Racism’s Cool Again

The obsession with attacking diversity efforts.

Jeffrey Kass
ZORA
Published in
5 min readApr 21, 2023

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Image: Shutterstock/Dmitry Demidovich

Ohio, Texas, Florida, South Carolina, and other states have passed or are considering bills that prohibit . . . yes, you heard me . . . prohibit universities from requiring diversity-related coursework or training for faculty and students.

If you think the timing is a coincidence, you’re not being honest with yourself.

Donald Trump transformed America.

I’m not here to debate 45’s actual policies. Some were good. Some were OK. Some were horrific. But what Trump almost single-handedly did in his long four years in office was give the presidential seal of approval to a part of America that had long ago been relegated to the fringes of society.

It’s not that we had dismantled racist systems or achieved a post-racial world before Trump — far from it — but we’d at least made it clear to the most extreme in society that we weren’t going to tolerate their bigotry.

It was just over 15 years ago when George W. Bush gave a keynote speech to the NAACP. And just over 20 years ago when he implored Americans not to blame all Muslims for 9–11. Even 40 years ago, Reagan proudly told our nation that we have a special relationship with Mexico and that our immigration policy should reflect that relationship.

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ZORA
ZORA

Published in ZORA

A publication from Medium that centers the stories, poetry, essays and thoughts of women of color.

Jeffrey Kass
Jeffrey Kass

Written by Jeffrey Kass

A Medium Top Writer on Racism, Diversity, Education, History and Parenting | Speaker | Award-Winning Author | Latest Book: Black Batwoman V. White Jesus | Dad

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