Why DEI Is Not Dead
CTRL+Adapt isn’t a brand—it’s a command. A provocation. A refusal to keep catering to fragile systems.
Let’s be clear:
DEI was never the problem. Fear was. Fragility was. Cowardice dressed up as strategy.
The future doesn’t belong to those who panic when equity becomes inconvenient.
It belongs to those who are already building what comes next.
For future-forward leaders, CTRL+Adapt is the command to rewrite systems.
To refuse stagnation.
To architect what should exist.
So let’s start with a question:
How can something as important to our shared humanity as DEI be declared dead?
Spoiler: It can’t.
But the backlash tells us something deeper—not about DEI’s irrelevance, but about the cost of our collective denial.
Denial Is Expensive: What Target Still Doesn’t Understand
It’s 2025, and Target is once again in the headlines—not for its leadership, but for its capitulation.
Facing ongoing boycotts fueled by political backlash against DEI and LGBTQ+ inclusion, the company is watching its stock slide yet again. Public data shows continued decline: Target’s stock has failed to recover since its 2023 collapse, underperforming competitors like Costco who refused to backpedal.
And what’s their response? A photo-op meeting with Rev. Al Sharpton.
That move didn’t land. It exposed something deeper: Target seems to understand DEI is connected to Black communities—but still has no grasp of what DEI actually is. This isn’t just about race, or gender, or any one identity silo. It’s about how power operates in your supply chain, your C-suite, your product design, your vendor relationships, your governance. DEI is a holistic business imperative, not a PR crisis you solve with a handshake from a civil rights leader.
Performative allyship is not strategy. It’s a liability.
Meanwhile, companies with backbone are proving what real commitment looks like:
Costco (2025): 98% of shareholders voted to continue DEI investments. Revenue rose nearly 9% year-over-year (Costco Investor Relations).
Microsoft (2024–2025): Spent over $18B with diverse-owned suppliers, supported 100K+ students through tech programs, digitized civil rights archives, and saw Azure cloud revenue jump 31%.
🧠 Lesson: Courage pays. Capitulation doesn’t just cost—it exposes you.
DEI Is a System Upgrade, Not a Checkbox
DEI is not dead. What’s dying is the illusion that we can lead without reckoning with power, identity, and history.
Audre Lorde wrote:
“I feel, therefore I can be free.”
This wasn’t sentiment—it was strategy. Lorde directly challenged the cold rationalism of Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am.” She knew that feeling, embodiment, and intuition—long dismissed as feminine, racialized, and soft—were not weaknesses. They were power.
Ruha Benjamin builds on this in Race After Technology:
“People are not broken. Systems are.”
You want innovation? Start with belonging.
You want retention? Start with equity.
You want leadership that lasts? Start with liberation.
DEI isn’t about making people more palatable to unjust systems—it’s about designing systems worthy of people.
Liberation Is Operational, Not Optional
DEI isn’t some extracurricular activity to make us feel good after-hours. It’s not a charity project. It’s not spiritual seasoning for your HR strategy.
Liberation isn’t a side hustle. It’s operational.
It’s the freedom to design workplaces that no longer rely on fear, conformity, or silence to function. Where people don’t have to contort themselves to survive. Where creativity thrives. Where risk-taking is safe. Where leadership tells the truth—even when it’s uncomfortable.
Too many leaders—including those with DEI in their titles—treat liberation like it doesn’t belong in business. They act like it’s naïve, niche, or foolish to fight for real change.
But here’s the truth:
If your company isn’t building toward liberation, it’s building toward irrelevance.
Diversity Is a Resilience Strategy
Target’s story is a cautionary tale—not for embracing DEI, but for retreating when challenged.
Nature doesn’t lie. Biodiverse ecosystems are more adaptable, creative, and resistant to collapse. adrienne maree brown writes in Emergent Strategy:
“What we practice at the small scale sets the patterns for the whole system.”
Even landscaping isn’t neutral. In the 20th century, city planners planted mostly male trees in poor and Black neighborhoods to reduce maintenance. But fewer female trees meant no fruit—just pollen. The result? Asthma, allergies, and environmental harm for communities already overburdened.
Scientific American, AAAS, and The Guardian confirm that this “botanical sexism” has health and equity consequences.
Diversity isn’t aesthetic. It’s survival.
Monocultures—whether in forests or boardrooms—collapse under stress.
DEI Fatigue Isn’t About Equity. It’s About Design.
Let’s say it: DEI fatigue is real.
But it’s not because equity is the problem—it’s because the execution has been shallow.
People are tired of:
Corporate lunch-and-learns with no follow-through
Slogans without systems
Token hires instead of power shifts
But when DEI is embedded, data-driven, and tied to strategy?
It doesn’t drain—it energizes.
Fatigue isn’t failure. It’s a signal that people are ready for the real work.
The Real Reason DEI Gets Called “Divisive”
Here’s the most common counterpoint:
“DEI is too political—it divides rather than unites.”
False. DEI only feels divisive when it threatens unexamined power.
DEI isn’t divisive. It’s only uncomfortable if you’re allergic to your own humanity.
When people say “don’t shove it down our throats,” what they mean is “don’t make me confront my own comfort.”
Equity work doesn’t create tension.
It reveals it.
Discomfort Is the Entry Point to Transformation
Harvard research shows that performative DEI—empty trainings, one-offs, optics—backfires. But systemic, long-term DEI initiatives increase retention, innovation, and profit (Harvard Business Review).
If it feels uncomfortable, it’s working.
Non white people can uphold white supremacy.
Women can perpetuate patriarchy.
Queer folks can enforce assimilation.
Why? Because all of us were shaped by the same air. Unless we interrupt that programming, we replicate it.
Pop culture knows. That White Lotus dinner scene? When the father declares white supremacy “inevitable,” he’s not being profound—he’s being cowardly.
If you’re still making excuses, step aside.
Inclusion Isn’t an Initiative—It’s Infrastructure
Power that refuses to share is power that will implode.
Too many companies confuse visibility with transformation:
Hiring a few Black or Brown faces ≠ equity
Launching ERGs ≠ shifting power
These are gestures. Signals. Developmental steps—not destinations.
Corporate culture in the U.S. wasn’t born in boardrooms—it was built on plantations. Hierarchy. Surveillance. Obedience. Disposability. These aren’t outdated relics. They’re the blueprint still embedded in your org chart, your budgeting cycles, your hiring frameworks.
If your “inclusion” strategy doesn’t interrogate that lineage, it’s not inclusion. It’s insulation. A buffer that protects the system from change while pretending to welcome it.
There are no shortcuts.
No plug-and-play equity.
No half-day workshop that will save you from the real work of redistribution, redesign, and accountability.
And yet—transformation is possible.
According to McKinsey (2020):
Gender-diverse companies = 25% more likely to outperform
Ethnically diverse = 36% more likely
Inclusion introduces friction. Friction sparks innovation.
Exclusion isn’t stability—it’s slow collapse.
Inclusion is the infrastructure of resilience.
Systems Don’t Self-Correct. People Do.
Leadership isn’t about credentials. It’s about reflection.
In Viral Justice, Ruha Benjamin says:
“Machines may run on code, but they reflect our values.”
And AI is already proving her right:
Bias doesn’t disappear with automation—it accelerates.
⚠️ Automation without justice is oppression on autopilot.
The Next Generation Isn’t Asking for Permission
DEI has never been done perfectly. But even flawed efforts cracked the door.
And Gen Z? They’re kicking it open.
LA students rallied for inclusive curricula
Kentucky and Florida students staged multi-campus DEI protests
They’re not waiting for permission.
They’re designing the future.
The Data Doesn’t Lie: DEI Delivers
Want proof?
39% higher profitability in companies with gender-diverse executive teams
87% of the time, diverse teams make better decisions (Forbes)
Gen Z sees DEI as non-negotiable—and they walk when it’s missing
This isn’t theory. It’s competitive advantage.
The Mandate: Rewrite the Operating System
DEI is not dead.
What’s dead is the idea that you can lead in the 21st century without reckoning with power, humanity, and history.
Target didn’t lose $12B because of DEI.
It lost it because it betrayed DEI.
CTRL+Adapt exists to offer something better:
We don’t patch broken systems. We rewrite them.
“I feel, therefore I can be free.” —Audre Lorde
If that scares you more than a quarterly loss,
you’re not ready for the future.
Even those who’ve experienced oppression can replicate systems of harm. The question isn’t “Who broke it?”
It’s: “Who’s willing to build something better?”
CTRL+Adapt is for those done watering down truth to protect oppressive comfort.
If you believe in liberation,
discomfort is not a threat—it’s a teacher.
🛠 The work is unfinished.
🚀 The momentum is unstoppable.
DEI is not dead because love, courage, and the pursuit of liberation are still alive.
Build like it.
