A great irony as Trump defends the largely outnumbered white South Africans: “South Africa is confiscating land and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY..,The United States won’t stand for it; we will act. Also, I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!”.
My teacher laughed so much that we were confused when he asked us to read Ayi Kwei Armah’s “The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born” in junior secondary. Today, I can write that Trump is now all for DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) as he is fighting for inclusion in South Africa!
Sure, South Africa has to do more to include its white minorities just as America needs to do more to include its own minorities. As I have argued here, it is a pure illusion to think in America that the minorities will attain full equilibrium automatically since most of the systems are biased against them. A good example: if you are born in a poor area, you attain poor schools since the bulk of the school funding comes from the local real estate tax. When you distribute knowledge based on home addresses, you decouple economic mobility across generations!
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Great to read Trump going DEI and advocating for inclusion in South Africa. Just as a poor kid in Ohio cannot cross the road, and attend a great school which is out of district because he is living in the wrong zip code, by Trump pushing to help these white farmers, he is demonstrating that most systems cannot be left to self-correct, and interventions are required. DEI is part of that intervention!
Yes, when Obama made it possible for real estate developers to build apartments in rich districts with great schools, and through that get poor kids into better schools, it could be seen as DEI gone far. But by not doing that, social mobility is punted as some are left behind in perpetuity.
Mr President, go for it, push South Africa for maximum DEI with sanctions, tariffs, and aid cuts until you get your results. Others advocate with press releases and TV punditry, you have the power of the United States to get your DEI inclusion agenda executed for people who do not need help. Brilliant!
South Africa Rebukes Trump Over Threat to “Cut All Future Aid”
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