One of everyone’s favorite moments in the holiday classic “A Christmas Story” is when Ralphie, the nerdy young protagonist, has finally had enough from the neighborhood bully and fights back.  It always produces a cheer at my house.

I think our Ralphie moment has come for America.  There are so many outrages that could have triggered it, but I’ll go back to when diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, were first vilified as socialism — or worse.  However, it finally culminated for me when our museums were ordered to bury our long history of racism in general and slavery in particular, because they were making certain “good people” feel badly about their white supremacy and their nativist populism, all while blatantly attempting once again to keep everyone with a legal right to vote from having the best opportunity to do so.

So, I’m here to say that I think DEI is not only a good thing, but a highly desirable initiative that we should all be endorsing and promoting whenever and wherever we have the chance.  This country was based on those very aspirations, but lest there be any confusion, let’s take them one at a time.

Diversity is a trait we’ve always embraced, until now.  Apparently, it’s no longer a good thing that we’re a nation of immigrants.  However, consider this:  Even if you arrived in a Spanish galleon 500 years ago and settled Florida and the Southwest, you’re still an immigrant unless you were standing on the beach in a loincloth when the Nina or Pinta first came over the horizon.  

And about 150 years ago, it was the Chinese who did most of the heavy lifting for the transcontinental railroad; and the Irish who fought and died to preserve the Union during the Civil War.  Oh, and I’m pretty sure it was the Africans – whose despicable treatment we’re not supposed to talk about any longer – who arrived here completely against their will and built just about every one of those grand, white buildings in the nation’s capital.  So, let’s get off our high horses and recognize that just because our boat may have arrived on an earlier tide, we don’t have any greater claim to the freedoms and opportunities than any of those currently being singled out for eviction.  If we want to improve the process of becoming a lawful American citizen, then let’s do that instead of breaking the law ourselves.

That brings us to equity, which covers an awful lot of territory, but let’s keep it simple and just say that everyone now among us — however they got here and whether they have all the right papers or not — are entitled by the rule of law to due process and equal protection before being dragged off in the middle of the night and held indefinitely, without a judicially-issued warrant, without specific charges being brought, without bail being set, without the right to an attorney, and without the ability to be brought a judge to determine the legality of all that.  If none of those basic requirements are being safeguarded by the occupants of those white buildings — and they aren’t — then there’s no reason why any of us should be able to sleep at night.

And finally, there’s inclusion.  The weathered green lady who stands at the entrance to New York harbor said to bring forth all manner of us.  That may have referred just to those of different nationalities to begin with — many from eastern Europe in that era — but it includes anyone who hopes for a better life.  Maybe it’s because of dangerous conditions where they came from — or because they don’t look or speak or pray or love the same way others do — or maybe just because of that chance for a better life for their families.  You know, the same ones now enjoying the Sunshine State’s finest accommodations.  If we know our history, we’ll recall the results of many prior efforts to cleanse places of “undesirables” — and that it’s never gone well.  Not in Germany, not in the Middle East, not in Rwanda; not during Joe McCarthy’s efforts in the 1950’s or during our 80 years of Jim Crow.  And more recently, not even in the privacy of our bedrooms.

So, let’s face it head-on.  Being anti-DEI is just listening to a dog whistle promoting the worst inclinations of human behavior.  But just like Ralphie, we can decide instead that we’ve finally had enough and we’re not going to put up with it any longer.

L. Phillips Runyon III has practiced law in Peterborough for more than 50 years and he was the presiding justice of the 8th Circuit Court for 27 years.  His memoir about those years is called “Justice Approximated.”