zmail: A reader explains why DEI has so many people in a snit

& the latest NewsWheel puzzle, ripped from the headlines

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Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m. I talk with WGN-AM 720 host John Williams about what’s making news and likely to be grist for the PS mill. The WGN listen-live link is here.

The contemptible moral emptiness of the Trump Administration

CNN called it “stunning” and “shocking” that the United States joined with Russia Monday in voting to oppose a UN General Assembly resolution that condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The vote against the Ukrainian and European-backed resolution saw the US at odds with its longtime European allies and instead aligned with the aggressor in the war on the three-year anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The US again voted the same way as Russia later Monday on a US-proposed UN Security Council resolution that did not call the Kremlin the aggressor or acknowledge Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

I have harsher words for this betrayal of Ukraine and our NATO allies.

Remember the way conservatives and Republicans ululated indignantly for decades about “Hanoi Jane” Fonda because the then-young actor sided with the Viet Cong over the U.S. backed South Vietnamese? Most are now conspicuous in their silence about “Moscow Donald” Trump, no longer just a celebrity but the president of the United States, a morally vacuous leader who has thrown in with murderous dictator Vladimir Putin.

The European-backed General Assembly resolution was adopted with 93 votes in favor. It notes “with concern the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation has persisted for three years and continues to have devastating and long-lasting consequences not only for Ukraine, but also for other regions and global stability” and “calls for a de-escalation, an early cessation of hostilities and a peaceful resolution of the war against Ukraine.”

It also demands that Russia “immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.”

There can be no equivocating about blame for the war — the ghastly loss of life, the disabling injuries and the crippling property damage. Failing to acknowledge forcefully Russian responsibility for it all in an effort to appease Putin puts me in mind of the King of Swamp Castle in the movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” who scolds wedding guests outraged by the murders committed by the invading Sir Lancelot, “Let’s not bicker and argue about who killed who.”

This is about right and wrong. It’s about clarity. It’s about punishing aggressors and defending the innocent. This country is on a shameful, frightening path. What happened to the patriots in the Republican Party?

Gotta admit I didn’t know this, and it’s disgraceful

Illinois lawmakers — long leery of being secretly recorded — have prohibited state and local law enforcement from wiretapping the phones of politicians suspected of corruption, as federal investigators are allowed to do. — Chicago Tribune

Well, now we know why Illinois’ attorneys general appear to have been lax about investigating political corruption.

Notes and comments from readers — lightly edited — along with my responses

What is it about DEI that has conservatives so PO’d?

Jake H. — In your response to reader Bob Ryan you wondered which part of DEI — diversity, equity and/or inclusion — “has so many people in a snit.” But DEI initiatives are not simply about stopping unfair discrimination. Everyone agrees that companies should hire the most talented people, regardless of skin color.

Many think people should not get any sort of preference or advantage based on their race. They think that's unfair. But DEI is not just another term for affirmative action — a balancing of the books to make up for historical discrimination or to introduce diversity where diversity is valued. People do disagree about that, but, like anti-discrimination law, these ideas have been around for decades.

So, if DEI isn't either of those things exactly, what is it? It's infuriating that this is still puzzling liberals of good will. DEI has come to mean a set of radical views on racial issues in this country, widely popular only recently, that holds, among other things, that:

■Any statistical underrepresentation of people of color in anything anywhere is ipso facto racist.

■We should see society as characterized by a more-or-less permanent racial power struggle in which all white people are complicit through their illicit privilege.

■ We should engage in racial essentialism — Black people are like x, white people are like y — to reveal the depth of the disadvantage imposed by a white dominant culture. (In other words, SATs don't test reading and math, as you might suppose, but whiteness.) On this view, it is entirely appropriate to have a Black-only math class in a public high school, say. An example of such essentialism is the infamous "whiteness" graphic that identifies whiteness with such traits as "the written word" and "hard work" and so on.

■ We should understand global affairs as one of white colonialists vs. oppressed brown people.

■ Children should understand themselves as racial beings, carrying either the privilege of whiteness or the stamp of oppression.

■ Liberalism (all types) and free speech especially are shams, used to perpetuate white supremacy. At least, we should suspect that they are weaponized by the dominant culture to keep down minority groups.

■ Merit, excellence in anything, is a similar sort of sham; merit is just another word for whiteness and is thus a tool of white supremacy.

■ Progress is a sham; any so-called progress only ever happens because white people have an ulterior motive. This is especially ironic, given that these are highly progressive views. As Bill Maher pointed out in his most recent episode, the Nike Super Bowl ad about women athletes fighting those who would keep them down, as though there is anyone trying to keep them down, is a case in point. We pretend weirdly that nothing has ever gotten meaningfully better. We pretend, almost as a matter of piety, that the man is keeping down women's sports, that women's sports aren't a major part of the culture.

■ Racism manifests itself powerfully and constantly through a daily stream of micro-aggressions to the point that all people of color feel that they are second-class citizens in a way that white people cannot understand.

■ Criminal justice is not merely a frequently imperfect system that demands constant vigilance to ensure fairness and the rights of the accused but rather fundamentally, at its core, a system of race-based oppression.

■ American history is nothing more than a giant unholy crime scene.

■ The cure for racism is not robust enforcement of anti-discrimination laws, but rather Orwellian struggle sessions among the most progressive people on earth where they can navel-gaze, journal, and confess their privilege.

■ The above is an orthodoxy and litmus test for employment and acceptability generally, and dissenters, even those expressing views held by a vast majority of Americans, should be canceled — fired, doxxed, shouted down, threatened, etc.

I could go on. The gist is a cartoonish, vastly overstated view of identity relations in a pluralistic society that was really shocking to me when I first encountered it (in my training and subsequent "race work" as a high school teacher).

Make no mistake, this is what DEI is. It characterizes all the race talk in progressive places. It describes the content of all the recent race sensitivity training programs and workshops. DEI advances very bad ideas — pernicious in themselves and in the way in which they were advanced. They emphasize divisions rather than commonalities. They undermine standards of achievement and excellence. They teach people that they are locked in a condition of oppressor or oppressed, thus setting up antagonism that may well bear no relation to reality as experienced by the people involved.

The reason it annoys people so much, has people in a snit, and has engendered a giant backlash and helped give us this government by crooks, hoodlums, trolls, and crackpots, that is endangering national security, the rule of law, and the lives of people all around the world, thank you very much, is that it's a giant load of bullshit preached as unassailable gospel.

Zorn — I don’t believe that “everyone” agrees that the most talented person should be hired regardless of skin color, in part because I think because conscious and unconscious racism still infects the hiring process and in part because it’s hard to agree on just what “talent” any prospective applicant brings to a particular company or institution.

That said, I agree that you have defined a set of radical concepts that, when advanced under any banner, stand to be counterproductive. That so many notions have fallen under the banner of “DEI” is unfortunate because it fuels momentum to throw the baby out with the bathwater, to use a cliche that is irresistibly apt these days.

To me, “equity” is the idea that we need to do more to make sure that all children begin life’s race from more or less the same starting line as far as health, education and safety, and from that, equal opportunities will flow. We can’t just pretend that, starting now, we’ll have color-blind outcomes if we pretend that we’ve realized Martin Luther King’s dream that people are judged on the content of their character and not the color of their skin.

Mend it don’t end it would be my attitude if I were in charge.

Mark K. — Unconscious bias is a real thing. Some stereotypes are conditioned into us by the culture, upbringing or other external factors, often without our awareness of the conditioning. It's important to acknowledge that we have these blind spots so that when something is pointed out to us we're not offended, but take it as a learning and growing opportunity.

Gulf of What Now?

John Finerty — Regarding your long entry on the dispute between the Associated Press and the White House over what to call the Gulf, I never cease to be amazed at the lengths the liberal media will go to create divisiveness with meaningless opinions based on their senseless commentaries.

We live in a country overrun with illegal immigrants, beset by huge amounts of fraudulent spending and suffocating under a national debt so large that the interest payments alone almost equal the defense budget. And you choose to complain about the name for a portion of a body of water. Seriously?

Perhaps, just perhaps, you might want to focus your opining on events that have meaning and impact on everyday Americans. As a suggestion I would offer the pillaging of Social Security.

Zorn— The pillaging of Social Security? You mean Trump’s false claim that “tens of millions of people” who are “definitely dead” are receiving checks?

I thought it was just silly that Trump decided to try to rename the Gulf of Mexico. What was not silly, however, was his decision to exclude a major news organization from White House events and Air Force One for not going along with his choice of language. His spokeswoman referred to the name “Gulf of Mexico" as a "lie." You don't understand why that's incredibly ominous? Seriously?

By the way, our country is hardly "overrun" with undocumented immigrants. I'm all for eliminating waste, fraud and abuse (find me a politician of either party who hasn't promised that) but I’m opposed to simply hacking away at vital programs. The national debt in Trump's first four years in office rose at twice the rate it did in the last four years of President Barack Obama’s time in office. Which is why I never cease to be amazed at the whining hypocrisy of Republicans.

Phillip Seeberg — How would it be received if a news organization insisted on calling DuSable Lake Shore Drive simply “Lake Shore Drive,” called the Willis Tower the Sears Tower and called Rate Field “Sox Park?”

Zorn — I doubt there would be punitive blowback — if any real blowback at all — against a news organization that simply continued to use "Lake Shore Drive" as shorthand. But the City Council had the authority to rename the Drive just as Trump had the authority to rename Denali (and the owners had the right to rename the Sears Tower and Comiskey Park.) Trump does not have the authority to rename the entire Gulf of Mexico.

I will once again advance my view that media outlets should not use the commercial names slapped onto arenas and stadiums built with public subsidies unless they are compensated for the advertising.

Friddle’s tune

Cate Plys — Regarding the Tune of the Week: Oh my God, Jonas Friddle is amazing!

Zorn — He is an astounding talent, incredibly versatile. Also one of the nicest, most musically generous people you'll ever meet.

Food fights!

Peter Zackrison — I’ve enjoyed filling out the food surveys. So why not do a beverage survey as well? How do people feel about, say:

1. Milk 2. Tea 3. Coffee 4. Root Beer 5. Dr. Pepper 6. Coke 7. Gatorade/ Sports Drink 8. Bottled Water 9. Club Soda and 10. Other?

Other would be something not listed but you drink regularly. For example Kefir.

Zorn — There remains time to fill out the second food preference survey, results of which I’ll post Thursday. I’ve been finding this topic interesting and distracting. I might do a ranking survey on certain alcoholic drinks.

Unpopular opinions?

Praying for a favorable medical outcome for someone else is pointless

Reader Cassidy K., responding to numerous news reports of Catholics and others worldwide praying for the recovery of Pope Francis, says: “Since so many studies over so many years have revealed the obvious (but, I predict, unpopular) truth that prayer doesn’t ‘work’ to cure people, prolong life, keep them safe or anything. Asking God to do something is a waste of time and energy.”

Author Anne Thompson has a very thoughtful semi-counterpoint from her religious point of view:

The more I examine it, the more I test it, the more convinced I am that prayer doesn’t work. At least, if we think that we can change God’s plan by praying. If we could, then God would be no more than a genie in a bottle, a lucky charm, a magic crystal. Of course, some people do pray to those things, to lucky charms and sometimes their prayers are “answered.” Sometimes they find their car keys or their nephew gets well or the weather is sunny. But I think that is coincidence. I personally don’t think a lucky charm can change anything. Do I think that praying for lost car keys helps us find them? Perhaps, but that too might be coincidence. And I don’t think our prayers change God. …

Prayer doesn’t “work” in that we cannot manipulate God by praying. But it is still effective. … Prayer changes us. God wants us to pray because that is how we connect with him, that is how we include him in our lives and that is important. … If we aren’t used to talking to him, listening to him, we will never be changed to pray how he wants us to. … But to teach that God gives us what we ask for is misleading. Sometimes that is not what is best and God only gives what is best.

My unpopular corollary opinion is that to regard unspeakable horrors and carnage — pandemics, natural disasters, mass murders, fatal childhood cancers — as inherently “what is best” is morally incoherent and leaves us no standard for judging right and wrong, good and evil in our own lives. But let’s stick to the basic question:

Last week’s result

459 votes

I was surprised to see four out of five respondents indicating an intention to cut back on their consumption of meat.

Monica Metzler —The environment is the main reason I've cut way back on meat. Haven't eaten red meat in years (but will out of politeness if served to me) because I learned the facts about how the larger the animal, the larger the damage to the environment. Not supporting inhumane factory farming is a welcomed additional benefit. I will occasionally eat chicken soup or turkey chili but they are now a very small portion of the dish, and the beneficial consequence to me is having a lot more vegetables in my diet.

So while I support the "stop eating meat" option, I understand how intensely humans are creatures of habit and a hard-core shaming and blaming approach makes people resistant and opposed to change rather than open to it. Abrupt, whole scale change to ones diet (a non-optional thing requiring attention multiple times a day) is waaaay too difficult for most people. Much better is to use the carrot approach (raw with dip or cooked with seasoning!) of continued encouragement, enticement with tasty vegetarian dishes, explanations of how less meat is better for the waistline and the wallet. Oh, and stop the massive government subsidies of the beef industry so it's true cost is reflected in the price.

Marc Martinez — Cutting out meat is a half-measure. The argument that raising animals for meat is bad for the environment and animal welfare must logically be extended to all animal products: eggs, dairy, wool, leather, etc. Similarly, fish farming and commercial fishing are only slightly less harmful to the environment. So, the choice is really veganism and plant products vs animal products. I put reducing consumption in the same class as hybrid automobiles — a good choice for improvement.

Ken Bissett — I really think lab-grown meat could be the answer if it proves to be safe in the long term.

Zorn — Affordability seems to be the limiting factor when it comes to lab-grown (also called “cultured”) meat. That and political resistance from those who farm cows, pigs chickens and turkeys. LabGrownMeat.com posted a status report a year ago.

Meat is a powerful political symbol for some. To meat enthusiasts, consuming it solidifies our position at the top of the food chain and underscores contempt for those who believe in animal rights. I happen to think it’s possible to eat and use a certain amount of animal products and still have an ethical relationship to the natural world. The humane slaughter of humanely raised animals that would not exist were it not for their marketability doesn’t strike me as an atrocity. But we all make our compromises with perfection.

This occasional Tuesday feature is intended to highlight opinions that are defensible but may well be unpopular. If you have one to add, leave it in comments or send me an email, but be sure to offer at least a paragraph in defense of your view.

NewsWheel

Inspired by the WordWheel puzzle in the Monday-Friday Chicago Tribune and other papers, this puzzle asks you to identify the missing letter that will make a word or words — possibly proper noun; reading either clockwise or counterclockwise — related to a story in the news. The answer is at the bottom of the newsletter.

Meanwhile, did those of you who do the WordWheel puzzle in the Tribune notice that Monday’s puzzle included all the letters? The puzzle creators in New Zealand told me they were mystified as to how that happened.

The week’s best visual jokes

Here are some funny visual images I've come across recently on social media. Enjoy, then evaluate:

The joke about artificial intelligence image generators being unable to reliably render hands has become less funny now that AI is much better than it was even a year ago. I had to specifically instruct Meta AI to generate the image of a hand with extra fingers to get this:

There’s still time to vote in the conventional Quip of the Week poll!

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Info

Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.

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Answer to the NewsWheel puzzle

CHAINSAW