Governor Ron DeSantis, Chris Rufo, and pretty much every conservative is on a crusade to commit genocide against everybody they disagree with.

That’s what the liberals are going with. We hear this all the time with transgender activists, who constantly cry that they are being eliminated. Not by violence, but by being “erased” somehow whenever people gently or not so gently insist that you can’t change your chromosomes no matter how hard you try.

Now we are getting the same treatment from the “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” crowd. And why not? So far the catastrophizing rhetoric has worked for the gender benders, who dominate our public schools, the MSM, and have the most powerful allies in the world: the Biden Administration. If it works for them, why not try out the tactic elsewhere?

Last week, they said the word "woke" was code for the "n-word." Now they are saying that abolishing the DEI bureaucracy at New College is a "modern day lynching."

They are rapidly degrading their rhetorical weapons. They have nothing left but lies. pic.twitter.com/BYL7bsZJmZ

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 28, 2023

Often the “trans-genocide” is framed as the threat of suicide, but just as often these days the claim is the absurd assertion that there is widespread violence against trans people. If that were true, it would be evil. It is not, so the claim is slanderous instead.

The suicide claim reminds me of this scene in Blazing Saddles:

Well the DEI crowd has taken up the tactic, actually claiming that opposition to DEI is just like lynching. Lynching. As in hanging people. For real.

No, I am not kidding. The Boston Globe is publishing a piece making that argument.

@DanProft https://t.co/vnRsPqdUE7

— rcoery (@rcoery) March 28, 2023

To be fair to the Globe, the piece is only published by the Globe, not written by one of their columnists.

Still, they published it, and likely chose the headline because that is how it generally works, although I don’t know the facts of this case. The column was written by “Ya’Ke Smith, who is an associate professor of film at the University of Texas at Austin, an award-winning TV and film director, and a public voices fellow with The OpEd Project.”

A professor.

Of course it was a professor.

So what is his point?

In these times, a traditional lynching is almost universally unacceptable. Most people can’t even fathom the barbaric act happening now; and they can’t believe that their ancestors may have participated in the carnage back then. However, modern day attacks on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies in higher education institutions are the equivalent of the tightened rope, and just as suffocating.

“Just as suffocating.”

I beg to differ, sir. Lynching actually does suffocate and kill its victims. Eliminating DEI gives overpaid bureaucrats the sads. Boo hoo.

Pretty sure that Smith doesn’t know the meaning of the word “equivalent.”

You have to admire his ambition, though. When he uses hyperbole he pours it on. Most normal people couldn’t say anything this absurd and maintain a straight face. Smith, though, can write it down and get it published in The Boston Globe, where thousands of readers will pretend to consider it seriously.

In January, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed a new Board of Trustees at New College of Florida. Almost immediately, these new trustees abolished the office that handled Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. These appointments came on the heels of DeSantis’ 2022 “Stop Woke Act,” which restricted the teaching of certain race-based issues in K-12 classrooms.

That same month, Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters informed the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education that he wanted a review of the last decade’s spending on DEI programs in the state.

Students from Stanford University recently protested the speaking appearance of Fifth Circuit Appellate Court Judge Kyle Duncan. Appointed to the court in 2017 by then-President Donald Trump, Duncan is a member of the Federalist Society and has spent his career defending discriminatory voting laws and supporting anti-LGBTQ legislation. Stanford’s Associate Dean of DEI, Tirien Steinbach, protested along with the students, telling Duncan in front of the packed auditorium that his rhetoric had caused “harm.” Critics called the students rude and entitled. Meanwhile, Steinbach was placed on administrative leave.

Of course, every bit of that represents a step forward. For decades civil rights advocates worked to eliminate racial discrimination in government and higher education and eventually succeeded. DEI is all about reintroducing discrimination and enforcing a new regime of racial segregation.

They call this “anti-racism,” but racism is what it is. White people are the source of all evil they tell us, and the message gets repeated ad nauseam. It is not only wrong, of course, but an evil and divisive message. Blacks are more convinced than ever that the system is rigged against them because the Establishment tells them that it is so. Racism is worse today, not better, because of DEI.

The summer of 2020 was a very peculiar time for America. After the execution of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the country, and the world, went through what many have dubbed a “racial reckoning.” Protestors filled the streets around the globe. Politicians from as far as New Zealand tweeted condolences and stood in solidarity with the Floyd family. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said that Floyd’s death was “the most horrific tragedy I’ve ever personally observed,” and made a commitment to combat police brutality.

During that same time, at the University of Texas at Austin, there was a big move to push DEI to the forefront. As Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity and inclusion in the UT-Austin Moody College of Communication at that time, I witnessed and felt strong support for all the institutional changes that I wanted to implement.

The university was able to move the needle on so many initiatives that supported and championed underrepresented students and faculty. None of these excluded people that didn’t identify as marginalized, and more importantly the programs needed those individuals’ support, allyship, and buy-in for these measures to work.

“None of these excluded people that didn’t identify as marginalized?”

What crap. The opposite is the case. Segregation has skyrocketed over the past decade, and the pace accelerated. That is a baldfaced lie. How many programs, scholarships, hiring choices, and curricula are based on racial preferences? Innumerable. They are getting exposed every day.

DEI initiatives are not bulwarks against racism; they literally promote it. Not only in direct ways by creating a racial hierarchy but also by repelling average people who are tired of being demonized.

Comparing opposition to DEI initiatives to strangling the air out of people’s lungs is disgusting and harmful. It trivializes actual lynchings of the past and only serves to prove to people tired of this grift that there is no reasoning with its promoters.

Ironically, Smith and others who engage in such rhetoric only harden the opposition to their cause.