When DEI went up in smoke

What’s in a word? “Equality.” “Equity.” It’s the sort of thing that Channel 4 newsreaders find impossible to understand. Surely they’re the same thing, aren’t they? And even if they aren’t then what kind of pedant would keep trying to point it out? What difference does it make anyway?

Well, quite a lot. Potentially the difference between your home burning down and it not burning down.

It’s important that people who come to your burning home look like you. This is meant to be empowering

In the past couple of weeks residents of some of the most “progressive” neighborhoods in America have had, in real time, an unfortunate crash course on the difference between these two words and are now raising questions on which has been prioritized. The wildfires that have destroyed the Palisades and other upmarket areas of Los Angeles seem to have been caused by many things. Locals report repeated sightings of arsonists, though the authorities seem to have taken a forgiving approach to the odd homeless — sorry, “unhoused” — person walking around with a blowtorch. The winds have certainly whipped matters along. But the real story of the disaster, which has already caused billions of dollars worth of damage, is the response to the fires. Or rather the non-response, specifically from the people whose job is meant to be putting out fires.

Residents who have lost their homes and belongings have told me in the past week that they didn’t see even one firetruck in their neighborhood from the moment the fires got close to the moment their whole area burned to the ground. Now it seems that people are finally putting two and two together and reaching that unfair, deeply inequitable number of four.

For instance, they have noticed that there seemed to be no water in the main reservoir — a reservoir that was meant to be full after an unusually large amount of rain fell in the past year. They have also noticed that fire hydrants didn’t have any water in them, or didn’t work. On at least one occasion, the firemen who did actually turn up were reduced to pouring water into bags and running to the fires, which isn’t a situation that most self-respecting firemen like to find themselves in.

Now residents are looking to the people in charge of their safety. Were they the best qualified folks? The mayor of Los Angeles is Karen Bass. During her election campaign in 2021, she promised that she wouldn’t leave California or travel abroad once she became mayor. Unfortunately for her, she was in Ghana when the fires broke out in her neighborhood. She had gone there despite fire warnings already being in place.

Fortunately, the head of the Los Angeles Fire Department, Kristin Crowley, is a lesbian, which I think we can all agree is the thing we look for most when we make a call to emergency services. “Hello, operator here. Which service do you require? Lesbian, nonbinary person, or diverse woman of color?” Crowley’s appointment in 2022 was called a deeply historic moment for the LAFD. Judging by the interviews she has given since, she too saw it as just such a moment.

As her bio on the LAFD website reads: “With her wife and children by her side, Chief Crowley took the oath of office on March 25, 2022 — becoming the first female and LGBTQ Fire Chief in the LAFD.” It continues: “Chief Crowley leads a diverse department. Creating, supporting, and promoting a culture that values diversity, inclusion and equity while striving to meet and exceed the expectations of the communities are Chief Crowley’s priorities.”

Crowley herself has often talked about how important her new bureau would be —  specifically the “diversity, equity and inclusion bureau.” In her view it is very important that people who come to your burning home look like you. This is meant to be empowering for everybody. When asked what proportion of LA firefighters she wanted to be women, she said: “People ask me, well, ‘What number are you looking for?’ I’m not looking for a number. It’s never enough.”

There has been a lot of diversity-pushing in the LAFD for some years. A video from 2019 that has just resurfaced online shows another wonderful diverse woman of colour called Deputy Chief Kristine Larson talking about the fire departments’ use of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Deputy Chief Larson (annual salary $300,000) is the head of the LAFD’s Equity and Human Resources Bureau. And though she too has been unable to fight the fires that have reduced America’s second-largest city to cinders, she knows what is worth fighting for.

She has been especially scornful of people who ever questioned the introduction of diversity and equity hiring practices and protocols in her fire department and raised concerns such as whether or not female firefighters are as strong as male firefighters. Larson had no truck with such talk. Responding to the idea that some women may not be able to carry a man out of a burning building, she had a zinger of a retort. “He got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire,” she shot back. Whoa. Slay them sister. You got this.

The fact is that most people want competence. You can piddle around with diversity and equity in some areas. It is annoying in entertainment. It is wasteful in government. In a fire department it puts lives at risk.

Corporate America has already started turning away from this farce. But I predict that it will be in the flames of Los Angeles that DEI had its Götterdämmerung. Not before time.