The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Not Enough People Were ‘Marginalized,’ So Obama Created DEI

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

Why did President Barack Obama start using words like “diversity, equity, and inclusion” instead of the typical "affirmative action"? Affirmative action was created to right the historic wrongs imposed on African Americans during the Jim Crow era, which included about 10% of the U.S. population. Obama used DEI to expand the terminology to anyone who isn’t white. Why? Victor Davis Hanson argues in this edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” that it was to dramatically increase the size of the historically marginalized constituency, allowing the Obama administration to implement its expansive woke agenda:  “Affirmative action was created during the civil rights era, 1964 and '65, and then, now, it has been with us almost 60 years. But remember what it was originally designed for—to address the historic racism and oppression of black Americans through slavery and Jim Crow, de facto segregation in some of the Northern states, but de jure segregation in the South. "And it said that because of that African Americans had not been given equality of opportunity. Statute never said anything about quotas or equality result ...  “When the Obama administration came in, they saw that that constituency was not big enough for the type of woke agenda that they were envisioning  "So, they recreated it. They used a word, “diversity.” And diversity then would morph in, during the Obama years, to “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” They added the “equity and inclusion” so you didn't obsess on race, which was the obsession. But they didn't want you to think about that. So then, all of a sudden, anybody was diverse on one qualification. "They were not white." For Victor’s latest thoughts, go to: https://victorhanson.com/   Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new video drops: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHqkXbgqrDrDVInBMSoGQgQ The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories like this one without the support of our viewers: https://secured.dailysignal.com/   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I want to talk today about the controversy over diversity, equity, and inclusion. I want to compare it with affirmative action. Affirmative action was created during the civil rights era, 1964 and 65, and now it has been with us almost 60 years, and it said that African Americans had not been given a quality of opportunity, and it was often challenged by not just so-called whites, but Asians as well. And then something happened to this paradigm. When the Obama administration came in,

Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hansson for the Daily Signal. I want to talk today about the controversy over diversity, equity, inclusion, but in a little different strain. I want to compare it with affirmative action. Affirmative action was created during the civil rights era, 1964 and 65, and now it has been with us almost 60 years. But remember what it was originally designed for to address the historic racism and oppression of black Americans. Through slavery and Jim Crow, de facto segregation in some of the northern states, but de jurei segregation in the south. And it said that because of that, African Americans had not been given a quality of opportunity. Statute never said anything about quotas or quality result.

That's something that came in later. But the point I'm making affirmative action was envisioned for this historic minority that made about 12% of the population. It was challenged in the courts for years, and it was often challenged by not just so-called whites, but Asians as well, because their SAT scores to take the example of college admissions, or their GPAs were often two or three hundred points in the case of the SAT, and GPA 4.2 versus 3.2 in the case of GPAs. By that, I mean African Americans were being admitted with less impressive statistics than whites,

but especially Asians. And then something happened to this paradigm. When the Obama administration came in, they saw that that constituency was not big enough for the type of woke agenda that they were envisioning. So they recreated it. They used a word diversity. And diversity then would morph in during the Obama years to diversity, equity, and inclusion. They added the equity and inclusion so you didn't obsess on race, which was the obsession.

But they didn't want you to think about that. So then all of a sudden, anybody was diverse on one qualification. They were not white. That posed millions of problems because who is white in a multiracial society? Everybody has different heritages. As at one quarter, one-16, should we use the one-drop rule of the old Confederacy? How do we stop fakers like Senator Elizabeth Warren, et cetera? But all that aside, you can see what Obama was trying to do.

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We'd love to talk, business. He was trying to say that the number of people who had been victimized was no longer 12%. It was 30%. And it was based on the idea of systemic racism. If you could not find over racism in the 21st century, then you had to put adjectives in it. It was systemic. It was institutional.

It was insidious. It was like air. You can't see air, but you know it's there. So you had to have air detectors like DU detectors. And they would tell us you have to have trigger warnings or safe spaces or micro-aggresses. or microaggressions. This was all an effort to build a victimized class. And what happened was, in the old days, there was an economic element to affirmative action. It was clear that African-Americans' income was not comparable to non-African Americans. But under DEI, you could be an immigrant from

the Punjab. You could come in from Argentina. You could come in from Taiwan. You could come in from almost any area and there were actually 16 different ethnic groups with higher incomes than whites. So what happened? People began to say two things. This person who we are hiring because we want to be diverse actually has more money than the people who are being excluded and has more opportunity, number one. And number two, they have no history of systemic exclusion. How does somebody who comes across the border from Oaxaca on the first day claim that he's been a victim of insidious American racism. How does somebody who comes from Taiwan make the argument that he has been a victim of systemic racism in the here and now? So you had all of these immigrants coming in,

and remember, DEI was by intent to coincide with a record number of immigrants, 55 million 16% of the population. So what did we do? We created a new group and the result of it was for a while, eight years, we got record numbers of Democrat voters among Asians who had been traditionally conservative under Hispanics, blacks, Native Americans. And then it blew up. And Donald Trump blew that up because he exposed the ridiculousness of it. These people, are trying to divide us into a Marxist binary between victimizers and victims. But the people in East Palestine were victims. The people in North Carolina were victims.

And some of the victimizers are not white. And so it's so convoluted now. And it makes no sense in terms of economic advantage or historic racism or bias or who is what. Let's just get rid of it. and start to treat people as people and make identity politics incidental and not essential to who we are. This is Victor Davis Hansen for The Daily Signal. Thank you for watching today's podcast. And for more news like that, subscribe to the Daily Signal.

Maybe you can check out my own website at victorhansson.com for podcast, lectures, ultra series behind a paywall, but more importantly, just daily columns that are accessible. free to everyone. Thank you very much.