Supporters of former President Donald Trump have termed Vice President Kamala Harris “a (Diversity, equity and inclusion) DEI hire" in their attempt to undermine her qualifications.
It’s a characterization that Lambers Fisher disputes.
“To diminish her leadership roles as charity would be ignorant, considering her long history of her qualifications,” said Fisher, a licensed marriage and family therapist, author and host of the Diversity Dude podcast on the ShelettaMakesMeLaugh.com podcasting platform.
Fisher said that he considers Harris being framed as a “DEI hire” to be insulting to her historic candidacy. He sees the DEI label as a way that her opponents infer that Harris can’t represent all people since she’s Black and female.
Harris is the first nominee of a major political party to be of South Asian and Black descent and only the second woman to ever rise to the top of a ticket.
“The tone has shifted from two political opponents using the history of their experiences against their opponents … to (one of them) warning people against voting Kamala Harris by suggesting she’s not the best person for the job because of her race and her gender,” Fisher said.
Fisher said that the DEI characterization implied that people of color “couldn’t possibly be qualified for leadership roles” and are used to provoke voters to “…not only resent ‘DEI charity’ efforts, but obviously fear their detrimental, unqualified leadership efforts as a result.”
He turned the tables on the argument by noting that Trump supporters “deflect potential responses to questions whether Trump would have difficulty keeping everyone’s needs in mind if he were elected president because he’s white and male.”
As the November election approaches, Fisher said that he expected the heated comments to continue. He said that voters should be alert to bias and fear-based tactics that are being used to tarnish Harris’s record.
He urged people to “vote for who you want, rather than against who you were taught to fear, based on the mere fact that they’re different from you culturally.”