Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott Clap's Back

Here’s the truth; racist white people have effectively made DEI the new n-word and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott isn’t afraid to call it like he sees it. “We know what they want to say but they don’t have the courage to say the N-word,” said Mayor Scott.

Source: Anna Moneymaker / Getty

On Tuesday, the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore tragically collapsed, and at least six people are presumed dead.

Reasonable human beings who are compassionate and decent are responding to the tragic news by sending their hearts out to the victims’ families, checking on their B’more fam, and waiting for factual investigative updates. But there are also some deplorables who are flooding the Internet with factless conspiracy theories with no apparent regard for the people who are actually affected in reality.

Racist conservatives of the MAGA world are responding to the tragedy by stretching themselves into noose knots to find non-existent links between the bridge collapsing and policies aimed at diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Source: Anna Moneymaker / Getty

Now Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott is clapping back at racists who are floating around anti-DEI theories and insinuating that he himself is a “DEI Mayor,” despite the fact that he is an elected official who won 70% of the vote in a city that is more than 60% Black, and despite the fact that seven out of the city’s last eight mayors have also been Black. (Don’t hold your breath waiting for them to call the next white Baltimore mayor a “DEI hire” though—it doesn’t work that way.)

“Listen, I know and we all know and you know very well that Black men and young Black men in particular have been the boogeyman for those who are racist and think that only straight wealthy white men should have a say in anything,” Scott said told MSNBC’s Joy Reid. “What they mean by DEI, in my opinion, is duly elected incumbent. We know what they want to say but they don’t have the courage to say the N-word.”

For the record, it’s not just Black men who are being targeted by white people’s new way of spelling out the n-word in three simple letters. In fact, the same day the bridge collapsed, Utah state Rep. Phil Lyman retweeted a post from the Young Conservative Federation, which wrote in a caption accompanied by a photo of Baltimore official Karenthia A. Barber, a Black woman: “Let’s meet the Commissioners for the Port of Baltimore, starting with Karenthia A. Barber. She knows nothing about Ports, but she is a ‘diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) auditor and consultant.’”

Lyman captioned his post, “This is what happens when you have governors who prioritize diversity over the wellbeing and security of citizens.”

Does Lyman or the YCF have any fact-based knowledge the rest of us don’t have that indicates Barber is at fault for the collapse of the bridge, or that she “knows nothing about ports?” Of course not. Racist white nonsense doesn’t need to be factual, it just needs to inflame the racial resentment of white nationalists who shout “DEI” at every Black person they see sitting behind a desk, holding office, or operating a plane.

It’s worth mentioning that these are the same people who accuse the gun regulation advocates of politicizing tragedies after mass shootings. It’s funny how their reactionary anti-Blackness is the only thing they appear to be able to stay consistent about.