DEI, Black Jobs & Economic Impact Explained | What’s Really Happening Right Now

What if the biggest economic shift happening right now isn’t being talked about clearly?

In this episode of Fearless Politics, Dr. Avis breaks down the real-world impact of recent policy decisions on jobs, business opportunities, and economic mobility—particularly within Black communities.

This is a direct look at how changes to DEI, employment structures, and public policy are shaping outcomes in real time.
This isn’t theory.
 This is impact.

In this episode:

• What recent DEI policy changes actually mean
• How employment trends are shifting—and why
• The economic impact on Black workers and businesses
• A breakdown of research claims vs real-world data
• What’s happening behind the scenes in hiring and promotions
• Practical ways communities can respond and adapt

Chapters:

• 00:00 Trump’s First Target
• 01:14 Day One Executive Orders
• 02:36 White House DEI Report
• 05:21 Methodology Red Flags
• 06:30 Who They Excluded
• 09:59 Real Research Evidence
• 13:21 JD Vance Hypocrisy
• 18:25 Unqualified Cabinet Picks
• 26:58 Black Jobs Deficit
• 30:04 Black Jobs and Deportations
• 34:01 Invisible Economic Warfare
• 35:58 Collective Economics Response
• 38:48 Closing and Next Episode

This conversation goes beyond headlines and gets into what people are experiencing on the ground.
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

While Trump continues to wage a very public war on Iran, as well as a very public war on no less than the Pope. And like, really, who does that? Who does that? Maybe the Antichrist, but other than that, who does that? While he goes along these very public grievances and literally war-mongering ways, I want us to remember that the first people that he waged war on on his very first day in office was black people. And guess what? That war continues. We're gonna break it all down right now on this episode of Fearless Politics. In a political world that is defined by unending chaos, crisis, and unprecedented action, politics as usual is no longer an option. Instead, this is a moment that requires bold, fearless, and fierce truth telling. And that's exactly what you'll find right here on Fearless Politics. I'm your host, Dr. Avis. Buckle up, it's time to be fearless. All righty. So, as I alluded to, we've gotten so far from this, people tend to forget. And I can't forget, and neither should you, because the impact of his war on black people is something that black people continue to live with each and every day. And I want you to know it's not just a past thing, it's a current thing, it's a present thing. In fact, they have recently re-upped their war on black folk. We're breaking it all down today. Now, first of all, I want you to recall that on his very first day in office and the day after, Trump signed two back-to-back executive orders that gutted civil rights protections for black people. Those actions specifically pulled back protections that were put in place decades ago in order to open up the doors of opportunity when it came to employment, when it came to business, when it came to finally being able to break the back a little bit of entrenched discrimination against black folk that kept us out of the workplace, that kept us out of business opportunities. And he did that by specifically and erroneously claiming that DEI and affirmative action were illegal. They are not, but we have now seen the implications of that. A year plus down the road, we are seeing what's happened to us in the employment space. We are seeing what's happening to us in the business space. But I want you to know that was just the start of it. That war continues. In fact, it has been waging even more heavily recently. I want you to understand that just the other day, the White House dropped a new report on DEI. Now, I found that very interesting that this White House dropped a report on DEI. Why do I find that interesting? Because this is the very same White House that has a war against science. This is the very same White House that has a war against research, right? This is the same White House, for example, that's been defunding research, including critical research that deals with healthcare. Because they don't believe in research. They don't believe in science. But all of a sudden they drop this research report.

unknown 3:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

So what's this about? It's about DEI, and which they came to the conclusion that DEI is something that inevitably hurts the American economy. And to specifically quote what this report is alleging, it says that hiring managers who hire, I guess they're claiming, on the basis of race, hurts productivity by leading to inefficient management and undercuts economic growth. So there are a lot of problems with that. And let me first break that down in a couple of different ways. DEI is never about merely hiring people on the basis of race. Let's be real. Nobody has a longer history of being hired on the basis of race than unqualified ass white men. Let's just start there. Okay, let's start there. It's about providing opportunity for people to be given an opportunity to be hired. It's about expanding your pool so that you now consider people whom previously never even got a shot. And when you do that, guess what happens? You find some very, very well-qualified, overqualified, I would argue, black people who fit the bill and get jobs. But guess what? They can't handle that truth. So they're gonna say this. Now I will say, unlucky for them, I actually have a PhD in political science. I know research. I've done research for years. My research is well respected, has been highly published in very prestigious places, including places like the Harvard Journal of African-American Public Policy. So I know when shit is shit and I know when stuff is good. And let me tell you that this is shit. Okay. This is shit. So why do I say that? I don't just say that because I disagree with the findings. The very first thing that you do as someone who actually does research is you don't just say, I don't like the findings, therefore it's a bad study. The very first thing you do is look at the methodology of the study. So let's take a second to break that down. And when we're talking about looking at methodology, the very first thing that you want to look at is the sample. The beginning and end of a good study is whether or not the sample makes any damn sense. If your sample's fucked up, let me tell you the findings are going to be fucked up. Let me also tell you there are other things that impact the findings, also. It's about what questions do you ask, what statistical machinations do you run. But let me just say right here, let's start with the sample. What sample did they use? Mark here in the chat says, this is what happens when ignorance sets public policy. You are exactly right. When ignorance sets public policy as well as when racist set public policy, because this is a white supremacist administration. I would dare anybody to prove me wrong on that assertion. So here's what they did. When I looked at the sample of the study, I found something very interesting. I found something very interesting. In the White House's study on DEI, they deliberately excluded gender and sexual orientation from its analysis. Okay. Let me think about that. So you're going to do a study on DEI, and you're going to start out by extricating from the sample gender from your analysis or sexual orientation from your analysis, even though both gender and sexual orientation fall under the umbrella of DEI. Now, why would you do that? Why, pray tell, might one do that? I'm gonna tell you exactly why they would do that. They would do that because that right there excludes white people in a quote unquote race neutral way. Because when you exclude gender from the analysis, who also comes out? White women. When you exclude sexual orientation from the analysis, who also comes out right at the top? White men and white women. So you have taken a race neutral way. You think you're slick, but you're not. You think you're gonna outsmart somebody, but you don't. You at least don't outsmart those of us who know what the fuck research is and isn't. What you have done is you have created a specific data set excluding white people, and that's really quite interesting because if you look at the data on DEI and who it most benefits, guess who it most benefits? White people or very specifically white women. But you're gonna do your study and you're gonna pull them out of the analysis. Okay. So I know where we're going with this. So to me, when I first of all see that, I know right now that this study is bullshit. I know right now that this study is not scientifically sound. I know right now that this study is not generalizable. I know right now that this study isn't really even a study. It's something that you did in order to make a data point that you want to use as a weapon against black people and others. So this specific study only looked at black people, Hispanic people, and Native Americans. Okay. So here's what's going on with this. They took those folks out, they left these folks in so that they can specifically make a racist argument about affirmative action. And when they did that, they claimed, oh wow, look at what happens with DEI. We find out that it hurts the efficiency of organizations, and because of that, it undercuts the economic growth of America. You know, that is something that you come to when you have a study that already starts with an endpoint that they want to say, and they're just figuring out how they can bastardize the study in such a way to come to that ridiculous and unsound endpoint. And I say that because of this. This is not the only study that's been done on DEI. In fact, it's one of hundreds of studies that have been done on DEI over the years. And I will tell you the studies overwhelmingly show the benefits of DEI and have done so for years, but don't take my word for it. Take McKenzie's, okay? Let me look at some studies that McKenzie and Company did over the course of several years. All right. I'm taking a look at four different studies that McKenzie has done between 2015 and 2023, covering, unlike these fools, more than 1,000 companies across 15 different countries. Now that's what I call science. That's what I call research. That's what I call studies that actually are based in scientific methodology and that could give us results that we could actually trust, right? So when I look at these studies, I find something out. These studies found consistent and strong findings that actually strengthen the case for diversity. They found that companies in the bottom quartile for both gender and ethnic diversity are 66% less likely to outperform financially. In other words, there's two-thirds less likely to make as much money as companies that are more diverse. Okay. So let me say that again because I don't want to confuse anybody. Companies in the bottom quartile for both gender and ethnic diversity. So these are companies that are very homogeneous. They are not diverse, they do not have a lot of people of color in it, they do not have a lot of women in them. Okay, they are 66% less likely to outperform financially. That means they make less money, y'all. Meaning that as we get further in the future, diversity is that much more important in order to help companies make money. So actually, it's costing money to companies to not be diverse. And it's costing them more money over time. This comes from McKenzie and Company, one of the most well-respected research consulting firms in the world, not just in this country, but in the world. So I'm telling you first and foremost that that quote unquote report that the White House put out was a lie. It was a lie. It is a lie. They're cooking the books, trying to make a case that is a lie. It is statistical propaganda. It is absolutely farcical. We don't even have to talk about stats. Let's just look at this country, who's running it, what their qualifications are, and the fact that this country is being run into the damn ground. But before we go there, I want to share with you a tweet that JD Vance put out about this report. He said, and I quote, a lot of people think DEI is lame diversity seminars or racial slogans at NFL games. In reality, it was a deliberate program of discrimination primarily against white men. Oh, poor white men. That was my uh impression of Erica Kirk. Oh, don't let them do it to you, white men. He goes on to say, this is an incredible piece that describes the evil of DEI and its consequences. Oh, really? Oh, really? JD Vance, the irony. The irony. Because here's the problem with this, especially coming from JD Vance. When people see white men, no one asks, oddly enough, about their qualifications. Isn't that interesting? Their qualifications are never questioned. No, they're just assumed to be there because they deserve that they're the most qualified. And if anyone else is in that space, then they're a quote unquote DEI hire. Whereas if there is anyone on earth that really personifies the phrase didn't earn it, it would be JD Vance. JD Vance is the least qualified vice president that we have had in this country's history. And I'm not just saying that to be saying that. So he had only been in the Senate for two years before he became the vice president of the United States. Prior to that, he had no elected official status. His claim to fame was the fact that he wrote a book about the fact that he's a hillbilly. Yes, he has a law degree, but he has zero legislative experience. He definitely has zero foreign policy experience. So if you're wondering why his unqualified ass was over there trying to negotiate with Iranians, everyone on their negotiating team had PhDs, long histories in diplomatic negotiations. If you're wondering why he came in and went out and didn't have any significant breakthroughs at all, it's because he doesn't know what the hell he's doing. He is unqualified to be in that position. He knows nothing about foreign policy. He really knows nothing significant about being a legislative executive. He was plucked out of the Senate only after being there for two years, during which he did nothing of substance. Now let's compare that to the previous vice president, shall we? Since we want to talk about DEI. Let's compare that to Kamala's resume. She was the district attorney of San Francisco, an elected position. She was the attorney general of the state of California, the biggest state in the nation, obviously, an elected position. One of the few black people, honestly, in our history that has ever been elected statewide. Just being elected statewide is a feat, all right? And let me just say, besides the Department of Justice, being the Attorney General of California is the biggest institution that one could run in that space. All right. After that, she was elected to be in the U.S. Senate. Remember? One of the few black women in that space. And after that, she became vice president of the United States. And let me ask you, which one of these resumes suggests you're more qualified to be the vice president, much less the president of the United States? Someone who has spent their entire life as a public servant, someone who has spent their entire life as an executive in the governmental arena, or somebody who wrote a book about being a hillbilly and actually getting a rich person to donate to their campaign so that they could be plopped into the Senate for two years before being set up to run with Donald Trump because that is Vance's background. That's his history. Unqualified ass. If we want to talk about qualifications, let's go there. Let's go there. I'm ready to go with you blow for blow. And look like you're losing, Vance. Look like you're losing. You ain't qualified, man. You're the last person need to be talking about qualifications. But he's not the only one. Let's talk about Pete's heads. Heads. Can't even say his damn name. Not only is he a white supremacist, I'll lay down the whole background about that on another day because I don't have time on this episode. But let me just say his main qualifications for being the Secretary of Defense, he was a Fox News weekend co-host. Lord have mercy. Let me just tell you a little bit of the insider ball on the hierarchy in the media. When you are at the top of your game in the media game, you are on prime time. You are on in the evening, six, seven, eight, nine o'clock. Like that's prime time. So if you have a slot in those time periods, you are considered to be one of the best on the network. When you are put in on the weekend, it ain't that. So his main claim to fame was that he was the Fox News host, but he wasn't even one of the best Fox News hosts. He was a Fox News host that they put on the weekend. In addition, he was an Army National Guard captain. Woo-hoo! An Army National Guard captain. I am blown away by the qualifications to be the Secretary of Defense. He led two small conservative nonprofits, which each reported financial mismanagement. Okay. So you couldn't even manage the two small nonprofits that you had before now managing this hundreds of billions of dollars of budget. And let me just I skipped over this. Let me go back to the fact that you do you know how he got out of the National Guard? I said I wouldn't go into this, but I'll go into this a little bit. He got out of the National Guard because he was reported as a threat by one of his peers in the National Guard because they saw that he had a tattoo that indicated that he was a member of a white supremacist organization. And so they allowed him the opportunity to resign. That's that's how he ended his military career. All right. Let me also say, because I also believe this is relevant, there have been multiple allegations against him around sexual assault and alcohol abuse. If we go beyond that, we do know that he got one woman pregnant while he was married to another. So this is the moral. Ineptitude and intellectual ineptitude, as well as just clear lack of qualifications that we have running the Department of Defense out here lawlessly breaking international law with regards to war crimes on a regular since he'd been in that position. This is who we have running this country that they want you to think are qualified. This is the real didn't earn it, y'all. These mediocre white men that did not have the background that justifies them being in those positions. Now let's compare Pete Heggs' qualifications to the previous Secretary of Defense, black man, General Lloyd Austin. Notice that you don't have to say general before Pete Heggs' name. You just say Pete Heggs. Okay. Pete Higgseth. But compare his background to General Lloyd Austin. 41 years of active U.S. Army service. Not one, not two, not three, but a four-star general commanded U.S. forces in Iraq, led 3rd Infantry Division into Baghdad, silver star recipient, chaired 50 nation Ukraine defense contract group. You want to tell me that this highly decorated combat commander, highly decorated combat commander, can in any way compared to unqualified alcoholic ass Hegzeth. Are you kidding me? And Hegzith has been on the war path around DEI since he's been there, erasing black people from the history of service to this country. Just recently refusing to promote earn positions of black people and women who are looking to get their next promotion in the service. You know what that is? It's kind of like little dick syndrome. He got little dick syndrome. He knows he doesn't belong there. He knows he's unqualified. He knows that they're better than him, which is why he's going out of his way trying to erase and sabotage the careers of people who are not white men in the military right now. All right. Let me do one more. RFK over Department of Health and Human Services has zero public health background, has publicly bragged about snorting cocaine off of toilet seats, but most egregiously, he was involved with a hoax where he led anti-vaccine messaging throughout Samoa in 2019 that led to 83 deaths of Samoan children, most under five. And now are we surprised at all that we're having measles outbreaks in multiple states across the nation? These are the didn't earn it, unqualified white men that this administration put into positions of power, yet they want to lecture you and they want to lecture us. And most damaging to the economic power of black people, they want to lecture companies in America about not promoting black people to management positions. That's really what this is about. This is about not hiring and not promoting black people, Latino people, and others to positions of power. This is a direct attack on the black middle class. Absolutely. Oh, oh God, I don't want to leave this out. Last one I do want to mention. Brand new member of the cabinet, the latest one, DHS secretary, recently confirmed. You know what his background is? Associate's degree. Ain't no, ain't no this to people with associates' degree, but he's not the most well-educated person in the world. He was a plumber and an MMA fighter. He has zero experience in national security, immigration policy, or emergency management. Oh, and you want to lecture me about DEI? Sit down somewhere. Sit down somewhere. What we are seeing here is that, and black people, let's just be frank, we've always known it, you have to be 10 times more qualified than your white counterpart to get half the opportunities. And what civil rights law that they are now undermining and deeming illegal was meant to do was to provide opportunities to people that would not have been there in the first place. What they want to do is to recreate a situation where unqualified white men are given opportunities that they don't deserve on a regular. And though it we know it happens, it's going to happen at an accelerated pace now, given what they are doing and what they've done already and what they're looking to do in the future. Now, we already know that with the two executive orders that Trump signed when he first came into office, it's already had a huge negative impact on the black community. There is a recent report that was put out by the Center for Economic and Policy Research by a friend of mine, Alginon Austin. He's an incredible economist. And what he found was that the black jobs deficit has cost black America$87 billion in 2025 alone. Just since this administration has been in office, the black jobs deficit has cut the earnings of black America by some$87 billion. Now you might be asking yourself, what is a black jobs deficit? It's the reality of the fact that typically black people have a higher unemployment rate than white folk. And the deficits is the difference between the two. So if there was parity between the black unemployment rate and the white unemployment rate, meaning if they were the same, there would be no jobs deficit. That jobs deficit is actually increased by about 20% just in the first year of the Trump administration alone, which has resulted in up to 1.7 million jobs that represent that deficit. So there are 1.7 million fewer jobs that black people are filling comparatively than that being filled by white folk. And we're talking here specifically around what the unemployment rate differential works out to. All right. And you cannot tell me that what this person did when he first came into office, specifically targeting the public sector, a space that is overrepresented by Black people and especially overrepresented by Black women. A space that after he targeted that, we know that within the first three months of his administration, 300,000 Black women lost their jobs. And now the numbers around black women in unemployment and being dislodged from the workplace is around 600,000. I'm not going to stop there. Black men have also suffered tremendously with increased unemployment rates under this administration. This was not by happenstance. I want you to understand that this was a targeted attack on the economic power of black people. One thing I will tell you about Trump is that he will tell you what he's doing if you listen to him. If you don't try to downplay what he's saying, if you actually take him seriously when he says it, he says what he means and he means what he says. Might you recall that during the election, he made a statement about black jobs. You remember when he said the Mexicans are coming over here and they're taking your black jobs? You remember when he said that? Black jobs. And at the time, people were laughing, people were joking, like, what does he mean about black jobs? Ooh, I can't believe he said that. What does he mean about black jobs? I'm gonna tell you what he meant about black jobs. In his crazy little dysfunctional, racist ass, disturbing mind, the work that migrant workers are doing in the fields are black jobs. Do you see where everything is coming together? Because their plan was to do mass deportations now, even if Latinos who voted for them apparently didn't believe it. I believed it. People believe it now. So he knew that by doing that, there would be a labor shortage that would need to be filled because the work would need to be done. It's very interesting to me that we go after migrant workers as a country. We never go after the people that employ the migrant workers. But anyway, he knew that work would still need to be done. And so in his mind, who's gonna do it? Well, the black people would do it. Those are black jobs. So at the same time that they are engaged in mass deportation, at the same time that they are leaving all these farmers without enough people to do the work of actually doing work that they apparently refuse to do or don't have the capability of doing, at the same time that that's happening, his whole idea was well, if we attack black economic power, and I'm not gonna say it's all him because I don't even know if he's that smart, but I will say that the people around him, the people that designed Project 2025 that he is following to a T, their racist little wet dream is that they will be able to deport all of the Latinos out of the country, as many as possible, and at the same time conduct a sneak attack on black economic power. And if we then don't have jobs, if we then have businesses that are undermined, what else is left for them but to get into the fields? That right there is their desire. That right there is their biggest dream. Their biggest dream is that once again we will be relegated to the fields. They may not be the cotton fields this time, but their biggest dreams is that we're gonna be in the fields, we're gonna be picking the fruit, we're gonna be doing the work that the migrants aren't gonna do anymore because they've been deported back either to their home countries or whatever country they can dump them off in. That's their wet dream. So here we are in this situation. I'll say one more thing and then I'll come back to this because I want to be able to talk about what's happening with businesses, but I think I'm gonna leave that to the next episode because that we go that's gonna go deep into this. But I will say, in addition to this attack on black jobs that they have done, that they are signaling to businesses, um, that they have mandated, honestly, beyond signaling, mandated through executive orders to companies that they need to pull back on black hiring, on black promotions. That was done in the first two executive orders. They're continuing to do it now in a brand new executive order that just dropped. I'll get into that more deeply in the next episode, but I will say this: they're doing all this to undermine black economic power. And what is actually happening here is that they are having a very public level of oppression and human rights abuses to the Latino community. The war against Latinos, especially, not exclusively Latinos, we know they were going after other folks too. But most obviously, the war against immigrants, who are largely and overwhelmingly immigrants of color, have been very public. We have seen ICE agents, we've seen everything that happened in Minnesota. We know about the detainment camps, we know about the deportations. What is invisible are the attacks that they are waging against black people. We don't see it when people get the email that tells them unceremoniously that they've been let go. We don't see the impacts when the business that has been doing well and fighting and blood, sweat, and tears were put into to get off the ground and thrive for years now have been undermined because of his actions. We don't see that. That is private suffering. And so, what I want you to know that because you don't see it on the news every night, it doesn't mean it's not happening. In fact, it is happening, and because it is happening in the shadows, it's that much more effective because people aren't fighting back loudly against it. Not even our elected officials are fighting back. That to me is the most heartbreaking part about this. People who claim to be leaders aren't saying shit, as the economic power of black communities across this country are completely being ripped away. And so what I really want you to leave here with today is an understanding that if you are one of these people who have felt the impacts of what this demon has already done, if you've lost your jobs, lost a promotion, lost thousands in your business, maybe even millions, understand number one, that you're not alone. But number two, also understand that there is a way in which we can come out of this even more powerful, even more successful, economically sound and thriving. And I would argue that that looks like thinking about how can we be about the business of collective economics in a serious and substantial way. We need to do it. We need to be intentional about it, we need to be habitual about it. The way that we get out of this economic abuse that we are suffering under this administration is understanding that we have significant economic power among ourselves. The spending power of the black community alone is greater than the GDP in several European countries. We have the money. Even though we're taking hits and we have less than we had before, the way to move back up is to understand how to circulate that money within. But the issue is not just where are you not spending your money. The issue is where are you spending your money and being intentional about spending it within. That is at least one way that we can begin to fight back. And I say that because it's not just about supporting the black businesses, it's also realizing that black businesses are more likely than other businesses to hire black people. So if we're really talking about ways in which we can take this economic crisis that we are facing right now and figure out a way that we can make it through this and come out better on the other side, it's about realizing the power that we have and using it, leveraging it as an everyday way in which we live our lives. Because at the end of the day, nobody's coming to save us. And not only that, there are major powers out there that are coming to really eradicate you. The way to survive and thrive right now is to look inward, figure out what alliances we can create within and move up together. That is the answer. And with that said, I didn't get through half of what I wanted to get through on this episode, but that's okay because I'll be right back with the next episode of Fearless Politics, and I'll see you next time. Thank you for joining us on today's episode of Fearless Politics. And while you're here, don't forget to subscribe, follow, and leave that five-star rating that you and I both know we deserve. Also, feel free to leave a review so more people can find out about us and become members of the Fearless Politics crew. And finally, if you want to go further down the rabbit hole with us, then be sure to check us out at FearlessPoliticspodcast.com. Or connect with me personally on Instagram at fearless dravis. With that said, we'll see you next time. And don't forget, it's time to be fearless. See you soon.