To say the least, there is an all-out assault on African Americans from the new Trump administration. Not only has Trump nominated open white supremacists to his cabinet, but he pardoned the fascists that stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.

What the Commission is particularly concerned about, though, is this deep attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and so-called “woke ideology.” As soon as Trump re-entered the White House, he fired the leading African American of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which consequently led to multiple plane crashes in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Alaska, and Santa Barbara. Furthermore, he fired the leader of the NLRB, a Black woman.

Not only has Trump issued a flurry of executive orders aimed at gutting diversity and anti-discrimination programs in the federal agencies and government contracts, but he has directly targeted cultural celebrations of a large section of its workforce. For example, Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, recently sent out a memo to the Department of Defense titled “Identity Months Dead at DoD,” specifically targeting Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Pride Month, and others. This comes just days after Hegseth and the Trump Administration caught fire for removing a training video for the U.S. military showcasing the African American Tuskegee Airmen of World War II. That removal was quickly rescinded after the backlash.

The Department of Education is also putting workers on administrative leave for participating in past diversity training programs offered by the federal government. The NAACP’s president has come out against these fascist attacks saying, “His appalling executive order will only worsen America’s racial hierarchy and benefit the oligarch class.”

The attack on DEI is not only taking place in the public sector. The private sector has also taken notice. Companies such as Target, Southwest Airlines, META (which includes Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp), Amazon, Walmart, McDonalds, Ford Motor Company, Lowe’s, and others have pulled their diversity programs. Other major companies, like Costco, Goldman Sachs, Ben & Jerry’s, Apple, Delta Airlines, and JPMorgan Chase are choosing to maintain their policies regarding DEI and have rebuffed efforts to shutter them from the MAGA right.

Civil rights leaders have been responding to this rollback by supporting “buy-cotts” at corporations that maintain their diversity programs. Al Sharpton and the National Action Network’s call to support Costco is one example. Conversely, Nina Turner and Tamika Mallory have called for a national boycott of Target starting Feb. 1, with some pushback from Black retailers who have products sold on Target shelves. The question that lies for us here is how do we respond to these efforts from different sections of the freedom movement? How can we help develop more Black working class leadership around these questions, working, for example, with the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists?

It is clear that African Americans are in the direct fire of the neo-Confederate takeover of the federal government. The fascist drive by Elon Musk, Trump, and their allies is meant to divide up our class and put us on the path to a new Jim Crow 2.0. It is up to us to fight for the widest unity in defeating them.

Image: Young people defend diversity (SPL Center)

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