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May 15, 2023 Editor, The News-Gazette: Your letter writer misses the mark with his comments regarding Virginia’s director of Diversity, Opportunity and Inclusion’s recent speech at VMI.
Mr. Brown, a Black man, referred to DEI as a dead cow, obviously referring to the idiom regarding a sacred cow, which has to do with being unreasonably immune from criticism.
His comment had nothing whatsoever to do with cowboys, and the video to which your letter writer referred us showed a man claiming that the term cowboy is racist because of events transpiring after the Civil War. Except, the term cowboy was used by Jonathan Swift in the early 1700s, and per Wikipedia, “By 1849 ‘cowboy’ had developed its modern sense as an adult cattle handler of the American West.”
So Mr. Brown was not using “racist metaphors” attacking DEI, and in fact he was clear about what he wanted – “Our aim is to expand opportunities but not guarantee equal results.”
The Race Matters Institute clarifies “equity” by saying, “The route to achieving equity will not be accomplished through treating everyone equally…” – so, treating people unequally.
I believe that discrimination based on skin color is morally wrong and practically unhelpful, and that no long-term good can come from it no matter how exquisitely precise some people believe they can wield it. So, I wish Mr. Brown success.
RUSSELL H. ORRISON Lexington
