Walmart ditches DEI, because, duh, dividing people doesnt bring them closer together

DEI is dying, as big companies wake up to an obvious truth: dividing people divides people.Walmart is just the latest company to hop on the trend of slashing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives, joining Ford, Google, Meta, and Tesla, among others.The company confirmed to Fox Business Monday that it will pump the breaks on its Racial Equity Center, which it launched in 2020 for a five year trial period, and is ditching the term “Latinx” (which only 4% of Hispanics use themselves) in corporate messaging.The company is even cutting mention of “DEI” altogether.Rather than “diversity,” they will emphasize “belonging.” The megastore chain is the largest company to ditch DEI practices so far.Meanwhile, research out of Rutgers University found that DEI initiatives actually cause the racial hostility and tension that they’re nominally meant to dispel, by purposely elevating members of minority groups.

Research subjects who were shown divisive material about race and religion — including readings by authors hot during the racial moral panic of 2020 like Ibram X.Kendi and Robin DiAngelo — ultimately showed significant increases in “hostility” and “punitive attitudes” towards other groups.Subjects were also more likely to detect prejudice where there wasn’t any and to desire punishment for supposed offenders.The Rutgers researchers claim both the New York Times and Bloomberg initially jumped at the idea of writing about their study, before the stories were pulled “at the highest editorial levels,” according to reporting by the National Review.Their findings aren’t all new.

A 2016 article from the Harvard Business Review already foresaw that “the positive effects of diversity training rarely last beyond a day or two, and a number of studies suggest that it can activate bias or spark a backlash.”Sounds like just the sort of thing you want to introduce to the workplace, at a hefty price… right?The capitalists in corporate Ame...