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In today’s episode of “DEI Hire” Is The New N-word, a former Donald Trump aide made a remark about Vice President Kamala Harris that was so demonstrably racist that even a host at Newsmax, the Wish version of Fox News, called him out on it.
John Ullyot, who served in the Department of Veterans Affairs and as National Security Council spokesperson under the Trump administration, first claimed, as many Obama-obsessed Republicans have recently, that former President Barack Obama has been “running the show” behind the scenes of the Biden administration. Somehow, he linked that lie to another lie about President Joe Biden dropping out of the 2024 election, which then led him to a third lie regarding Harris becoming the new Democratic nominee for president, which he used as a segue to call Harris a “DEI hire” simply because she’s a Black woman.
From HuffPost:
It meant the Democratic 2024 presidential nomination will now go to Harris (even though Biden has steadfastly refused to quit his campaign, despite increasing calls to do so following his disastrous debate performance) because “she was a DEI hire,” said Ullyot.
Newsmax’s Sarah Williamson responded: “OK, the DEI thing I strongly disagree with here but this is not my place to have the disagreement with you.”
Columnist Ellis Henican, a Democrat, jumped in: “Yeah. You shouldn’t talk, John, you shouldn’t talk like that. It makes you sound like a racist. Don’t talk like that.”
“Look, it’s the party that embraces DEI,” Ullyot countered. “Those are the guys that put identity above qualifications.”
Henican pushed back, “Don’t talk like that.”
Again, how racist does someone have to be to make a Newsmax host uncomfortable? NEWSMAX! Just a couple of weeks ago, Newsmax host Greg Kelly compared Trump being found guilty by a jury of his peers to the brutal murder of Emmett Till—but Ullyot’s racism crosses the line?
Make no mistake, though, Ullyot’s remark was racist.
First of all, Kamala Harris was not made VP through a DEI program as no such program exists for elected or appointed officials. Harris was chosen as Biden’s VP, and while her non-white and male identity might have had some influence on Biden’s decision to choose her as a running mate, that doesn’t make her a DEI hire. Otherwise, the same could be said for Rep. Byron Donalds and Sen. Tim Scott—who are both reportedly on the shortlist of potential running mates for Trump—and every other conservative “Black friend” Republicans have paraded around despite their absence of any discernable qualifications for the offices they’ve run for or been appointed to. (I’m looking at you, Heschel Walker and Ben Carson.)
Actually, the one issue I had with the way journalist Ellis Henican responded to Ullyot’s comment was the idea that what he said made him “sound like a racist,” because, seriously, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck—well, you know the rest.
White people like Ullyot shout “DEI hire” at any Black person they see in a position of power and influence, which is exactly the kind of attitude white people have historically had toward Black people that made diversity initiatives necessary in the first place.
In fact, maybe we should just flip it on them and start calling white people in positions of power “white supremacy hires.”
Think about it: Kamala Harris is the first non-white male vice president in America’s 235-year history of having vice presidents. There’s only one reason any institution has only ever been run by white men—because for the overwhelming majority of the existence of those institutions, only white men could access the education, credentials and societal permission to rise to those positions. The reason for that is patriarchy and white supremacy, so whenever we see a white man in an office or position that is rarely if ever held by non-white men, we should refer to those white men as “white supremacy hires,” because that’s exactly what they are, especially if we’re following the Caucasian non-logic behind their “DEI hire” racial slur.
Truthfully, that kind of terminology is never applied to white people no matter how appropriate, and that’s exactly how white privilege works.
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