*Politicide: the systematic erasure of certain groups from civic, political, and historical recognition
Part One - Do You See What’s Happening?
“Arlington National Cemetery has begun wiping from its website histories highlighting Black, Hispanic and women veterans. The change is in line with President Trump's directive to remove references to and support for diversity, equity and inclusion from the federal government.
A U.S. official not authorized to talk to media told NPR the removal of links and sections about these groups have been dubbed a "digital content refresh" by top Pentagon officials.” -NPR
“One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public, said the purge could delete as many as 100,000 images or posts in total, when considering social media pages and other websites that are also being culled for DEI content. The official said it’s not clear if the database has been finalized.” -AP
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“...remove references to and support for diversity, equity and inclusion from the federal government.”
“...a ‘digital content refresh.’"
“...being culled for DEI content.”
The Pentagon’s purge is not an “anti-DEI” action because “anti-DEI” is a nonsensical term designed to obscure the reality of what’s happening. You can’t destroy DEI. You can only decide how to see and shape it.
What Washington is actually doing is implementing a DEI-Restrictivist agenda—one that doesn’t eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion but instead imposes a narrow, exclusionary vision of whose identities, histories, and contributions are permitted full recognition (DEI For Us v. DEI For All). This is not the removal of DEI; it is the enforcement of a bigoted DEI—one that prioritizes the self-ordained superior social identity group and aims to systematically, unscrupulously, and relentlessly marginalize or erase those who have been deemed inferior and unworthy of basic human dignity.
Bigotry is not just personal prejudice (e.g., Archie Bunker saying ignorant things in the privacy of his own home and our living room television sets); it’s the institutionalized intolerance and systematic exclusion of certain groups based on their identities. Language such as “removing DEI content” attempts to disguise this bigotry behind bureaucratic neutrality, but its function is unmistakable: to deliberately erase the visibility, contributions, and histories of targeted social identity groups in order to reassert and, if possible, cement social hierarchy.
During the Jim Crow backlash to Reconstruction, segregationists didn’t claim they were openly oppressing black-racialized people—they insisted they were merely enforcing “neutral” laws, ensuring “states’ rights,” or maintaining “social order.” But the effect was to violently strip black-racialized people of full participation in public life. Similarly, the modern DEI-Restrictivist movement claims it is merely opposing “ideology” or “woke politics,” but the reality is that it is actively working to segregate representation, separate people from equal membership in society, and reinforce dominance through erasure.
What’s happening at the Pentagon (and emanating from every pore of the current America oligarchy) is not a neutral administrative decision. It is a massive and multi-faceted imposition of bigoted (versus pluralistic) DEI, one that imposes a singular, exclusionary vision of who belongs and whose contributions matter. And if history teaches us anything, it’s that bigotry—especially when masked in bureaucratic doublespeak—is never just about language. It is always about the assertion of power and an aspiration for complete and total dominance. Same malevolent delusions of grandeur, different day.
Part Two
I wonder what it must be like for the real people who have to execute these neo-Jim Crow orders -- who have to remove images, words, and material that represent real human beings whose only crime is to be on the wrong side of the Us-Them line drawn by the powerful, ruthless bigots currently in control of the government.
People have bills to pay, careers to build, etc., and we all can relate to being between that rock and the hard place of living according to our conscience and integrity. It’s a terrible vise to be trapped in.
The people tasked with executing these politicide actions—those who must physically remove images, delete words, and erase representations of real human beings—
are being made complicit in an act of state-sponsored erasure—an effort to strip certain people of their visibility, dignity, and rightful place in public life.
I imagine that for most of them this must be a crisis of conscience and integrity. The weight of knowingly participating in the erasure of entire groups—whether black-racialized service members, women, LGBTQ+ individuals, or others—must sit heavily on the heart. I hope I’m not being naive in that estimation. Even if someone tries to rationalize it as “just following orders,” that phrase carries an unmistakable historical echo, one that haunts any honest reckoning with moral responsibility.
I imagine the cognitive dissonance whirlpool they must feel sucked into, the monstrous nausea they must feel, the compartmentalization they attempt to employ, the numbing and detachment, the sleepless nights, depression, anxiety, rage, and sorrow. No one outside of the insular elite circle of unearned privilege benefits from bigotry.
When decent people feel powerless to resist, structures and systems of oppression win. When carrying out bigotry-disguised-as-policy becomes routine, it reshapes not only government institutions but the moral landscape of society itself.
Of course, and thank goodness, not everyone simply complies. Some resist quietly—by dragging their feet, by leaking information, by finding small ways to subvert unjust policies. Some may find courage to speak out, even at great risk. And others may walk away entirely, unwilling to sacrifice their integrity for a paycheck.
If you’re one of these people trying to navigate safe passage between Scylla and Charybdis, seeking a path of least harm, painfully struggling in a moral dilemma vise, you are to be forgiven for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Will you be able to forgive yourself if you press “delete” and execute orders that execute the presence and dignity of people whose noteworthy roles in American history have been turned inside out – into something distasteful and detestable? Will you be able to sleep at night if you press “delete” and remove words that communicate truth, recognition, and resolve – words on which people are hanging their hopes? Will you press “delete” and erase, to some extent or another, your integrity?
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