Re: Stacy Spink’s Letter to the Editor

This is an honest question about an assertion in Stacy Spink’s letter (November 13, 2024) that leaves me baffled. In what way are Kamala Harris’ credentials based on DEI? Did I miss something? She is a woman of mixed ethnicity with immigrant parents. So? She is accomplished. She has “done her thing” and completed law school and served as attorney general of California and U.S. Senator ably. But where is it written that this is due to DEI? Is Mr. Spinks suggesting that her admittance to UC Law San Francisco (formerly Hastings) was all DEI? So, too, her place at Howard University? It wasn't even around then.

I am not personally fond of DEI that aims to fill institutions with a certain number of people that mirrors the general population. It’s too Soviet for my taste, and we know what happened there. But that’s almost an aside. Mr. Spink's letter smacks of bigotry. I don’t think anybody of her background would be “purely” qualified in his eyes because of the baggage HE has thrown on her. He carries it, not her. His perception of her is exactly why affirmative action, DEI’s forerunner, arose. She couldn’t have done it on her own, never. She is naturally inferior, just a bit. People must be seeing her through the lens of DEI to find her super capable.

Trump’s qualifications are “based (at least in part) on” something like DEI, though. Call it Spoiled Rich Boy Syndrome. SRBS. Doesn’t that describe many mediocre, non-DEI men we see in positions of power everywhere? Truly.

Biden probably wasn’t removed from office for the same reason that Reagan wasn’t removed when clearly exhibiting symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Respect. Competent people around him. By the looks of things, we won’t have that luxury when Trump goes completely bonkers.