What Does Someone Like Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò Do When DEI Dies? – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

About seven years ago, an entire industry sprang up. It was centered on racial obsession and grievance. For those who became the prophets of this new gospel — which promulgated the idea that all of America’s problems lay in a pervasive racism that infected all white people — there was fortune and fame to be made.

We think primarily of figures like Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi as those who profited from this racket, but there are so many more who crafted a livelihood based entirely upon selling this idea of racial division.

For instance, take Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, an associate professor of philosophy at Georgetown University. The grift of racial obsession landed him book deals, speaking tours, and articles in major publications like New York Magazine. In his case, he stressed a need for global reparations — in the form of “cash transfers” as well as drastic institutional change — to address past racial injustices as well as the climate injustices that resulted from colonialism. Only that dramatic intervention, Táíwò asserted, could stand up against what he termed the “Global Racial Empire.” It was a “theory of everything” that crafted a simple solution to all of wokeism’s grievances, including climate change. That solution, of course, was just Marxism on an international scale.

In this way, Táíwò was “an academic philosopher who works in the intersection of climate justice and colonialism.”

I say “was,” but Táíwò still is just that. Yet, today, the situation for Táíwò and the many others like him is so different that they really need to build their careers from the ground up again. Táíwò can’t simply serve up his gobbledygook in his books and articles and know that the audience will swallow it without question. (And gobbledygook it is. He once said: “[C]limate injustice, runaway climate change, is a bad foundation for building racial justice. It’s going to create the kinds of conflicts and empower the kinds of actors who are hostile to racial justice, who will move many parts of the world backward and who will sacrifice Black, brown, and Indigenous people.”) Audiences will no longer simply nod along, knowing without doubt that Táíwò is a prophet of the future, that his explanations and solutions are morally just and societally inevitable. They will shift uncomfortably in their seats, knowing that the majority of Americans will see his words as poison labeled “DEI.”

So what’s a man in Táíwò’s situation to do?

Well, Táíwò has found a genius solution: Turn the blame onto radical leftists and tell them that they were too racist to do the leftist revolution correctly. In this way, he can still preach about systemic racism to his core audience, and his oh-so-great words of wisdom will come across as still having relevance at a time when DEI is dead. Essentially, Táíwò has found career longevity in yelling at the choir.

In an article Táíwò penned for Slate this month, he argued that the effort to achieve racial justice following the death of George Floyd was “well-intentioned” but that it “was also shot through with empty lip service.” He explained: “[O]n many levels, elite institutions and powerful organizations were performing symbolic identity politics to bolster their reputations without enacting meaningful material reforms. Many efforts were made to rebrand, but not replace, existing institutions.” Táíwò goes on the say that DEI initiatives “wrapped corporate entities in a shawl of faux progressivism.”

That’s right-on, really, so you’ve got to give it to Táíwò for seeing what was actually going on to a far greater degree than your usual DEI activist. And Táíwò was early to the party on this; he’s been saying since at least 2022 that racial justice activism had been co-opted by elites who were only looking to advance their own interests.

On April 8, Táíwò will continue to advance this same strategy when he gives a talk for the Metro D.C. Democratic Socialists of America. The event’s description begins by pointing blame at leftists: “The neoliberal climate agenda has failed us.”

It will certainly be interesting to see how other DEI prophets stay in business now that most people have stopped listening.

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