DEAR EDITOR:

I will never understand how DEI has become the new right boogeyman. DEI initiatives simply try to bring more voices to the table, to enfranchise the disenfranchised and to include those that have been previously oppressed. But seemingly none of that matters. It is a convenient label that can be used to spread racism under thinner and thinner veils.

These days I don’t think there is any use tiptoeing around things anymore. This is racism, pure and simple. What else can “anti-DEI” mean? What else can Trump mean when he blamed DEI for the D.C. air collision? That baffling statement was a new low, proof that there is no bottom to his disgusting rhetoric.

So, here we are, into the second week of this fascist regime, and it’s already been an embarrassing show of naked power grabs and racism. This isn’t what people voted for.

People are waking up to the fact that the real, fundamental division in this country isn’t red vs. blue, or DEI or any other smokescreen. It is, in fact, the billionaires vs. everyone else.

So, take care of your community. Join or start a union at work. Do not obey in advance.

Together, we will take our government back from the oligarchs.

PIERRE FORTIER

Youngstown