DANIEL MCCLOUD

I am D.E.I. Not DEI. DEI, that would be my brother. His name is short for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. My name is short for Destructive, Evisceration of Inclusion. We are fraternal twins. He was born before me, and I followed right behind. Although my brother and I grew up together, we grew apart over time. You see, he chose a path in which the values and differences of individuals are celebrated. He recognized that individuals all come from different spaces with different needs, and sometimes, in recognizing this, accommodation must be made so that everyone is given an equal opportunity to succeed. These accommodations include creating an environment where everyone is celebrated and respected.

I am not my brother. In the beginning, I felt this way. But somewhere along the way, I began to feel like I was being left out. Although I always made more money than my brother, lived in a better house, and drove a better car, it seemed like my brother and people like him wanted to take it away. I first started to feel this way in 2008. It seemed like the world shifted; everyone was talking about hope and new beginnings. I felt threatened. Then, in 2020, the pandemic hit, and some old Black guy who was already sick supposedly died when an upstanding police officer kneeled on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. I didn’t think it was a big deal, but many people did, including my brother, DEI.

Whenever the subject of that old man’s death came up, he would talk about the length of 8 minutes and 46 seconds, which I still don’t think is a lot of time. Then one day, he sent me a piece from Lisa Owens, a contributor for Beneath the Surface News, which really pissed me off.

Twenty-seven things you can do in 8 minutes and 46 seconds

• You can walk 0.44 miles at 3 mph.
• You can run 0.88 miles at 6 mph.
• You can drive 5.11 miles in the city at 35 mph.
• You can drive 8.76 miles at 60 mph.
• You can swim eight to nine freestyle laps in an Olympic-size pool.
• You can hard boil an egg.
• You can eat 141 hard-boiled eggs. (Guiness, 2013)
• You can do the prep work for a meal.
• You can bake 10 Totino’s Pizza Rolls @ 425º.
• You can ride Texas Giant roller coaster 2.7 times.
• You can smoke one cigarette.
• You can listen to 60% of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird.
• You can read approximately 2,190 words.
• You can read about eight pages of a novel.
• You can read the Book of Philippians.
• You can recite the Hail Mary Prayer six times.
• You can take somewhere between 105 and 175 breaths.
• You can feel your heart beating somewhere between 526 and 1052 times.
• You can kneel on a man’s neck.
• You can nonchalantly keep one hand in your pocket.
• You can ignore the pleas of bystanders.
• You can ignore a man crying out, “I can’t breathe.”
• You can ignore a man whispering for his Mama.
• You can stop a man’s breath.
• You can take a life.
• You can devastate a family.
• You can incite a Movement.

That’s when I really started to pay attention. My brother and They, The Others, were out to get me. Although the same Mother Liberty had raised us, even she had turned her back on us. They wanted to forget us and all the things that made us great. But I wasn’t going to let that happen. I, we, would erase them (I know, that’s what I said they wanted to do to us, but anyway). And how would I do it? I would weaponize myself into a mere catchphrase, a dog whistle for the destruction and evisceration of all things created for inclusion and all things designed for them, the Others. I would make everyone believe that my brother’s sole purpose was to exclude people like me by including people not like me. Does that make sense? Yes, that makes sense.

We will start by laying off and firing all the people that my brother DEI helped. Regardless of where they worked and their job responsibilities. We’ll figure that out later. And so it began, one after the other: departments closed, and people were erased. But somewhere along the way, I realized that some people my brother wanted to help looked like me. Hell, some of them were my close friends and relatives. How would I explain this during the holidays and cookouts? Does it matter? The Others, they’re just collateral damage? Just a product of progress.

They must never know it was me. And if they find out, I’ll tell them it was for their own good. Because, yes, I know what’s best for them. Even though I don’t know most of them or what they did, I know what you’re saying: this can’t be life, this can’t be love, this can’t be right, there’s gotta be more, this can’t be us. But it all makes sense because I am D.E.I., not DEI. DEI, that would be my brother. My half-brother.