Why Banning DEI Goes Beyond Black Dollars

Graffiti that reads "unity in diversity"
Leslie Taylor-Grover
February 2, 2025

DEI initiatives are a series of laws and regulations that make it illegal to discriminate based on race, sex, color, religion, disability, or national origin. And while there’s not necessarily a definitive DEI law, the heart of DEI is captured in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But there’s a bigger issue at play.

Capitalism. The system creates inequality, and race is used to explain away differences by pushing the false narrative that Black businesses are inferior to white ones and must be given help. But the reality is that Black businesses often have less access to loans and family wealth.

When efforts to counteract that systemic racism through DEI programs are overturned, it is an attempt to decrease Black incomes and overall well-being. It’s an attack on Blackness rather than on the instability of capitalism. 

It’s time to break the link between capitalism and racism. Every time Black Americans have started to accumulate wealth, white terrorism has shown up to shut it down. 

Capitalism and big corporations never fail to attack our progress.  What would our businesses and communities look like if we divested from them and invested in each other instead?

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