When wildfires ravaged Los Angeles ... structures, then-Trump advisor Elon Musk placed the blame squarely on L.A. agencies’ prioritization of diversity, equity, and inclusion. “DEI means people DIE,” he wrote on X, reposting a tweet from a conspiracist influencer claiming ...
When wildfires ravaged Los Angeles at the beginning of this year, killing at least 30 people, forcing around 200,000 evacuations, and destroying more than 16,000 structures, then-Trump advisor Elon Musk placed the blame squarely on L.A. agencies’ prioritization of diversity, equity, and inclusion. “DEI means people DIE,” he wrote on X, reposting a tweet from a conspiracist influencer claiming that L.A.’s fire chief and city budget both put DEI before brush clearing and ensuring that fire hydrants were water-stocked.Hurricane Katrina showed the cost of ignoring society’s most vulnerable. Trump’s redefinition of DEI in disaster management begs a repeat.Presiding over America’s response to this cataclysmic situation, we have a president ignoring the science on climate change, rolling back environmental protections, and denying half of the requests the federal government receives from states for major disaster aid. From weakening the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to laying off hundreds of federal employees critical in forecasting and responding to extreme weather events, this administration has already shown itself to be disastrous for disaster management.Since January, the administration has cast DEI to mean any consideration of populations uniquely at risk, turning efforts to identify and address where needs are greatest into “dangerous preferential hierarchy.” In response, government agencies have been limiting the use of language like “at risk,” “historically,” “marginalized,” “underserved,” and hundreds of other terms, according to a New York Times analysis.
