DEI has been about simply ramming down and enforcing left-wing viewpoints and ideologies rather than delivering good services and products and rewarding effort and excellence. But there has been a cultural tipping point – finally.
Show Script:
DEI IS (THANKFULLY) DIE-ING.
Diversity Equity & Inclusion has suffered its final mortal blow. DEI has been about simply ramming down and enforcing viewpoints and ideologies rather than delivering good services and products and rewarding effort and excellence. It’s a form of Marxism which has never worked. And there’s been a cultural tipping point. DEI has DIED
Have you heard of DEI – it stands for Diversity Equity and Inclusion. The problem is that it’s anything but that.
But it is the new DEI-ty in town. That all must worship.
Diversity = Identity politics. Defined by your sexuality, gender, race, colour, disability – all called intersectionality. You’re a victim
Inclusion = We include everyone, but it’s based on our definition. Language defined by the left e.g. their definition of marriage, gender, sexuality, decolonisation, environmentalism, critical theory based on certain racial groups being victims and white people being oppressors
Equity = Marxism 101. Everyone must have the same outcome irrespective of effort, talent, character
What DEI actually is
Deception = confusion around gender, sexuality, and disunity – racial conflict
Inequality = Special ‘rights’ for special groups – the groups above
Exclusion = Cancel culture if your views don’t align with the new woke virtues
The expectation is that every business, every charity, every organisation should adopt this philosophy. Especially after BLM arose from the death of George Floyd in 2020 – which we’ll come back to.
But the DEI narrative seems to be slowly……DIE-ing.
Partly because Donald Trump has removed any hint of it in any government department in the US since his inauguration.
But it was already crumbling – even before that.
Here’s a 1News and Associated Press report from just last month
McDonald’s has joined a growing list of companies that are pulling back on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives… Conservative activists have gone after companies — both in the courts and on social media — seeking to set a similar precedent in the working world. They’ve been targeting workplace initiatives such as diversity programmes and hiring practices that prioritise historically marginalised groups and have widened their objections to include programmes focused on gender identity and sexual orientation.
Obsessed on woke stuff like LGBT, environment and critical theory is a better explanation.
And the report highlights other companies who are ditching the wokeness
Walmart
Some of the changes Walmart will be enacting in its U-turn on DEI initiatives include: Removing any items sold that may have inappropriate transsexual content for children, such as chest binders for teenagers or books encouraging transition. Stopping funding events that could expose children to sexually-inappropriate content, such as drag-queen story hours or Pride events.
Superb
Remember Target which had those tuck friendly swimsuits to help boys look like girls – to conceal male genitalia.
In June 2024, the brand pulled Pride Month merch from 2,000 stores. This marked a drastic reversal for the chain which had been selling LGBT items in most locations nationwide since 2013.
Ford – remember those woke vehicles? The very gay raptor. Now they say “We will continue to put our effort and resources into taking care of our customers, our team, and our communities versus publicly commenting on the many polarising issues of the day,”
Good thinking.
Harley- Davidson – hard to believe they are woke eh.
Harley-Davidson said it would reevaluate its sponsorships and affiliations to retain its “loyal riding community.” At the same time, it revealed plans to remove “socially motivated content,” from employee training programs.
Agricultural-equipment manufacturer John Deere released a statement distancing itself from DEI and affirming that it will no longer support “external social or cultural awareness” events, despite previously describing DEI as one of its “highest-priority topics.”
Zoom laid off a DEI team earlier this year, saying it would instead work with external consultants moving forward, according to business website Bloomberg. Google and Meta (Facebook) also made cuts to DEI following their 2020 pledges.
And in this article
Microsoft had been one of the many companies that pledged to spend millions of dollars to hire more people of colour. In June 2020, the Microsoft CEO sent an email to employees saying the company had “committed to take action to help address racial injustice and inequity, and unequivocally believe that Black lives matter.”
[But the recent] email reportedly said the DEI team was eliminated due to “changing business needs” as of July 1.
Even left wing woke CNN admits it’s happening.
Budlight used to be the #1 beer. It’s fallen to #3 and lost more than a billion dollars over their virtue signalling and wokeness.
And the most recent one is Facebook or Meta as it’s now called
According to AdWeek
Meta will no longer have a dedicated DEI team, and chief diversity officer Maxine Williams will shift to a new role with a focus on accessibility and engagement. Meta’s initiative to source business suppliers from diverse-owned businesses will be halted in favour of a mandate to support small and midsized businesses, which .. “power much of our economy.”
Is this the Trump effect? Has his election led to a backlash against wokeness and a return to sanity.
Let’s hope so.
But why did all these companies think that wokeness was a winner?
One report by AdWeek says
In 2020, after a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd, protests led by civil rights group Black Lives Matter galvanized corporate America to take action. In the months after, household-name brands, including Microsoft, Uber, Target, and Cisco, publicly pledged to create various internal programs to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI.)
But hot button issues like race, environmentalism, abortion, gender ideology, LGBT are now risky.
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article about how the consulting firm McKinsey announced in 2015 that it had “found a link between profits and executive racial and gender diversity.”
This research was “used by investors, lobbyists, and regulators to push for more women and minority groups on boards, and to justify investing in companies that appointed them.”
It just made the companies woke!
And the truth soon came out. In this article it says
According to The Wall Street Journal, “academics have tried to repeat McKinsey’s findings and failed, concluding that there is in fact no link between profitability and executive diversity.”
The only thing that the study found was that … Big companies that are highly profitable could more easily afford to simply promote DEI with fewer consequences. A company that’s scrambling to launch itself doesn’t have that luxury.
Here’s the key. They say it’s about inclusion and diversity. It’s not. Try going into a DEI meeting and reading the bible verses on marriage, or on being created male and female! Or that we are one in the sight of the Lord.
Now we’ve seen some hints of this decline in “pride” and DEI even in New Zealand.
For example, there was an almost 20% drop in the number of schools doing Pride Week in Schools – down to just 250 schools – 10% of all schools. Yes – a drop despite strong media and even Ministry of Education marketing and cajouling. Schools want to get on with educating, not indoctrinating.
And we’ve noticed that companies have gone a little quieter around LGBT’s pink shirt day, and pride month of February here in NZ.
You can see some of the DEI policies for companies on our website WokeUp.nz. As our website says:
DEI …is fixated on differences in race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and disability. Devotees claim that DEI will enhance organisations, by making them more diverse. DEI undermines meritocracy as it encourages the hiring and promotion of employees based on their race, sex, or other “acceptable” characteristics, rather than on their skill, competence and work ethic…DEI drives a 40:40:20 ratio at senior levels of employment. 40:40:20 refers to 40% men, 40% women, 20% other genders.
Do a search on Air NZ, ANZ, ASB, Kiwibank, ONE.nz, Starbucks, Spark. The Warehouse, Southern Cross
And our Police force are wanting to be very woke
And of course the NZ Defence Force who probably should focus more on how to release the autopilot that the gender and sexuality preferences of their staff
Which leads to this
In fact I was reading a report from Surf Life Saving NZ
The success of a programme that’s getting more women Surf Lifeguards in the driver’s seat of an IRB, has prompted the formation of a new group. On the back of Wahine on Water, Surf Life Saving New Zealand has formed the Women in Life Saving Project Group – a team of women who will work to understand what the barriers are to girls and women taking part in all aspects of Surf Life Saving and sport.
Wahine on Water was developed as a way to address the fact that in 2017 while 50 per cent of New Zealand’s Surf Lifeguards were women, only 28 per cent of IRB (Inflatable Rescue Boat) drivers were women…
They discovered that many women were intimidated by IRBs, felt they weren’t encouraged to get involved in IRB training, that there was a lack of women role models and training opportunities. Wahine on Water addresses those issues by pairing less experienced women lifeguards with experienced women IRB mentors. Participants take part in activities and drills such as reversing trailers… as well as driving skills.
No comment.
I had a look at the report. Look at this chart
White female lifesavers are 92%. But white people are only 2/3rds of NZers. Surf Lifesaving has a white problem – and the last thing I want as a woke swimmer is to be saved by someone who is white and represents a privileged group.
I’d rather drown than be saved by a ‘racist’ organisation!!
But DEI suffered its mortal blow a couple of weeks ago during the devastating Los Angeles fires.
According to media reports
In the public relations video that re-emerged from 2019, Deputy Chief Kristine Larson – who heads the Equity and Human Rights Bureau – defended the fire department’s use of DEI hiring practices.
But here’s the bits that really rarked up people
But many online said they do not care what their rescuers would look like, and if they did, they would want somebody who appeared physically fit for the dangerous job. ‘In a burning building situation, I can assure you I don’t want someone who looks like me,’ wrote T Becket Adams, the program director for the National Journalism Center at Young America’s Foundation.
Its been a terrible look – at a time when the people of LA want the best most capable firefighters to save their homes and communities. Not a woke quota to virtue signal.
If I’m drowning at sea, I don’t care what the religion, race, gender, sexuality, political preference, or marriage status of the lifesaver is. I just want them to know how to get me back on land. End of.
In fact, during the tragic Maui fires in Hawaii in 2023, the former deputy director of the Hawaii Commission on Water Resource Management waited for more than five hours to release water during the wildfires that devastated Maui, according to reports. Kaleo Manuel described water as a sacred god, and said access to water should be predicated on “conversations about equity,”
And here was the head of the LA DWP (department of water and power)
People just want water – and dams to be full – especially when there’s fire!
I read a recent article from MercatorNet “Why Los Angeles is burning” which said
In 2014, Californians voted overwhelmingly for Prop 1, funding a US$7.5 billion bond to construct new water reservoirs and dams, with a deadline of January 1, 2022. It’s now 2025, and no reservoirs have been built. Proposed projects remain mired in the bureaucratic morass of California politics.
… California is the leading agricultural state in the nation. But for years, politicians slashed water allotments and shut off ag pumps to farmers in an effort to save a finger-length, minnow-like fish called the Delta Smelt.
… LA Mayor Karen Bass slashed the city’s fire budget by $17.6 million. … Her 2025 budget proposal includes $950 million for “addressing homelessness.” In California, the homeless are treated like a protected political class. Any suggestion to clean up homeless encampments or get the mentally ill and drug addicted off the streets is met with disdain, as though leaving unwell human beings in squalor, a danger to themselves and others, is the compassionate choice. It turns out mentally ill people camping in public spaces often start fires. In 2023, 13,909 “homeless fires” were started in Los Angeles alone, almost double the number in 2020.
Just finally, there was a feature story in the NZ Herald last year – backing up exactly what I’m saying.
Woke culture: Why millennials and Gen Zers are facing a backlash from the left
Victoria [a mother, is] a feminist Green Party supporter with socialist, centre-left views…
The mother of two idealistic Gen Z daughters, Victoria is an entrepreneur who has built her company culture on diversity, equity and inclusion.
… Victoria isn’t the only one of her liberal friends who thinks the pendulum has swung too far, making young people overly sensitive to other points of view and out of touch with reality…
…Like most of the white, middle-class parents in her social circle, Victoria has little in common with either Act voters or the conservative Christian base of Family First. But even she finds herself struggling with uber-woke Gen Zers and millennials who feel “triggered” by the use of certain words or when someone merely disagrees with them.
What annoys her most is the shallowness of ”virtue signalling” on social media, where it’s important to be seen aligning with the right causes, from mental health and the trans community to Black Lives Matter and the war in Gaza.
It’s a fascinating read – and probably why those on the left definitely didn’t like our WokeUp website.
And then just a couple of weeks ago, the final nail courtesy of President Trump.
President Trump signed an executive order abolishing the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” bureaucracy in the federal government.
President Trump has signed the death warrant for DEI within the federal government.
The tide has turned. A cultural tipping point.
DEI totally deserves to die.
Hopefully New Zealand companies are listening.
Oh – by the way, there’s only two sexes again.
It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.
Do you get the feeling that the adults are back in charge of our culture again?
