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Veteran
Trump's Actions on DEI Are an Attack on Black America
Because of Trump’s actions, not only will Black federal employees lose their jobs, but Black people in private companies will be laid off.
wordinblack.com
Black people were the least supportive racial or ethnic group for Donald Trump. We make up about 13.7% percent of the U.S. population but account for nearly 19% of federal workers. Nearly 400,000 Black people now work for the federal government. Trump’s DEI attack fits with his larger plans to move federal jobs out of Washington, D.C., and slash the federal workforce, which would leave thousands of Black people unemployed. All of this would constitute the most significant attack on Black public workers since Woodrow Wilson segregated the federal workforce in 1913.
Black people are overrepresented in the federal government because historically that was the one place where we did not face employment discrimination. I would not be here without federal DEI programs. My grandmother worked for HUD for 30 years in St. Louis, Missouri. My mom worked for the Department of Defense at the Sharpe Army Depot in Stockton, California, and Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas. This is personal to me.
But the impact of Trump’s attack will be felt far beyond the federal workforce. The federal government influences the private workforce by dictating rules for federal contractors and serving as a model for best practices for private employers. And some corporations are already rolling back their DEI initiatives.
Because of Trump’s actions, not only will Black federal employees lose their jobs, but Black people in private companies will be laid off. After spending his 2024 campaign scaring Black people with racist lies that immigrants are taking “Black jobs,” Trump will end up being the one to take their jobs.
By closing DEI offices, ordering the government to delete all websites about diversity, pardoning the January 6 insurrectionists, and paying restitution to (presumably) white people he calls victims of DEI, Trump is launching a radical campaign to promote white victimhood and erase America’s true racial history.