DEI needs to be reimagined, and Black Jews are the ones to do it
Students participate in a protest in support of Palestine outside of the Columbia University campus on Nov. 15. A large banner reads, “by any means necessary,” with an image of the Palestinian flag Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
No relationship is more primed for a reset right now than the one between America’s Blacks and Jews, who’ve seen their always-tenuous allyship stress-tested without reprieve since the Hamas attack on Israel last Oct. 7.
African-American pastors and #blacklivesmatter chapters have aligned themselves with Palestinian causes over their belief in a shared history of state-sanctioned violence and oppression. And Jewish groups have been left feeling abandoned and betrayed by many of the Black social justice causes they’ve championed so vocally.
Four months into a bloody war, the spiraling Gazan body count and ongoing tsunami of nationwide antisemitism have left both sides struggling to figure out what’s next. And that “next” is shaping up to be a very public confrontation over Jewish demands for safety and accountability — and demands from Black groups to maintain the diversity-driven status quo.
As someone who’s both Black and Jewish, I’ve never felt such a strong sense of dread over the rupture between my two communities. But far worse is the sense of peril I now feel as a Jew — and its eerie similarities to how I’ve long felt as a Black man in America. And diversity, equity and inclusion programs share much of the blame.
Both by practice and design, DEI excludes Jews from its protections throughout the workplace and academy. It frames us not only as the architects of the current antisemitism coursing all around us — due to our assumed privilege and the misguided assumption that being Jewish also means that we’re always white — but also deserving of its consequences, no matter how violent or bloody.
But this status quo actually presents an opportunity for a long overdue DEI rethink. And those of us who are both Black and Jewish are uniquely positioned to show how this might be achieved. Because to be both Black and Jewish in America right now is to feel as if battles are raging all around — and you are permanently caught in the crossfire.
As Black people, we have little doubt that racism still rages across every facet of American life. But as a Jew, I’m terrified by the rising antisemitism now coursing through the nation with a similar sense of menace and offense. Tasked with navigating both realities, I possess the license — if not responsibility — to explain how this feels in a way that others simply do not dare. And silence is simply not an option.
A foundational element of nearly every U.S. college and corporation from the late 1990s onward, DEI was so embedded into our cultural firmament — viewed as so necessary and inviolable in corporations and the academy — that it felt as if it were simply “too big to fail.”
Despite the demands of critics like billionaire agitator Bill Ackman, DEI is certainly not going to be “dismantled” anytime soon. It’s a nearly $10 billion industry expected to more than double in value by the end of the decade. But DEI must evolve, both to accommodate the needs of Jews now combating a 300% increase in antisemitic attacks since Oct. 7 — as well as account for DEI’s failings to combat this surge in anti-Jewish hate.
The Hamas attack, Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza, and the university antisemitism crisis that followed were the first comprehensive tests of DEI’s foundational integrity. And DEI failed spectacularly. With its focus on equity and outcomes, DEI should have emerged as the moral center of anti-Hamas outrage and furor. It certainly has the manpower.
Nationwide, the number of chief diversity officers surged by nearly 169% between 2019 and 2022, according to LinkedIn. And this was their moment to serve as clear-minded guides toward healing and reconciliation. After all, there are few more horrific outcomes than hundreds dead, thousands injured and untold numbers raped and kidnapped to Gaza.
Instead, under the guise of diversity and intersectionality, social justice groups, students leaders and DEI educators rejected logic and humanity and aligned themselves with the bad guys.
Take Harvard. As blood still flowed through Kfar Aza and Nir Oz, those 30+ student groups — ranging from the Harvard Muslim Law Association to the Harvard African and African-American Resistance Organization — signed that now-infamous letter entirely blaming Israel for the attack by Hamas. Then there was Cornell professor Russell Rickford, who teaches Black history, and described the Hamas attack as “exhilarating” to a group of students during a campus event on Oct. 15. Similar sentiments emerged from campuses nationwide, with near-total silence from many DEI offices.
Much of the reason DEI officials failed so abjectly to support Jewish students after Oct. 7 is that DEI was never intended to serve the needs of Jews. If anything, it was explicitly designed to penalize them. The hierarchical nature of DEI — its constant clamor for “most-oppressed status” — has always left Jews at the losing end because Jews are overwhelmingly perceived to be white.
Even though some 20% of Jewish households now include non-white members like myself, in the world of DEI, Jews are perceived as white, wealthy and possessing outsized influence within politics and culture. This sentiment — no matter how flawed — is everything the DEI industry insists Blacks are not, further fueling the cycle of bad blood.
For those of us who are both Jewish and Black, that blood courses directly through our veins. But here is where we can make the most difference. Although commonalities between Blacks and Jews have often been reduced to cliche, there are many parallels that remain worthy of comparison — or at least compassion. And those who are both Black and Jewish understand this firsthand.
The deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police officers in 2020, for instance, offered stark — yet irrefutable — examples of the outsized dangers Black people face daily based on the color of our skin. You didn’t need to be Black to understand Floyd’s agony as he suffocated under the weight of Derek Chauvin’s knee for nearly 10 minutes. Even the most cynical among us could identify with Taylor and her struggle for an education, a career, a family and a fully-realized life.
This emotional connection to those people very different from ourselves is at the heart of Jewish cries to overhaul DEI. Indeed, much as Floyd and Taylor died simply because of who they are — rather than something they did — so too did Jews die at the hands of Hamas on Oct. 7 because of who they are. Because they are Jews.
Although being both Black and Jewish can often feel like double burdens, in the case of DEI, those burdens are an opportunity. Despite DEI seemingly everywhere right now, many Jews remain fearful of speaking out — afraid of offending or being offended, canceling or being canceled, or branded a racist. But I have no such fears. There is no mystery to why DEI is still required, but its shortcomings are just as abundantly clear. As long as institutionalized racism exists, so too does the need for institutionalized remedies — and those remedies still include DEI.
As evidenced by the crowds chanting against Israel from Columbus Circle to Oxford Circle, Jews now face an existential threat — just like the threat I feel as a Black man every step I take in America. Blacks are targets because we are Black — most American Jews intuitively understand this. Why is it so hard for the same sense of understanding to be felt in reverse?
With the Supreme Court ending affirmative action in admissions, and corporations reducing funding to DEI-related efforts by upwards of 90% at some large firms — DEI was already losing steam well before Oct. 7. But its underlying necessity will remain in place no matter the thinking of Supreme Court justices or CEOs.
“Dismantling” DEI may sound like a solution to those who are white and wealthy, but for those of us with darker skin and far fewer resources, DEI still serves a purpose. The gaps in everything from household wealth to life expectancy remains greater than ever between Black and white people, and DEI — at least in its noblest forms — is intended to shrink those differences.
Although DEI was never meant to be perfect, it was always intended to be fair. But fair now feels far different than it did before Oct. 7. Today equity — the promise of equal outcomes — is being denied to Jews at their moment of greatest peril, often by those who’ve demanded equity the loudest. But as someone with stakes on both sides, equity cannot be achieved without equality. For me equality exists when both my Blackness and Jewishness are equally honored by systems like DEI that are explicitly designed to protect us. Until then, DEI remains an ideal unmet — all promise, but still failing in practice.
To contact the author, email opinion@forward.com.
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