In January 2025 a Scottish colleague of ours watched the inauguration of the current President of the United States. This White male direct-messaged us on LinkedIn to ask the headline question: “Why is everything being blamed on DEI and Black people?”

The Power of Reflection

We didn’t reply right away. We’ve always felt it prudent to reflect and not react when it comes to conversations on race and racism in the United States. That dynamic also featured prominently in our book The Business of Race with “reflection questions” at the end of each chapter.

We asked ourselves, how do we use our voice during this moment? We took great care when writing The Business of Race to remain apolitical. One Amazon reviewer of our book shared how much he appreciated that approach.

One of the reasons we took that approach is because we wanted our theses to be accessible to all humans, and Americans in particular, regardless of political affiliation.

The Reckoning That Wasn’t

Four years ago, in August 2021 when the The Business of Race was published, the United States seemed to be undergoing a historic racial reckoning prompted by the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. On the heels of that was the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. We, the authors of The Business of Race, were heavily engaged in public conversation on podcasts, social media, in corporate events and Eventbrite racial equity business strategy sessions. American citizens were having unprecedented open conversations about race.

Responding to blow back each time a politician banned a book, intentionally misrepresented terms such as “woke” and “critical race theory” and “Black Lives Matter,” would have been counterproductive, only fueling an already deeply divided nation. Besides, our “lane” was the workplace. It’s in the subtitle of our book: “How to Create and Sustain an Antiracist Workplace – and Why It’s Actually Good for Business.”

Four years later, U.S. conversations and actions regarding race and racism have taken a dramatic and dangerous state-sponsored turn. We have much more to say. Before we do, we’d like to continue our conversation with you:

• How do you think we responded to our colleague’s question, “Why is everything being blamed on DEI and Black people?“
• Why would a person from Scotland be asking this question about the United States?
• How would you respond to his query?