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Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Now Criminalized in America, are Alive and Well in Denmark [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-29
One of U.S. President Donald Trump's goals is the eradication of DEI policies and the influence of "woke" in American politics.
I no longer live in America, so this doesn't affect me. Since 1991, I've been an expat in Denmark where they're not afraid of DEI or acute awareness of social injustice. Supporting both identify you as a good Social Democrat.
There's no better example of DEI in Denmark than ProWoc, a non-profit organization offering career and personal development opportunities for women of color. prowoc.org/ ProWoc’s mission contributes to selected UN Sustainable Development Goals such as gender equality and empowerment of women in the workplace. ProWoc's mission is to reduce inequalities in income as well as those based on race, sex, ethnicity, origin, age, religion, disability, or economic status.
DEI is a generic label given to the wide-ranging measures that aim to ensure that people of all backgrounds – including historically marginalized groups – can gain a foothold and thrive. Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English, meaning alertness to prejudice and discrimination that prevents DEI. To be woke is to be fully conscious and aware of the injustice that results from discrimination.
Why do so many Americans oppose DEI and "woke" consciousness? Why did they open the door to Trump's wrecking ball policies, marking US society’s plunge into dark times? Why did they let it happen?
Trump and his MEGA followers say that policies and practices to create diversity, equity, and inclusion are discriminatory.
What? Against whom?
DEI practices discriminate against groups that historically dominated workplaces, i.e., white Americans. In other words: DEI is anti-white.
What makes whites panic about losing their dominance? Global demographics. The largest ethnic group is Chinese. The second largest is Indian. The Black or African population is estimated to be approximately 14% of the global population. How many whites are on the planet? Estimates are between 7% and 14%. Compare that to PoGM:
People of the Global Majority (PoGM) refers to Black people, Indigenous people, Brown people, Latinx peoples—particularly Indigenous and Afro-Latinos —Pacific Islanders, Native Hawaiians, the Inuit communities/Alaska Natives, Native Americans, Arabs, Western Asians/Middle Easterners with dark skin, North Africans, Southeast Asians, South Asians, East Asians, Africans with dark skin, and biracial and multiracial people who are mixed with one or more of the above. In short, people and groups who can’t access white privilege.
American whites - 70% of the population - feel threatened by "minorities" whom they claim want to replace them. To slow the process, the Trump Administration is systematically removing their presence from databases. This includes stories of Navajo "code talkers" on the Pentagon website, to demolishing a "Black Lives Matter" mural in Washington. Arlington National Cemetery has begun to wipe its website of the histories of Black, Hispanic, and women war veterans. Other content removed by the Pentagon includes stories on the Tuskegee Airmen, who were the first African American military aviators. Sports websites have been instructed to remove baseball legend and veteran Jackie Robinson.
Nobody gets to choose their skin color or the circumstances of their birth.
The assumption of superiority by white people is as old as history. Its origin is economic, cultural, and religious. But up close, white superiority makes little sense when you consider that all human births are random. Nobody gets to choose their skin color or the circumstances of their birth.
Take me, for example, I’m Caucasian, but I could have just as easily come into the world dark brown in a remote African village or light brown in a Mexican slum as I did beige-pink in Denver, Colorado. Why am I "white?" Did God make me Caucasian because I was favored and my non-pigmented skin was a reward of some kind?
Hardly. My birth as a "white baby" was purely random.
But that’s not all. Since Mother Nature indiscriminately distributes minerals, oil, and drinkable water, this makes geography just as random as birth. Think about South Sudan, Haiti, Sweden, or California. Being born in any of these places has consequences. To thrive, humans need nutrition, a stable economy, healthcare, infrastructure, education, and fair wage employment. A baby, randomly born into poverty in South Sudan could easily die before its first birthday. This is not true of a baby, randomly born into a middle-class family in San Francisco, California.
Unless you believe there is a God who chooses which babies will live and which will die, you must recognize the inherent moral imperative in random birth. If you accept the premise of random birth, you cannot ignore it. If being born white is a random occurrence, this makes white privilege unearned, and a matter of pure chance. Therefore, people who have white privilege are morally obligated to support policies that will give dignity to everybody.
Does ProWoc's presence in Denmark mean that racism doesn't exist in this small Scandinavian nation of only 5.9 million inhabitants? To say so would be naive and simplistic. Just ask the Inuits of Greenland. Danes can be just as racist as anybody else.
The big difference between Denmark and America is that Danes are empathic. They identify with those who struggle. And they are eager to help. What motivated ordinary Danes to risk their lives smuggling Jewish Danes to Sweden in 1943: 7,220 of Denmark's 7,800 Jewish citizens plus 700 of their non-Jewish relatives?
Since empathy is now considered one of the single biggest factors in predicting successful leaders and businesses, it’s no wonder the Danes are consistently voted by the OECD as one of the happiest countries in the world.
In contrast, American society does not value empathy. According to a 2010 study presented to the Association for Psychological Science by the University of Michigan, empathy levels in America have dropped by up to 50 percent in the last 30 years. Consider the cringe-worthy facts that America under Trump has stopped paying for vaccinations in Third World nations, or funding food programs in the poorest of the poor countries.
How is empathy cultivated?
Denmark´s high empathy levels are partly due to its public education curriculum. How does this work?
Team assignments.
Danish students work in groups so that the strong students elevate the weaker. Unmotivated, less intelligent children get support from the smarter, more motivated ones. Assignments receive an accumulative grade, representing the group effort in shared learning. Approximately 60 percent of schoolwork in Denmark is done in teams.
The role of hygge in building trust
No, the word doesn't mean "cozy." It's far bigger than that. At its core, hygge is about building intimacy and trust with others.
Many foreigners complain that Danes have a superiority complex, especially when it concerns their social welfare and quality of life. After living in Danish society for 33 years, I must agree. Danes do feel morally superior, but it's justified.
When asked why they risked their lives to save Danish Jews during WW II, they say: "It was the decent thing to do."
The high level of happiness among Danish people is in part related to the Danish welfare society, which ensures a high level of safety and security in people’s lives. Equally important is Danish society's very high degree of trust.
When you consider the high levels of empathy and trust it's not surprising that ProWoc is firmly established and growing in Denmark. Neither is it surprising that a brother organization now supports them. The Brotherhood for Professionals of Color,
https://www.bpoc.dk/, emphasizes DEI advocacy.
So, yaaaay for ProWoc and BPoC! We can be glad they're in Denmark and not in the USA where Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are dirty words. And where "woke" practitioners are criminalized.
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