Ackman continues his anti-Black Crusade
Claudine Gay was pressured to resign on Tuesday, January 2nd. The symbolism of this resignation provides a win for the GOP and racist donor money that provided the support to force Harvard’s hand. Also, the usual suspects joined in on this mini battle. You had the white supremacist propaganda arm that slithered in to help with Christopher Rufo leading the charge. A new face in the media joining the racist war against Black people is Bill Ackman, a billionaire financier who’s been tweeting on X, the past few months like a madman.
Ackman’s behavior towards Harvard and Gay reveals a mindset, not much different than any other anti-black racist you have studied. First, his rhetoric and disposition contradict what he is supposedly fighting against. I mean, this man used a racist trope that has been used against Black people since reconstruction in the US. This propaganda existed a long time before any civil rights laws were put into place. He posted on X, “heard from someone with firsthand knowledge that the Harvard president search committee would not consider a candidate that didn’t meet the university’s DEI requirement.” He knew the racist context of his statement and its intended consequences.
Secondly, Ackman was completely silent during the 2020 uprisings. He has so much energy for how this so-called DEI initiative has invaded the status quo but notice how at this late date he has not used his platform to advocate for justice and dismantling racism. He put out another post after Gay’s resignation attacking DEI programs saying, “There is no such thing as being “not racist”. This guy sounds like the trash on 4chan but that is the point. These are the types of things racists say to justify their mistreatment of Black people and the current white supremacist world order. It was a monumental task for them to get to this point and now you can’t be so blatant with the racism (unless they are backed into a corner).
Last, we are living in the maintenance stage of WS, the task for them now is to freeze time, and if possible, take things back to the late 19th century. They need plausible deniability. That is what you can take away from what people like Ackman and Rufo are doing. Ackman’s recent post on his view of DEI programs will show you all you need to know. It is the same old WS playbook—the businessman’s version of the Lee Atwater strategy.
The attack against Gay is part of the crusade to erase the progress made during the last few years. The court ruling against affirmative action in the universities was just the beginning. They want it to trickle down to all facets of society, particularly to corporations. They view the world as a zero-sum game. Black people must remain at the bottom and the current racist Ponzi scheme and racial hierarchy not disrupted. Well, we need to let them know that’s bad for business!