We lose when we hit – a rackry register -herald

It is relatively easy for me to write about the objects that I usually cover in my comments that tend to relate to the environment and climate. It is more difficult for me to write about a race, even though I am a color person who has experienced racism more than I would like in this state. But I have been thinking a lot about the race since Governor Patrick Morrisi took office last month.

“Yesterday you heard in our opening speech, we planned a number of great ideas. Today, the process of fulfilling these goals begins, “Morrisi said in his first press conference on his second day of service.

It turns out that one of these goals is to “terminate the Day”.

Dei – an abbreviation for diversity, justice and inclusion – has become the most Bugauman among the conservatives, creating a problem outside the air. Day was not an honor conversation during the Governor’s Governor’s campaign in West Virginia. Yet at a press conference shortly after his victory in November, then the chosen governor Morrisi said that the words “Day” and “Awake” were not the values ​​of Western Virginia. Last month, MorRisey issued an enforcement order that terminated the initiatives of DEI in government and entities receiving state funding.

Few people who are trying to eradicate Days have convincingly expressed what it really means. We must encourage them to break down and say the words. They are against diversity? They are against equity? Or equality? Are they opposed?

It is painful to see your country and the federal selected employees face things that are meaningful to you. Or things you are, you. When my governor decided to take the time to record a video celebrating my Alma Mater, eliminating his Dei office, it hurts and confuses me.

I have participated in some of the

Programming set by the Diversity Service, Justice and the University of West Virginia when I was a student. The greater part of it was as benign as the multicultural screenings of films or food samples. I spent a semester as a peers mentor in a program designed to support risky students by color, the goal of making them feel more comfortable at the university and reduce their chances of dropping out.

The coefficient of completion of blacks and Spanish -eating students in WVU is a lower high school. I was no secret to the methodology of how the students were selected, but I suspect the office used different indicators to identify students who are most at risk of dropping out. For me, having an inclusion or justice -oriented means understanding the differences and factors that contribute and take steps to mitigate it. Colleges are interested in graduating from students. Why should they not create programs dedicated to helping people lag behind?

This thinking of equity is not limited to the race I recently learned is the first thing that comes to mind when I talk to a presumed anti-de-lie. Recently, a conservative friend expressed a real shock when I told him a program where I was part of and later mentally tried to improve STEM results for people with color, rural, low incomes or students of the first family. When I told a friend that the program was not limited to the race and that it was actually trying to resolve a few socio-economic differences in the country, I could see in real time his “ah” moment and acceptance that helping vulnerable groups are a good idea. This is inclusion. This is a purposeful effort to provide resources to help people who need it.

Some Dei opponents want Western Virginians to think that there are quotas that keep deserving people from work throughout the country, but I have not seen evidence of it. Where is Dei in the government of the state? This is a business, as usual in the state positions of the cabinet, with the majority being white men. In this new administration, there is a black woman leader in the minority service, but I cannot help but think about the meaning of this department.

It is not like racism not to exist in this country or even that country. Do I have to remind the governor that the white peaks marched in Charleston less than a year ago?

Attacks against diversity and its involvement and accusation of tragedies, such as the recent airplane crash in Washington, serve as distraction from more systemic problems, such as inequality of wealth and climate change. Whatever they want to think that it is Dei, this is not the root of our problems today.

Now residing in Charleston, W.VA., Quenton King was originally from the Eastern Panhandell of the state. He works in environmental policy. He is in the advisory board of Reimagine Appalachia.