My first industry job was an unpaid internship for a radio host, civil rights lawyer and activist in St. Louis named Lizz Brown (RIP). Her show, “The Wake Up Call,” had its own theme music, which featured an unforgettable soundbite from an interview Malcolm X gave to a reporter who asked about progress in America.

“If you stick a knife in my back 9 inches and pull it out 6 inches, that’s not progress. If you pull it all the way out, that’s not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made…,” we can hear the man, who would later be known as el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, say on the crackling recording.

That interview took place in March 1964 — 60 years ago to the month.

In the metaphor, the backs belong to Black people in America. The knife represents policies the U.S. government have crafted to address centuries of systemic racism.

We can debate to Plymouth Rock and back how much racial progress has been made in America. But to continue the metaphor, they’re trying to put the knives back into the backs of Black and other non-white folk by ending affirmative action as we know it and dismantling government programs aimed at strengthening diversity, equity and inclusion or DEI.

Conventional wisdom would dictate that the DEI debate won’t overtake the economy, abortion rights or Gaza as a top animating issue in this year’s issue. But if you think about the voting blocs these Republican-backed anti-DEI pushes are aimed at, it makes all the sense in the world why candidates are out on the stump talking about it.

Let’s talk about it.

D.E.I.: It’s a political thing

It’s kinda odd that the richest immigrant to the U.S. has been whipping conservatives into a froth against DEI.

Elon Musk has falsely claimed non-white employees at Boeing and, by extension, its corporate DEI program, are to blame for problems with the company’s 737 jet plane. He also said that elite universities have lowered standards to admit minorities.

In a if-filled clip of an interview with former CNN journalist Don Lemon for Musk’s own platform, the South African-born tech mogul said: “If the standards for passing medical exams and becoming a doctor — especially a surgeon — if the standards are lowered, then the probability that the surgeon will make a mistake is higher. … They’re making mistakes on their exam; they may make mistakes with people, and that may lead to people dying.”

Duke School of Medicine has denied lowering standards. Musk fired Lemon. Go figure.

But it’s no surprise then that the anti-diversity campaign led by Musk, Ben Shapiro and others have caught fire, stoking Republican lawmakers about 20 states to file approximately 50 bills that would restrict DEI initiatives in public institutions.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey recently signed a so-called divisive concepts bill and called DEI part of a “liberal political movement counter to what the majority of Alabamians believe.”

Gov. Ivey is almost certainly referring to white Republicans in the Yellowhammer State, where African Americans represent about 28% of the population.

Data also refute Ivey’s claim. More than 50% of African Americans believe that racism is embedded in our laws, which affirmative action and DEI are designed to remedy, is a bigger problem than individual or interpersonal racism. Only 3 percent of African Americans believe racism doesn’t exist, the survey showed.

Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP has even urged Black student-athletes to consider enrolling in schools that are not outwardly hostile to racial diversity on campus.

We’ll see how that shakes out when college football returns in August.

If you think Musk’s anti-DEI thing is primarily about patient and passenger safety, I have a social media platform worth $44 billion to sell you.

In Oklahoma, a Republican lawmaker who sponsored several anti-DEI bills there, said the issue is resonating with voters.

“I think it’s become more of a political thing,” Republican Oklahoma Sen. Rob Standridge told the Associated Press, adding, “In other words, people are using it in their campaigns in a positive way. So now all of a sudden, maybe the people that didn’t care before are like, well, wait a minute, I can use this on a flier next year. And Trump brings light to it, too.”

Despite being on opposite sides of the DEI debate, both major-party presidential candidates are courting Black voters. This week, writing for Reckon, Brea Jones looked at facts and fiction of Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s claims with respect to Black economic progress.

Data points were made

Think back to the dawn of the tea-party movement, which coincided with the election of America’s first Black president (which coincided with Donald Trump’s political ascension).

The popularity of that movement, particularly with white men, was fueled by the xenophobic idea that their country was somehow being taken away by African Americans and Latinos, including migrants entering through the Southern border.

However, new data from the Pew Research Center show that immigration is not driving the growth of Hispanic populations in the U.S. It’s babies. According to the report:

—Immigration drove Hispanic population growth during the 1980s and ‘90s

— An average of 1 million Hispanic babies were born each year during the 2010s, a bit more than during the previous decade

—Between 2020 and 2022, average annual births among Hispanics were slightly under the previous decade

— During this time period, total immigration decreased considerably, from 350,000 per year to 270,000 partly due to immigration into the U.S. coming nearly to a complete halt during the height of the pandemic

— The report also contains some clapback at the crowd so agonized about the fact that immigrants come here and only speak in their native language. For Latinos in the U.S., the share who speak English proficiently is actually growing. Key stat: In 2022, 72% of Latinos ages 5 and older spoke English proficiently, up from 59% in 2000.

Reading is fundamental

Before I go, a few reading recommendations. If you’re interested in how racism is baked into the very fiber of America and its institutions, check out these books.

— “The Half Has Never Been Told” by Edward Baptist, which argues that chattel slavery wasn’t something that was happening off on the side down in the South. Rather, slavery was essential to the development of American economic and political dominance in the world.

— “Empire of Cotton” by Sven Beckert traces the history of the puffy white stuff grown in river deltas from the Mississippi River to the Nile. It was the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in the late 1700s that exploded the enslavement of Black people in the U.S.

— “They Were Her Property” by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers dispels the myth that the wives of white enslavers were innocent bystanders. Jones-Rogers writes that these ol’ misses were active and, in some cases, more violent enforcers of slavery.

— “River of Dark Dreams” by Walter Johnson and “Accounting for Slavery” by Caitlin Rosenthal also explore slavery’s role in paving the foundation for American capitalism, including the invention of financial instruments, such as bonds that used enslaved people as collateral.

—Finally, I’m looking forward to the publication of Tracie McMillan’s forthcoming book, “The White Bonus,” which, according to the publisher’s website, “asks a provocative question about racism in America: When people of color are denied so much, what are white people given? And how much is it worth—not in amorphous privilege, but in dollars and cents?”

I had a chance to chat with Tracie, who’s a native of rural Michigan, about the project on one of her reporting trips through the South. I plan to talk with her about it a bit more in-depth after it drops April 23, so stay tuned.