5-Opinion

O

ver the last few weeks, the 
United States has had one of the 

biggest waves of labor strikes that it’s 
seen in recent history. Thousands of 
workers across different industries 
have been striking with demands 
including better pay, safer working 
conditions and more. This parallels 
a large worker shortage, as well as 
issues across the supply chain that 
have been happening this year. 
While these strikes may seem to have 
come out of nowhere for some, when 
analyzing how workers have been 
treated in America over the past few 
decades, it’s clear to see that this has 
been a long time coming.

The most common demand that 

has been seen during this 
recent wave of labor strikes 
has by far been better wages 
— after looking at minimum 
wage rates over the last few 
decades, it’s not very hard to 
understand why. Workers 
in the U.S. have seen barely 
any 
increases 
in 
wages 

over the past few decades, 
which is especially obvious 
when looking at minimum 
wage rates. In 1980, the minimum 
wage was $3.10, and which slowly 
increased to $7.25 in 2009 — the 
federal minimum wage has since 
stagnated. When accounting for 
inflation, this means that U.S 
workers have seen a 30% decrease 
in their wages over the past four 
decades, despite the cost of vital 
services like health care, housing 
and education increasing at the 
same rate as or more than inflation 
would suggest. This is shown by the 
cost of a degree more than doubling, 

health care expenditures increasing 
tenfold and the median cost of rent 
increasing by more than 500% since 
1980. All of this makes it obvious that 
the U.S. minimum wage is no longer 
a livable wage, and hasn’t been for a 
while, with workers that make more 
than the minimum wage not doing 
much better. The average purchasing 
power for most American workers 
has practically stagnated over the 
last 50 years.

Considering how American wages 

have been handled in recent history, 
widespread worker anger would 
already be very understandable. 
But, when looking at the wages of 
the people they work for, their anger 
becomes all the more justified. Since 
1978, the average salary of CEOs at 
the 350 largest companies in the U.S. 
has increased by a staggering 1,322%. 

Even when accounting for inflation, 
this means that the average salary of 
CEOs at the largest companies in the 
U.S. has tripled over the last 40 years. 
Workers have seen a net decrease in 
their pay over the last 40 years while 
their bosses have seen a massive 
increase — of course, they’re going 
to demand higher wages. Despite 
this staggering reality, for a long 
time, many workers didn’t protest or 
strike due to fear of losing their jobs 
and being replaced by someone who 
would take that low a wage. 

This shift in labor perspectives 

is highlighted in one of the biggest 
strikes that has occurred during the 
recent wave at John Deere. The strike 
started after a contract offered to the 
worker’s union by John Deere was 
considered lackluster, especially with 
John Deere’s profits being higher 
than ever (and the CEO getting a 
160% raise). The main demands being 
made are higher wages and increased 
benefits that are more in line with 
what John Deere previously offered 
its employees. John Deere has offered 
multiple contracts in hopes to end the 
strike, but as of Nov. 3, these workers 
are still on strike.

With the labor shortage that this 

year has seen, companies can no 
longer replace workers as easily as 
they could in the past, meaning that 
many workers have finally gotten the 

leverage to tell their bosses 
they deserve to be paid more 
by rallying with other workers 
and 
striking. 
What 
puts 

even more pressure on these 
companies is that the labor 
shortage has left millions 
of jobs open, meaning that 
workers can easily find new 
employment if they’re not 
satisfied with their current 
job. This flexibility has been 

evident, particularly in August of this 
year, when more than four million 
workers quit their jobs. 

The recent wave of labor strikes 

in the U.S., while seemingly sudden, 
comes at a time where workers are 
finally able to fight for themselves 
after they’ve been screwed over for 
the last 50 years. The recent labor 
shortage has created somewhat 
of a lightning-in-a-bottle moment 
for workers to use their newfound 
leverage to finally get their fair share 
of pay when it comes to their labor.

A

s has often been the case in 
his political career, President 

Joe Biden is on the precipice of 
spearheading legislation that would 
be extremely consequential — not 
only for its widespread political 
ramifications but also for the tens of 
millions of everyday Americans who 
would benefit from it. Biden, along 
with Congressional Democrats, is 
closing in on some of the biggest and 
most progressive pieces of legislation 
in modern American history. They 
are working to pass a $1 trillion 
bipartisan infrastructure bill and a 
$1.75 trillion reconciliation bill, just 
over seven months after passing and 
signing a $1.9 trillion rescue package. 
This is all being done with a bare 
50-50 Senate majority, and a mere 
three vote cushion in the House. 

These are realities that should 

make every progressive in America 
enthused beyond measure. Yet, 
unfortunately, looking in the political 
Twitter-verse and inside the political 
beltway, I have found a fair amount 
of progressives in a state of sheer 
disappointment over what Democrats 
are on the verge of getting done. 

It is an unfortunate truth that 

Democrats and the White House 
have had to scale back some of their 
legislation. Groundbreaking policies 

such as free community college, 
paid family and medical leave and 
dental and vision benefits being 
added to Medicare coverage all had 
to be stripped from Biden’s originally 
proposed social infrastructure bill. 
These cuts are not ‘moderate Joe’ 
clawing back proposed progressive 
initiatives. In fact, it is abundantly 
clear these cuts are the last thing the 
president wants. Free community 
college, for example, is a policy Biden 
has long supported and is especially 
meaningful to his family, given 
First Lady Jill Biden’s history as a 
community college professor. Rather, 
these cuts are bound to happen when 
you not only start with an extremely 
bold topline but also are combatting 
having to cater to all 50 Democrats. 
The vast majority of cuts are a result 
of either Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. 
or Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., two 
relatively moderate Democrats that 
Biden cannot afford to lose. 

A problem with starting high and 

negotiating down is that it leaves 
the public feeling as though they are 
missing out on a lot. When all they hear 
about is widely supported and urgently 
needed policy proposals being axed, it 
leaves everyday Americans wondering 
why the president would choose to 
cut legislation he supported. Many 
Democrats have lamented just how 
important various policies were, and 
how crucial they would be in forming 
Biden’s legacy. When these energizing 

reforms are eliminated, it leaves voters 
questioning what good is left in the bill. 

The answer: an overwhelming 

amount. 
Both 
congressional 

Democrats 
and 
progressive 

organizations need to champion 
what is left in this bill, because it 
can still affect an immense amount 
of positive change throughout the 
country. A big problem for Democrats 
is that the media are always keen 
to highlight when measures are cut 
from spending bills. It is dramatic, 
drives controversy and conversation 
and as a result is inevitably good 
for their programming. What isn’t 
so enthralling to the cable news 
producers is the mundane policy 
details that do stay in. So, Democrats 
nationwide must place a paramount 
focus on parading their policy to the 
public and in a digestible way. Polling 
shows most voters support much 
of the underlying policy within the 
bill, but are unaware of the specific 
contents of this plan. All they hear is 
that things are being removed, lots of 
money is being spent and the other 
party is criticizing the plan 24/7.

Without 
that 
communication, 

not only is the public ill-informed on 
the heroic effects Democrats have 
worked to achieve, but the party 
will also find itself failing to cash in 
on what should be a monumental 
political win. 

I

n the wake of the largest racial 
reckoning that this country has 

seen in decades, initiatives focused 
on achieving racial equality have 
popped up across the country in 
many different forms, whether 
that be programs for Black and 
non-white 
students, 
corporate 

awareness of activism or, most 
commonly, 
diversity 
training 

programs. Diversity, equity and 
inclusion training, while well-
intentioned, is often misguided, 
not 
engaging, 
unspecific 
and 

ultimately tends not to prompt 
lasting behavior changes by those 
that hold power. DEI training 
sessions on this campus do little 
more than allow organizations to 
brush off true biases and silence 
voices that ask for genuine change.

DEI 
training 
is 
often 

unengaging and repetitive, which 
lowers participation and doesn’t 
leave room for lasting impact. 
Usually, 
training 
involves 
a 

quick lecture about implicit bias, 
accompanied by a quick activity 
that often centers on the idea of 
privilege. This formulaic approach 
is no longer good enough. While 
research shows that repetition 
can be helpful in memory and 
information 
retention, 
keeping 

audiences engaged is essential to 
improving inclusivity, especially 
with 
college-aged 
audiences. 

Whether it is a simple slideshow 
or a virtual activity, many of these 
training sessions are made up 
of worn-out ideas and activities 
that, quite frankly, become more 
of a chore than a time to actively 
engage with biases and work to fix 
them. Creating engaging content 
that focuses on problem-solving 
as opposed to simply lecturing 
will allow students to engage with 
biases present in their specific 
organization and work to fix those 
specific problems. 

Moreover, DEI efforts are often 

vague, choosing to focus on generic 
circumstances 
of 
implicit 
(or 

explicit) biases instead of tailoring 
scenarios to the specific program 
that is hosting the experience. 
Coca-Cola’s 
diversity 
training 

famously included slides on how 

employees should focus on being 
“less white.” It goes without saying 
that this goal is both impossible 
and unnecessary, but it shows 
how DEI training often involves 
broad, vague ideas of oppression 
instead of concrete goals. This 
is counterproductive and only 
leads to resentment towards both 
the organization and minorities 
within it, further perpetuating the 
problem. A bias training session 
hosted for Fraternity & Sorority 
Life should look very different from 
one hosted for resident advisors, 
with two completely different sets 
of circumstances in which biases 
arise and need to be solved.

In my three years at this 

university, I have been through 
multiple different DEI training 
programs across the different 
groups I have been involved in. 
One thing that has remained 
constant across them all has been 
the centering of white identities 
as the foundation for eventual 
equality. Many DEI programs 
involve a privilege walk, in which 
students will take a step forward 
or mark down a certain answer 
which sums up to account for some 
sort of score. It serves as a way for 
the more privileged people in the 
room to reflect upon themselves 
and their own privilege, but only 
by comparing their lives with 
those of people who grew up 
with less privilege. And since 
this university is approximately 
65% white with a median income 
of $154,000, the disparities in 
privilege only serve to make non-
white and low-income students 
feel the full weight of their own 
marginalization. Activities that 
force a contrast in privilege 
between groups of students are 
asking for marginalized students 
to shoulder the brunt of the burden 
in creating equal space. They force 
more privileged students to look 
down on less privileged ones with 
pity instead of allowing them to 
criticize the organization in which 
they both belong.

The ensuing discussion about 

privilege rarely helps either with 
white people often monopolizing 
the 
conversations 
with 
their 

own first-time reckoning with 
privilege. Centering whiteness 
allows the presence of people 

of color to be acceptable only 
because white people say it is. 
Instead, diversity efforts need 
to be centered not on giving 
white people space to become 
comfortable 
with 
their 
own 

prejudice, but on allowing the 
needs of BIPOC to be centered 
instead. 

Inclusivity should be the goal, 

and 
centering 
the 
non-white 

experience and allowing BIPOC 
to speak for themselves about their 
needs in an organization is crucial 
for effective diversity efforts. 

Diversity training programs 

can be valuable, especially on 
a college campus where people 
come from a variety of different 
backgrounds, and I don’t intend 
to entirely de-value them. They 
are 
a 
straightforward 
way 

to get information to a wide 
audience, which is why they 
are so common among student 
organizations 
on 
campus. 

However, without changing the 
cultures of exclusivity present 
in so many organizations, they 
are 
effectively 
empty 
words 

meant only to placate minority 
students into continued silence. 
Instead, these DEI programs 
should be replaced with sessions 
that give BIPOC students a voice 
to change their organization. 
Their experiences should be 
centered by having students of 
color lead and be consulted in 
creating teaching or problem-
solving sessions. We are capable 
of creating true change and more 
inclusive organizations across 
this campus, but that begins with 
improving the way we teach and 
talk about diversity.

Ultimately, the only way to create 

a more inclusive organization is 
to make space for voices that have 
been marginalized. Historically, 
this space has not been easy to 
come by, with Black and non-
white students forced to protest 
or strike in order to get the 
visibility and space they needed. 
Cultures are changing, though. 
We now have the resources to 
create this space without asking 
marginalized people to assume 
that responsibility alone, and we 
owe it to future generations of 
students to create the campus they 
deserve.

Opinion

BRITTANY BOWMAN

Managing Editor

Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

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S

aartjie Baartman was a fetish 
for 
European 
scientists. 
An 

indigenous Khoikhoi woman from 
South Africa, the “unique structure” of 
her sexual parts made her the ultimate 
object of interest for the 19th-century 
biological notion of race: During her 
lifetime, she was paraded as a “sexual 
freak” in Paris and London, standing 
naked before a gaping and laughing 
audience, and after her death at the 
age of 26, naturalist Georges Cuvier 
pickled her remains in jars for display 
in a Paris museum. 

The modern notion of race and 

racism was not born from innate 
fear, confusion or interest in peoples 
different from us; in the 19th century, 
white people justified domination 
through colonialism and “confirmed” 
the white man’s superiority with 
physiognomy and phrenology — a 
pseudoscience. 
Sara 
Baartman’s 

biological uniqueness, her steatopygia, 
was determined to be a sign of a 
diseased 
and 
morally 
degraded 

character—inciting fear, terror and 
hatred against the “inferior” races. 

Horror sickened and sloshed 

my insides as I sat reading Sander 
Gilman’s Black Bodies, White Bodies 
for my philosophy class. Why hadn’t 
I known this? Why hadn’t I learned 
this—until now?

According to Yale philosopher 

Jason Stanley, a fascist education 
glorifies the nation, omits sins of the 
past and impregnates a student’s 
heart with pride. It teaches the great 
mythic past, and the dominant racial 
group is posed against the inferior 
while political opponents are deemed 
a threat. A fascist education promotes 
obedience under the fascist leader who 
sets the rule on what is true and false 
by feeding lies and depriving people of 
critical tools to weigh in on policy. 

We see omissions of historical 

realities in Texas textbooks, where 
African American slaves are “workers” 
or “immigrants.” Former President 
Donald J. Trump’s response to the 
1619 Project, the 1776 commission, 
promotes a “patriotic education” in 
which “our youth will be taught to love 
America with all of their heart and all 
of their soul.” One day before the first 
national celebration of Juneteenth this 
summer, Trump demonized critical 
race theory, a curriculum aimed to 

provide an understanding of racial 
disparities persisting in institutions 
and systems, calling it “psychological 
torture” and a curriculum meant to 
“brainwash” children. 

Since President Trump’s executive 

order banning “diversity training” 
following protests in light of George 
Floyd’s death, he has used the term 
as a political weapon to fear monger 
Republicans against Democrats in a 

new culture war. Florida Governor 
Ron DeSantis has since called it 
“state-sanctioned 
racism” 
and 

Republican parents parrot Trump’s 

words in recent school board fights. 
Last week, Michigan Senate Bill 
460 passed, banning the teaching of 
critical race theory, the 1619 project 
and related “anti-American and 
racist theories.”

In contrast to fascist education, 

according 
to 
Jason 
Stanley, 
a 

democratic 
education 
elucidates 

different perspectives on a nation’s 
complex and variegated past. It enables 

citizens to make individual judgments 
about policy in order to overcome 
divisions and make for a more perfect 
unity. In a democratic education, all 

people have voices, not just those 
that came to dominate. The center of 
democracy is truth. 

Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Pulitzer 

Prize-winning journalist for the New 
York Times and creator of the 1619 
Project, echoed the same principles 
at Rackham Auditorium in late 
September: “The classroom should 
be teaching us to question and have 
skepticism.” Hannah-Jones argued 
that the American education system’s 
emphasis on “propagandistic history” 
and “American exceptionalism” fails 
to address and critique the social 
inequities underlying history. 

German Jewish scholar Victor 

Klemperer’s book “The Language of 
the Third Reich” warns us against the 
dangers of a fascist education: After 
the fall of the Third Reich, Professor 
Klemperer watched as his young 
adult students began to fill in missing 
gaps in their “neglected education” 
as he taught concepts of culture, 
democracy and humanitarianism. 
Yet as soon as someone referenced 
heroic propaganda or the patriotic 
language of the Third Reich, the 
concepts would become “blurred, 
and we were adrift once again in 
the fog of Nazism,” making rational 

deliberation impossible. Even young 
women who had not seen any military 
service were “clinging to Nazi thought 
processes.” According to Klemperer, 
the purpose of “The Language of the 
Third Reich” is to “strip everyone of 
their individuality, to paralyze them 
as personalities, to make them into 
unthinking and docile cattle in a herd 
driven and hounded in a particular 
direction.” 

Nelson Mandela told us that 

“education is the most powerful 
weapon which you can use to change 
the world.” Indeed, education can be a 
weapon when its purpose aligns with 
fascism and undermines America’s 
fundamental notion of democracy. 

President Trump, critical race 

theory is not dividing the nation. The 
deliberate denial and erasure of the 
truth and the loud cries of wolf over 
a curriculum that is not being taught 
does. We cannot commit horrific 
crimes and then say that educating 
future generations about these crimes 
is racist, poison and brainwashing. 
Critical race theory does not teach 
us that America is “evil.” It teaches 
us to learn from disgusting realities. 

The fight over Critical Race Theory is a fight over democratic education

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
 Wednesday, November 10, 2021 — 5

LILY KWAK

Opinion Columnist

The recent wave of labor strikes 

has been a long time coming

KEONI JONES
Opinion Columnist

MADELINE HINKLEY/Daily

What democrats are doing is a BFD

DEVON HESANO
Opinion Columnist

DEI trainings: the band-aid fix 

we need to retire

MRINALINI IYER
Opinion Columnist

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

File Photo/Daily. 

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

