Democracy prospers as Black Americans progress. The evidence is clear: citizenship by birth, legal due process, anti-discrimination laws across education, housing, and employment sectors and fair business funding are all byproducts institutional reforms known today as DEI. However, recently, DEI has been used as a diversion by calculating policymakers and activists to roll back progress and consolidate power.
The impact of these approaches is substantial and unquestionable. Beginning this year, research has found that over three hundred thousand Black women have become unemployed while $3.4 billion in funding initiatives investing in African American neighborhoods has been slashed – including $9.4m in sickle cell disease research, $42 million for initiatives aimed at reducing Black maternal mortality and $31 million in reductions targeting asthma rates and air pollution affecting Black children.
Coordinated efforts to stifle the progress within African American populations is not new; nevertheless, history has proven that whenever advancements for African Americans is erased, everyone suffers. In the Reconstruction era, African Americans achieved remarkable progress – holding office, building businesses and creating educational institutions. Less discussed is how additional marginalized groups, including poor white farmers to Hispanic workers, similarly gained from increased access within legal and financial frameworks.
Distortion is among the most deceptive strategies. It reshapes reality in ways that narrow our expectations and institutionalizes prejudice through legislation.
As African Americans encountered decades of segregation laws and government-approved bias, additional populations saw a similar retreat regarding their entry to complete civic participation. When the civil rights movement sought to eliminate the vestiges of Jim Crow, its methods of nonviolent civil disobedience increased liberty and access not just for African Americans, but also for populations of all backgrounds. From the Native American movement to progress in LGBTQ+ rights to women's economic empowerment, African American equality efforts broadened the scope for expanded human rights.
Nevertheless, whenever Black communities gain ground, groups opposing transformation work to push us back. While confronting present leadership, DEI is the bulwark that guarantees a diverse democratic system. Its strength stems not from partisanship, but in the promise of America itself: that every individual are created equal and merit opportunity to thrive.
It's essential to recognize these assaults as components of an intentional strategy. The goal is to rewrite the country's narrative and restrict the prospects of Black Americans, and consequently, every citizen deemed unworthy. We can be tempted to perceive these measures in isolation, but that is by design.
Scholarships and education programs are being cut, leaving Black students with reduced opportunities to pursue a quality education. These reductions similarly impact Native American students and functioned as a predicate for attacks on Latino scholars. Black families still reside in areas having poorly funded education due to historical patterns of separation and disparity, and the resulting impact of slashing services unequally affects all low-income children and individuals with disabilities.
Funding for African American enterprises and crucial healthcare programs have been slashed, leaving our nation without the data necessary to address systemic disparities within the economic system and medical infrastructure. The follow-on effect will undermine studies and funding for women of all ethnic backgrounds. By rewriting who matters, who is valued and which narratives are shared, these approaches intensify the obstacles that populations have fought for centuries to overcome.
Removal and censorship work in tandem, and those implementing them predictably start with the African American community. Individuals attempting to cripple democracy have eliminated African American narratives from educational materials, exhibits and collective consciousness, costing us the lessons of confrontation, correction and restoration. Rising autocracies know to pressure schools, colleges, businesses and government institutions into silence.
The question before us now involves: what will we do to these developments? Should we permit anxiety, misinformation and autocracy to write the next chapter? Or will we act, determinedly and intentionally, to protect reality, honor Black progress and protect the right to opportunity for every American? The answer will shape not just this moment, but also the destiny of our country.
Safeguarding and preserving the significant advancements we've made is a moral imperative, one that demands concerted civil action. Like the fight for liberation has demonstrated, when we struggle for liberty, we win. We absolutely face coordinated attacks on truth, which are intended to sow despair or cause paralysis – but we must prevent this.
Our nation's future will not arrive on its own. Its success or failure will depend by what we choose to act and oppose now.
The national narrative began by deciding that from many, we could become one. E pluribus unum represents the core of DEI, the actual experience for African Americans and the evidence that we can create something greater than fear and despair. Collectively, we can maintain access, respect reality and reinforce democratic systems for future eras.
Elena Hartwell is a multidisciplinary artist and educator passionate about fostering creative communities in London.