There’s been a lot of negativity surrounding the implementation of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) policies lately, particularly in regards to LGBTQIA+ airlines like Virgin and the FAA, with their commendable efforts to hire pilots of color and flight crews consisting of mentally challenged midgets and transgender Sentinelese tribespeople.
It’s the usual suspects throwing a fit over these progressive policies. Far-right extremists, anti-woke manbabies, and Flat Moon conspiracy theorists are baselessly claiming these positive strides toward a fairer and more equitable society in which everyone is accepted and included are going to be the downfall of Western civilization as we know it. Which is absolutely insane.
Personally, I say we load all these undesirables onto a barge and set them adrift in the sea. There’s no place for fascists in our inclusive Utopia.
PLANE DUMB
The idea that a plane piloted by a blind and deaf paraplegic is somehow dangerous is rooted in white supremacy and ableism. If I boarded a plane (fully masked, of course) and saw my cabin crew consisted of nothing but folx with Down’s Syndrome I’d be clapping from lift off to perfectly normal emergency landing. Just seeing their little bulldog faces light up with joy would be worth the price of a plane ticket, keeping my boosted heart warm and damaged nerves steady even as the nose of the aircraft violently crumples against the side of a mountain or more likely the airport terminal we’re setting off from.
THE LOCAL TIME IS A TOOL OF COLONIALISM
If anything, we need to push for more DEI in all workplaces that have yet to realize and acknowledge the current year and its Current Thing. We need deaf and mute voice actors, color blind painters, smoke alarm repair persons of color, women miners, severely acrophobic rock climbing instructors and wind turbine technicians, 500-pound body positive firefighters, illiterate writers, and politicians with a conscience and scruples who never lie.
Actually, scratch that last one, GWU! doesn’t publish satire.
This will mean fewer jobs are available for cis het white folx and the mass firing of those belonging to the aforementioned highly privileged class, and that’s a good thing. Enough white comfort for supporters of colonialism. In fact, enough comfort, period.
That’s the beauty of DEI. The more it’s implemented, the less bigots you’ll see using those services. No more overcrowding on planes, trains and buses, resulting in fewer carbon emissions. Never again will you have to wait to see your gynecologist now that THEY/THEM are an ex-felon double-amputee with hooks for hands and acute narcolepsy. As the lyrics to the soundtrack of my mind loop over and over in my superior brain, ‘Just Imagine.’
THE CURRENT TEMPERATURE IS INTOLERANT
So what if a plane falls out of the sky because the dwarf pilot can’t see over the steering wheel? Who cares if there’s a nuclear meltdown at the power plant because they hired someone whose job qualifications solely consist of being non-binary and having watched half a season of HBO’s Chernobyl? We have quotas to fill and virtues to signal, and that’s far more important than anything.
My final thought-nugget on the matter is this: Those who advocate for a meritocracy often forget or simply ignore that meritocracy is inherently racist, sexist, ableist, transphobic, and all around bigoted. DEI evens the playing field and allows for those who are talentless and intellectually and ably challenged get their foot (or stump) in the door.
