A Very Effective Conversation
“I appreciate that you’re passionate about fairness and responsible government spending—we should all be. But DEI policies address much more than you’re giving them credit for.”
“I don’t need the government to make me inclusive…”
“That may be personally true. However, there’s a vast difference between your own values as an individual and entire systemic patterns. Laws and policies (like DEI initiatives) don’t exist only to shape individual moral compasses; they exist to ensure companies, agencies, and institutions—where bias can fester unnoticed—are held to fair standards.
You accept that your ancestors suffered oppression, yet you brush off the idea that large-scale policies might help others who are currently facing systemic hurdles. If we rely solely on ‘goodwill,’ the 95% of inclusive people you mention can’t automatically fix the damage wrought by the other 5%. The EEO Act alone can’t solve that; for every lawsuit brought, there are countless people who never get their day in court or never knew their rights were violated in the first place.”
“Show me a direct example, nothing broad…”
“Many historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, and women-in-STEM initiatives explicitly cite DEI policies when offering scholarships, mentorships, and job placements. I personally know talented many women in tech who got the chance to prove themselves through DEI-driven recruitment and training. Now they lead entire teams, achieving audacious goals, excelling by using creative, collaborative methods that were not anywhere near the norm a mere decade ago.
Small businesses in diverse communities regularly lean on local DEI-based grants that help entrepreneurs from marginalized backgrounds get a start. My good friend in Miami opened and still owns a Syrian coffee shop; she’s a first-generation refugee and she secured seed funding only because of a county DEI grant program that encouraged local investment in marginalized entrepreneurs. Every other avenue she explored, save for predatory loans via a new world mafia, denied her any help. Her business is profitable and hires people across multiple demographics—including white folks, by the way—boosting everyone’s success.
These are just two examples I’ve personally encountered, but multiply stories like these by thousands across the country and you start to see a pattern: DEI opens doors that, historically, have been shut.”
“Why shouldn’t hiring be based on merit?”
“It’s a fallacy that DEI impedes merit-based hiring. DEI in the context of hiring levels the playing field where bias (conscious or not) has historically sidelined candidates from certain backgrounds.
Re: the music festival scenario—let’s be real: a DEI coordinator typically doesn’t push the ‘lesser band’ or ‘lesser applicant’ just to fill a quota. If that ever happened in the over-the-top way you describe—calling up the losing band to say, “Sorry, we had to go with the trans band!”—that’s not good DEI practice. That’s a botched attempt at diversity.
Quality DEI seeks to attract wide talent pools and ensure that if there’s a tie, or if historically marginalized folks are shut out, no bias creeps into the final decision. If your band truly was the best and you lost out purely because an organization is ticking boxes, that’s not a legitimate reflection of how DEI programs are meant to function.”
“The government wastes money…”
“Yes. Unequivocally. Every government program—from military spending to infrastructure—has been critiqued for waste. DEI is no exception; if it’s managed poorly or lacks accountability, it could become an expensive box-checking exercise. That, however, is a flaw of implementation, not the concept of DEI.
You say, ‘Root out the waste,’ and, ‘Democrats will be back, they’ll have to be more accountable.’ Precisely! That’s not an argument to trash the idea altogether—it’s an argument for better oversight, tighter guidelines, and transparency in how funds are allocated. I work in tech, doing massive digital transformation projects for the biggest companies in the world, the methods being employed by our government today to streamline processes and save money are obsolete, long ago proven as ineffective and harmful.”
“95% of us are already inclusive…”
“I like your optimism, but it’s not just about being inclusive in attitude. Even well-meaning people can have biases, plus there’s that pesky 5% who might never voluntarily adopt fair practices. Without enforceable guidelines, do you really trust that every boardroom and HR department is ensuring no one’s being excluded? Legal frameworks and departments dedicated to tracking outcomes, collecting data, and ensuring equity are part of ensuring the other 95% don’t overshadow the underrepresented 5%.
DEI programs proactively address issues like uneven recruitment methods or biased performance evaluations before they balloon into lawsuits. Critical stop-gap.
I’ve already written, like, way too much about this but I do want to close this in a positive way:
The fact that you can recognize past injustices (even in your own family’s history), worry about wasteful spending, and still champion fairness at work suggests we have common ground: we don’t want government money poured down the drain, we do want people hired for quality work, and we do acknowledge that some folks have historically been left out. That’s what DEI programs are for: they give more people a fair shot without forcibly shoving less qualified candidates to the top of the line; they create inclusive spaces where people earn opportunities based on actual merit, not skewed assumptions or inherited privilege. The existence of flawed or mismanaged DEI programs doesn’t mean we throw them all out. It means we refine them until they accomplish the real goal.”
