The latest attack on Harris is that she is a “DEI Vice President” Specifically, Tennessee Congressman Timothy Burchett, who is incidentally exactly the same age as Harris and arguably possesses a thinner resume, claims that because she is a woman of color chosen for such a high office, she is just another example of the kind of “mediocrity” that you get when you make a “DEI hire.”
“DEI hire” is a disparaging term that refers to quotas or targets for hiring racial and ethnic minorities, women, and/or people with disabilities for positions of authority and/or power. Because it refers to all of the above groups, the term “DEI hire” actually implies that only heterosexual, white men are qualified for such high leadership positions. Indeed, the same people who use the term also tend to extol the idea of “meritocracy.”
"Implies" does a lot of work here. My strenuous disagreement with Dr. Hermerling may "imply" that I believe that she is dishonest, stupid, or ill-informed.
But I am implying no such thing. And the term "DEI hire" only indirectly, with a stretch, implies that only heterosexual white men are qualified for such high leadership positions. Neither Burchett nor any other critic of Harris, on this matter or others, has suggested that she is not heterosexual, a sexual preference pertaining to nothing here. Nor have the critics suggested anything in terms of disabled people.
Hermeling very likely knows that in the summer of 2022, there was broad and deep concern in the Democratic Party about President Joe Biden running for re-election.. Yet, she almost certainly is unaware that the long-time Democratic strategist and Harris admirer (and current CNN contributor) Karen Finney in mid-2022 would warn
When you had people who were trying to test the waters” for a presidential bid, “the party rose up and made it clear to those individuals — who were mostly white men — that to disrespect the vice president would not be well received by women and people of color within the party. They got a little bit of a smack in the face.
Though that is a clear example of the perceived need for diversity and inclusion (the "d" and the "i" in DEI), Representative Burchett was referring instead to candidate Biden's selection of Ms. Harris as his 2020 running mate.
During his campaign for the nomination, Biden already had promised he would select a woman. And as of July 20, the presumptive presidential nominee evidently already had narrowed his short list to five black women: Val Demings of Florida, Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, former national security adviser Susan Rice, and Karen Bass and Harris of California.
At roughly the same time, with belief growing that Harris would be the pick, We Have Her Back, a group including former Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarret and leaders from Planned Parenthood and the National Women's Law Center, sent a letter to media outlets. They urged fairer treatment of Harris and complained "women have been subject to stereotypes and tropes about qualifications, leadership, looks, relationships and experience. Those stereotypes are often amplified and weaponized for Black and Brown women."
On August 7, 2020, more than 700 "Concerned Black Women Leaders" issued a public statement condemning the "relentless attacks on Black Women and our leadership abilities" allegedly occurring during the vice-presidential search.
Three days later, more than 100 well-known black men
released a strongly worded open letter Monday, warning Biden that not picking a Black woman would cost him the election. The signatories of the letter included rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs, radio show host Lenard McKelvey (a.k.a. Charlamagne tha God), actor Cedric Kyles (a.k.a. Cedric the Entertainer), commentator Van Jones, Bishop William J. Barber and civil rights attorney Ben Crump, among others.
"P. Diddy," Cedric the Entertainer, and Van Jones? O.K. But cross Bishop Barber, Ben Crump, and "Charlamagne tha God"? Cross them at your own peril. The letter writers noted
For too long Black women have been asked to do everything from rally the troops to risk their lives for the Democratic Party with no acknowledgment, no respect, no visibility, and certainly not enough support. Failing to select a Black woman in 2020 means you will lose the election. We don’t want to choose between the lesser of two evils and we don’t want to vote the devil we know versus the devil we don’t because we are tired of voting for devils — period.
After Harris was selected the following month, then-House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (who had engineered nomination of Biden) told CNN “Joe and I talked about it several times when he was trying to make his decision. He had said it would be a woman. And I don’t mind saying now, I said to him in private that I thought that a lot of the results would turn on whether that woman (would) be a Black woman.”
Jim Clyburn, a group of prominent black men, Concerned Black Women Leaders, We Have Her Back, all delivered roughly the same message. This message was that black women are not to be denied the recognition due them because, well, they are black women.
Exerting political influence is a tradition as old as the Republic- and when you've got it, flaunt it. However, individuals such as academic Susan Hermerling, who prides herself on the study of "global inclusive leadership," were alive and sentient in 2000 when Joe Biden made a vice presidential selection based upon the inherited characteristics of gender and race.
So many individuals and special interest groups have embraced the notion that these traits are so important that Harris' election even as a Vice President was historic. Nevertheless, they refuse to accept the obvious: that the rise of Kamala Harris to great national prominence is a triumph of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion movement.
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