Diligent, Entrepreneurial, & Intelligent: What DEI Really Means
Seriously, do I have to explain this shit?
Thirty years ago, I started a (fictional) farm supply company. I grew up in a farm town in the Central Valley in a family of small farmers. I liked the culture of grassroots agriculture but didn’t want to deal with the boom/bust of farming, so I figured I’d get into the supply end. I’d focus on the small farmer, a neglected part of the market, at least it was around here.
We started small – me, my wife, a nephew, and Johnny, a friend of a friend who was “an expert in sales.” We decided to stay away from heavy equipment, as the sunk cost was too high for a mom & pop like us, but we tried a little bit of everything else (except fertilizer and seed). Johnny went to work on the “hippies” – the growing crowd of organic farmers that were starting up in Northern California and on the Central Coast, and he was successful.
Problem was, Johnny hit a wall. He might have been an “expert in sales,” but Johnny was a bit of a bigot, not consciously, but by default. Like me and everyone else in the company, Johnny came up in a very male, very White dominated world, because that was what the ag world was – at least the ag world that we Central Valley White folks were part of – the front office, the managers, the owners. Johnny didn’t see decision makers at small farms – or any farms – as female, Black, Brown, or Asian, and that capped our sales.
Now, what I saw when I looked at the “hippies” was a much bigger mix of people than what Johnny saw. There were Japanese American farmers, whose families somehow recovered from Internment. New and newish communities of Hmong farmers. Sikh farmers up around Yuba City and Marysville. Of course, there were Latino farmers and Black farmers, a tight community that often gets overlooked.
And then there were the small farms operated by women, straight women, lesbian couples who were part of a small queer farm network. Point is that there were many more to farmers than the straight, White men that Johnny had tapped into. Question was, “How do we get to them?”
The answer was surprisingly simple: Hire sales people who had more in common with the “outsiders” than Johnny did. Duh, of course! I remembered my mom’s best friend Joan, who ran her family’s farm for a couple decades after her husband Carl who, taking a drunken nap in the middle of a corn field, was sliced and diced by a thresher. Joan’s daughter, Tammy grew up on a farm, was a charming talker and a Lesbian, something only a few of us outside the Gay community knew. I called Tammy up and offered her a job.
Tammy was great. She not only connected with the female farmers, especially the Lesbians, but she was a good hand with the gay guys, young farmers, and politically radical organic farm collectives. Sales grew, enabling me to hire more sales staff.
We brought on Alberto and Quan. Latino and Black farmers loved Alberto, who also cracked the Sikh community by just showing up. He spent a week in Yuba County, driving from farm to farm, meeting with every Sikh farmer he could. He was invited into homes, a personal touch which nabbed us lots of business. It was because he showed up, listened, and nailed the needs of these new clients. And those clients talked to their friends who also started doing business with us.
Quan was just as amazing. He knew Mandarin, Cantonese, a little Japanese, some Hmong, and I am sure a few other languages. He could also get by in Tagalog, and knew a bit of Spanish. Quan was a lucky hire. I didn’t know the full breath of his language skills until he brought in client after client after client.
Johnny? We kept Johnny on. Not only was he one of our original employees, he was a great sales person, and working with Tammy, Alberto, and Quan, Johnny became even better thanks to his bigotry being supplanted by real life experience with real people. Whatever preconceived notions he had about Who Makes a Farmer were dropped. He saw his peers signing up and servicing a United Nations of farmers, people who were once invisible to him, who now were known. He also saw the money we were bringing in. He saw how happy our new clients were. He felt like he was part of a team. He wanted more.
I’m not a greedy man, nor am I stupid. When I make money because the people who work for me bring in money, I spread it around. Not only is that fair, it keeps my team together and happy. Together and happy, they work harder. They work harder, we make more money, money that gets spread around. And so it goes.
So, I pay my sales team well. The top earners get a little extra in quarterly bonuses, but not so much that it creates divisions within the sale staff. Our non-sales employees also get good pay, and that is because, the better the sales staff does, the more we have to handle and ship – two things that will make or break us, for, if we suck at service, no matter who are clients are, they will leave us. Work hard, bring in money, make sure the money keeps coming in and you will get paid. And at the end of the year, everyone gets a share of the profits.
Another thing that we do to keep our company vital and our employees invested is that we include them in decision making, by keeping management’s door open and holding many group meetings. A lot of the meetings are brainstorming sessions where everyone gets to contribute. If someone has a particularly good idea, one that they can handle, they get ownership of the idea and work it to see it happen (or fail, failure is fine is it doesn’t cost a ton).
Right after hiring Tammy, Alberto, and Quan, we need to rearrange the front office. I came up with a plan and showed it to my wife, who immediately veto’d it. “Why don’t you ask the staff what they want? They are the ones who will be there all the time,” she said. Idiot me! I revised by plan, making it an outline of what we needed and was required by law, and gave it to staff for their input. Ideas in, we worked it through until we got something everyone was pleased with.
We did the same with the warehouse, which was in dire need of a workover thanks to the increased volume we were doing. I might spend some time on a forklift, because I like riding around on a forklift, have a soft spot for shipping and receiving, and don’t want to be an absent owner; however, I don’t know what is best for the job on a day-to-day basis. Our warehouse workers do. So, they get input into decision making, which gives them buy-in, which makes them work harder, which brings in more money, which gets spread around.
To be clear: I am a businessman. I do not have a political agenda. Though I like money, I am not a scumbag. However, I do have a long and broad view of our business. I’d like to make good money for a long, long time. I want to be one of those businesses that people in my communities approve of because we do things the “right way.” I want people to work for me.
And, I want everyone working for me to know that because they are a valued part of our team, who benefit from good pay and perks, as well as having both input and autonomy, that they are expected to work to a high standard. If they slack, they get a little meeting. If they fuck off, they are fired. I’ll pay you what you deserve, but what you deserve is based on your work and if you don’t work, you will be looking for another job. Work hard, deliver much, and, like Johnny, Tammy, Alberto, and Quan, you will own your own house.
Like I wrote at the top. We’ve been in business for 30 years and over that time we’ve expanded several times to become the largest independent, non-industrial farm supply company in the Western States. Johnny retired a few years back, but Alberto and Quan are with us, and are now in management. Tammy left five years ago to take over the family farm. We are one of her suppliers. This is the way we do business and, because we are a privately-owned company with no shareholders, this is the way we will continue to do business.
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That right there, my friends, is DEI. It is how diversity, equity, and inclusion works in action. Trump, Musk, and conservative want us to believe that it is more than that, that DEI is some government-enforced conspiracy, a quota system designed to eliminate White people. That is is not. While there are DEI programs in government, no private enterprise – mom & pop or corporate – has to adopt one. Each program is different. Some have hiring marks, others don’t. Some are detailed and serious, other are simple and for show. None require anyone to hire someone just because they are slotted into a certain identity.
What DEI programs do is focus on the diversity of the general workforce, recognizing that it is a very rich source of talent. DEI looks to draw from the best of that talent, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. With DEI, if you are qualified for the job, you have a chance. Period. The equity part assures equal pay for equal work, again regardless of identity. You do the work, you get paid. You excel at the work, you get paid more. Period. Inclusion is simply taking care of you employees while valuing their input. There’s nothing sinister about that. It is what good employers do to retain workers and get the best possible ideas. Period.
DEI enemies say that DEI is anti-meritocracy. It is not. DEI is an attempt to fix a system that has subscribed to faux-meritocracy for far too long. A world of DEI workplaces is akin to Major League Baseball after the color-line was crossed and Black, Latino, and Asian ballplayers could compete with White athletes on their merits. Baseball was made diverse (and much better) by the inclusion of Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Bob Gibson, Reggie Jackson, Orlando Cepeda, Rickey, Pedro, Ichiro, and Otani. They got paid like their White cohorts because it was fair and they were worth the money. And when they got paid more than everyone else it was because they earned it.
What Trump, Musk, and their minions call meritocracy is affirmative action for White guys, especially White guys with money. It keeps intact a system that minimizes workplace participation by women, Black people, and other “minorities.” No matter how gifted and qualified “minority candidates” are, they get the scraps leftover by the White guys, simply because they are not White guys, White guys who come first regardless of how stupid, inept, lazy, or crazy they are just because they are White and Men.
Doubt this? Here’s Trump digging in on his racist claim that an air crash was the fault of “DEI”: “[Obama] actually came out with a directive: ‘too white.’ We want the people that are competent.” To start, note that Trump is blaming Obama, a Black man, not Biden. Second, there was no Obama admin directive saying that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was “too white.” That is a lie. Third, the link between whiteness and competency, a link made by an incompetent inheritance prince. Trump has said many similar things in the past, going back decades.
Trump’s obsession on the Whiteness of the FAA probably comes from Elon Musk, who in January 2024 said that Black students have lower IQs than White ones. He added, "It will take an airplane crashing and killing hundreds of people for them to change this crazy policy of DIE." DIE is Musk trying to be funny with DEI. Nazi-saluting, apartheid-loving Musk’s many racist statements on DEI are just the tip of the shit stick. He’s hired and rehired very proud racists, another thing that he shares with his ruling partner.
One Trump hire via Defense Secretary Marco Rubio is Darren Beattie who is now the acting undersecretary of state for public diplomacy. Here’s Beattie on Xwitter last year, “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men.” Beattie has also called for “mass sterilization” of “low-IQ trash.” That’s public diplomacy Trump style, for sure, from someone on the American taxpayers’ dime.
Trump, Musk, Beattie, Musk’s minions – all of them believe that their success is on the merits. They probably have to. If they believed that they got where they got because their race and gender (and wealth) gave them an advantage, they wouldn’t have the bull to try to shit us all. If they had to compete in a DEI world, they probably wouldn’t have made it. Trump wouldn’t for sure. They rose because they competed against mediocrity, which is what they want back.
Take politics out of this. Forget identity. Forget diversity, equity, and inclusion, and just think as if you were a business person starting a new company. You want the best of the best, and you want your hiring pool to not only include the best of the best, but to be reflective of what the whole world has to offer. That’s not “politically correct” or “woke.” Its simple common sense.
You aren’t going to hire lazy schlump or dull-minded fools, which leaves out Donald Trump. You aren’t extending a job offer to heavy-weight narcissists and conmen, which means no Musk. And you certainly aren’t going to inject racist/sexist poison into your company, nor will you surround yourself with sycophants and Yesmen. None of those people are the best of the best, the best that the whole world has to offer.
You will hire using the principles of DEI. You won’t call it that. You probably won’t make the link between DEI and what you are doing, but, trust me, you are practicing DEI. And, if you hire the best of the best – Black, Brown, Asian, White, female, male, non-binary, gay, straight, trans, disabled, abled, etc. – you will also be participating in a true meritocracy to create what will likely be a successful business. Period.