Let me stipulate up front that this post contains several generalizations which I know do not apply to everyone in every case described. But focus with me on the larger picture, and I hope you will find the generalizations to be useful, as well as the many embedded reference links.

Given my history in Russia and Ukraine in the early days of commercial real estate, friends often ask me why the Russian people don’t stand up more to the obvious lies and terrible consequences of Putin’s war on Ukraine. “Are they all cowards? That would never happen in America.”

After some consideration, the best explanation I can offer for this seeming failure on the part of “good” Russians—and one that should be understandable to at least some Americans—is the legally enforced segregation and other terrible consequences of racism which survived and even thrived in the South for a hundred years after our Civil War.

I graduated from high school in 1965 from a segregated Christian prep school in Atlanta that was integrated the following year. As a young teenager I can remember an elderly white woman on an Atlanta trolleybus demanding that the driver pull over and “make the Negroes move more to the back,” as the law required—which he did. Visiting a cousin in rural Georgia, I saw “Colored” water fountains and restrooms. And the state’s Democratic Governor, still in office in 1968, won his fame by threatening to chase black people with an ax handle if they dared to ask to be served in his restaurant.

The previous paragraph reads like a tale from a dystopian novel, yet it was the South in my lifetime.

All that said, my parents hated segregation and believed in racial equality, in part because of their faith. But it didn’t matter what any person or family thought about segregation—the whole social/legal/political system, from top to bottom, was structured to support the institution of segregation, and if any white person bucked that system, he or she would be ostracized (what we now call “cancelled”), or worse.

In addition, there was no institutionalized process to change. The only political party was Democrat, and its foundation was pure segregation. There was only a Democrat primary, and the County Unit System in the Democrat Party insured that the more rural counties controlled what some “moderates” in Atlanta or Savannah might try to change.

There was no Republican Party in the South, in part because of lingering animosity for The Party of Lincoln—my father’s generation could recall firsthand stories from childhood, told by elderly family members, of Union troops raping the local women as they marched to the sea.

In short, segregation was the way things were, there were no processes available for change, and to try to buck the entrenched system meant personal disaster.

Now take those realities in the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave” and imagine trying to change anything in Putin’s Russia, particularly anything connected to his personal invasion of Ukraine, which he still claims is run by Nazis. That would take a LOT of courage, and anyone trying to do so would likely not be heard from again.

If that analogy seems plausible, I want to broaden it and bring it forward as a current warning to us.

At the extreme end of even more repressive systems of behavior control stand Nazism, Marxism, The Chinese Communist Party, The Taliban, etc. But make no mistake that Jim Crow/Segregation and Putin’s Russia force everyone into very strict system-controlled behaviors, and they involve both individual violence and the clear repression of rights. The fear of reprisal acts as a potent inhibitor of free speech, free assembly, and free religion, to name just a few of the liberties we take for granted.

But while you have not been threatened with a prison camp, have you refused your employer’s or school’s requirement that you fill out a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion questionnaire, or tried to opt out of a class on LGBTQIA+ Rights?

Have you asked what relevance a candidate’s skin color has to qualify for a particular job, or for a place in higher education?

Have you, as a parent, spoken up about the emphasis on sexual behavior of every possible type in your child’s school?

Have you dared to question how EV’s are going to save our planet from extinction?

Have you questioned a DEI leader anywhere to explain, beyond the “let’s all be nice” high level platitudes, what exactly does DEI teach as action steps to becoming nicer?

Have you wondered out loud about the effectiveness of women and men mixed in combat units?

Have you asked how many more doctors we would have if all Med Students had to agree to spend at least 20 years in full-time practice before cutting back?

Have you questioned why DEI supports segregated groups by race and gender in our high schools? And here’s a novel idea for your school’s DEI Brain Trust: Students-of-Color could have their very own “Colored” water fountains and restrooms!

Have you spoken out against biological men competing in women’s sports and using women’s locker rooms?

Have you, as a Christian, asked how Critical Race Theory, which teaches that as groups we are permanently controlled by our skin color, trumps the foundational Gospel message of individual transformation through repentance, redemption, and grace?

Have you, also as a Christian, explained to a gay friend that while individuals have the right to civil unions, marriage is actually a sacrament ordained by God to be between one man and one woman?

Have you hesitated to tell someone how your faith has transformed you, for fear of being considered a deplorable or a bigot?

Have you explained to a Pro Choice colleague that since every baby’s DNA is different from his or her mother’s, the baby must be a different person, and therefore must be protected from murder, just as any other innocent person?

Have you questioned the increasing budget for the DEI Department in your child’s school, or at your employer, wanting to know exactly what has been accomplished by spending all those funds?

If you have asked any of these questions, then you know you’ve risked losing your job, having your child or grandchild removed from school, and/or being ostracized by friends, colleagues, or family members. For most of us, these are big, effective detriments to bucking the “approved” system. Beyond that, in some cases, you risk being deplatformed or even arrested for disinformation or for hate speech.  In short, cancelled.

It is my prayer that the CRT/DEI/Woke juggernaut may be losing steam, and that it will fall out of its place as the next best method for behavior control in our nation since the all-inclusive segregation establishment described above.

If the DEI wave does subside, it will have been a close call, because unlike with segregation in the South, there is no larger power to work against it (except Truth), as the federal government eventually and belatedly did in the 1950’s and 60’s. We would become, instead, a nation of Woke-fearing conformists, afraid to point out that, in fact, the Emperor has no clothes, and that the rest of us are made worse off through DEI’s emphasis on skin color (exactly like with segregation!) instead of on individual character, competence, virtue and performance.

A UK Government study on D&I in the workplace, released just this week, found that:

“There was consensus that D&I is a complex and sometimes sensitive workplace agenda, with competing definitions and unclear evidence. Although some participants cited examples of what ‘good’ does or might look like, measurable impact was scarce.

“Increasingly issues of freedom of speech and expression affect D&I debates in the workplace, exacerbated by recent high profile court cases. Non-legally-trained managers and leaders are finding it difficult to navigate the Equality Act and associated duties. People mentioned fear of legal action, conflicting or unclear HR policies, and that definitions of bullying, harassment and discrimination are becoming ‘weaponised’ in employment grievances and pre-emptive HR or legal advice. A number of participants suggested that employers, in an attempt to go ‘above and beyond the law’ in their D&I efforts (albeit with good intentions) were inadvertently breaking the law.”

When you really think about it, does it take much more than the protections of the U.S. Constitution and the application of the Golden Rule to guide us in all our interactions?  Do we need bloated DEI budgets to tell us how to behave toward each other? Really?

The Woke/DEI wave of feel-good half truths should remind us that we should always be very careful giving the right to enforce social behaviorto the government, with its police and tax powers, or to Big Tech, or to institutions. If DEI’s ambiguous and ever-changing concepts were to become even more enforced by governments and their partners, then DEI, like government enforced segregation, would have an increasing terrible impact on our personal freedoms, our military preparedness, our schools, our professional institutions, and our economy.

So what are you and I going to do? We’re not being threatened with a Russian labor camp, or with a cross burning on our lawns. But we are threatened with real consequences for pushing back against this behavior control–all the consequences of being cancelled by those who want to replace Chirst’s Gospel of individual transformation, and the individual liberties affirmed in our Constitution, with their own concepts of Group Identity, censorship, and conformity of thought.

Look again at the questions asked above. Are you and I prepared to ask these quesitons of those in charge of our schools, businesses, local governments, school boards, media, and even churches, no matter the consequences to us? If one or more of these subjects is of interest to you, click on the links, which will lead to more resources. Do your own investigation. Come to your own conclusions. Then, if you agree that it’s past time to speak out for common sense and for truth, call and make an appointment with whomever is pushing Woke/DEI initiatives on your family, and engage them.

In the end, God’s Truth will always win out. Our choice is whether we want to be numbered with those involved in His battle.

God speed.