DEI, Racial Categorization, and South Africa

I had a letter printed within the Carmel Pine Cone, June 23-29, 2023 and, so far as I can inform, the editor didn’t change a phrase.

Fast background: There’s a DEI Process Pressure in my metropolis of Pacific Grove, California and as a substitute of doing their job, they’re attempting to influence town council to spend over $360,000 on a advisor to do it for them. To place that in perspective, the proposed annual working finances of the 15,000 particular person metropolis for 2023-24 is about $28.7 million. So this one expenditure alone could be over 1% of the annual finances.

Right here’s the letter I wrote:

In his glorious report “Residents skeptical of expensive DEI advisor for P.G.,” Kelly Nix writes that the Pacific Grove DEI Process Pressure desires to pay Seed, a southern California consulting agency, over $356,000 to plan a plan to make Pacific Grove “extra equitable and inclusive.” He additionally notes that Seed did an analogous evaluation for Dublin, California in 2001. Seed really useful that Dublin’s boards and commissions ask candidates to “disclose their race, gender, and earnings ranges.”

It’s very onerous to categorize race in a rustic the place there’s a lot intermarriage. You must make advantageous distinctions. However right here’s an thought. Possibly the DEI Process Pressure might examine how South Africa’s Apartheid authorities discriminated amongst numerous races.