Olympic Sprinters Are Nothing But DEI Hires — Revisiting My TEDx Talk

The closest I’ll ever come to engaging in a DEI debate is to remind media members how much power we actually have over bad-faith actors jamming that acronym into discussions where it doesn’t belong.

By now we should all know “DEI” is a not-too-clever code that people — usually white, almost always conservative — deploy in specific circumstances. In its benign form, it fits alongside phrases like “urban” and “hip-hop” as a euphemism for “Black.”

These days we’re dealing with malignant DEI, a polite substitute for the n-word, and the latest iteration of a trend that started when outright racial slurs went out of style. When I was growing up, a white politician looking to scapegoat or slander Black folks would stoke fear over “crime,” or complain about “welfare queens.” In recent years you’ve probably heard conservatives moan about “CRT” or “wokeness.”

Now, if something goes wrong, and you can’t pin it on pet-eating Haitian migrants, you look to DEI. Your audience gets the message. It’s not my fault you can’t get a job. Blame the n-words.

Any journalist who has been paying attention should recognize how slim the possibility is that anybody saying DEI caused an actual tragedy is acting in good faith. When the president of the United States does it at a news conference following a deadly collision between a helicopter and a passenger airplane, we can decide how to frame those comments, and how seriously to take them.

Given that his quotes contained no actual information, and given that we’re in the facts business, we can opt against building a whole story, and then an entire news cycle, on a foundation of anti-DEI grievance. If we’re trying to explain a plain crash, we don’t need to feature those comments at all, except as a throwaway line, or to explain how detached the president is from the real world.

You can react the way you would if the president said that he, at age 78, runs a 4.3 40-yard-dash. You don’t ask him about upcoming NFL tryouts. You just understand he’s talking nonsense.

Eight years ago today I explored those issues in depth during a talk at TEDx UTSC, titled “Race, Sports and Telling True Stories.” The point I made then is the same one I’m making today:

The idea that urban/hip-hop/natural/crime/welfare/CRT/Woke/DEI athletes are different and deviant and undeserving shapes sports coverage, to everybody’s detriment. Much like the current DEI debate, that framework sees Black athletic success as something to investigate because it assumes that diversity and merit are mutually exclusive. There’s a better way to tell these stories, but doing it requires that we relinquish our grip on a long list of stereotypes.

Eight years later, the themes we discussed at TEDx UTSC are still relevant not because I’m clairvoyant but because racism is a constant.

The buzz words shift shapes, but racism is as predictable as a 4th-and-1 Tush Push from the Philadelphia Eagles. It’s always the right time to challenge the assumption that whiteness equals competence and everyone else is deficient, and to discuss how to proceed when those tropes clash with reality.

The current backlash against DEI and the longstanding fascination with Black athletic excellence come from the same place.

White supremacy says that given a level playing field, white people will come out on top almost all the time — but sports say something very different. As the playing field levels out, and as barriers to access disappear, white people’s share of spots on the leaderboard shrinks. That’s why 12-metre yacht racing is almost all white, but the NBA is 75 percent Black.

It’s impossible to explain those numbers while prioritizing whiteness and merit. You can’t argue that every Olympic men’s 100 metre champion in a non-boycotted games since Valeriy Borzov reached the podium through affirmative action.

And not even the most MAGA conservative team owner would argue that 99 percent of NFL cornerbacks are DEI hires. They could try it, but there are 32 teams, each with two starting corners. Are they willing to wager that focusing on merit will unearth 63 more Cooper DeJeans?

Not even with one of those free promo bets sports books use to create new addicts.

Theres no white supremacist way to explain why sports meritocracies are almost always diverse. NBA, EPL, pro boxing, Olympic track and field — talent in a broad spectrum of skin colours, from a wide range of countries.

Instead of accepting that reality white supremacy invents false conflicts, like the one between the hard work that drives white athletes’ success, and the raw talent that enables Black athletes to excel. It’s another way of calling Black folks welfare recipients. White professional athletes earn their spot with hard work; black ones have their success handed to them in a rigged genetic lottery.

Big picture, going pro requires plenty of talent and hard work.

Bigger picture, anybody pushing you to decide between diversity and merit is trying to undercut both. They want a level playing field for some people, and an uphill climb for everyone else.

If you’ve watched the TEDx talk, you know that already. It focused on sports journalism, but it applies to everyone who produces or consumes media, sports or otherwise.

We can cling to racist clichés, or we can ground our stories in the truth. We can scapegoat DEI, or we can accept that diversity is merit.

But we can’t do both.

Easy decision for me.

I write non-fiction.

I choose truth.

 

 

 

 

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