Asheville's DEI disaster recovery plan rejected (03-14-2025--Hour1)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:29] Alrighty, so let's talk about Asheville, shall we? Let's. The city of Asheville, they put together a disaster recovery plan, as one would do after a disaster, particularly one of such epic, historical, catastrophic dimensions as Hurricane Helene was.

[00:00:52] So they put together their disaster recovery plan, and then, you know, as one does with these types of plans, you submit them to GovCo, and then the federal GovCo people will be like, okay, you know, we're going to fund this thing, and we're going to work with you on that and release the funds for here and whatever.

[00:01:16] But Asheville failed to take into account that there is a new president. There is a new administration. They have a different focus. And one of the things that they are not fans of is the DEI crap, the discrimination stuff.

[00:01:33] And that's what DEI is. It is as, you know, Ibram X. Kendi, the guy who told us how to be an anti-racist, which is to discriminate, right? The only remedy for past discrimination is current discrimination, which doesn't ever really explain how you break free of a discrimination cycle.

[00:01:55] And the reason why that is never explained is because that is not the objective. The objective is to simply achieve power, because this is all neo-Marxist ideology, and neo-Marxism is all based on power dynamics. Marxism is, right? It's all based on power dynamics, who's the oppressed and who is the oppressor.

[00:02:17] And that's why everything gets filtered through that kind of a lens, because it's all just power dynamics to these people. And so if I'm going to be more powerful, it means I have to take it from you. This is why I firmly believe Marxism at its core is simply a philosophy of envy, which is one of the seven deadly sins. It is evil. Envy is evil.

[00:02:44] When you envy the station of other people, you envy what they have, you envy their jobs or their wives or whatever, right? This is evil. And so that's why it is my firm belief that Marxism is at its core evil. And all the different manifestations of it, permutations that they dress up every generation, they figure out a different way to dress up Marxism as something else,

[00:03:11] whether it's through, you've heard the term watermelon. This is climate change stuff. Green, the greenies, right? It's a watermelon. Green on the outside, red on the inside.

[00:03:29] Green, the greenies, right?

[00:03:54] Green, the greenies, right? That's the idea. It's this pitting of different classes against each other. So whether you dress it up in environmental justice or social justice or whatever, education justice, equity, whatever you are dressing it up, it's always the same core philosophy, envy, because that's what Marxism is.

[00:04:17] So the new administration comes in and they're like, we are not going to be using people's immutable characteristics like their race or their ethnicity. We're not going to be giving people preferential treatment based on skin color, which when I grew up, that's what the goal was. Everybody understood that this was the goal, right?

[00:04:44] That we wanted to judge individuals by the content of their character, right? Not the color of their skin. And so who you are as a person matters more than what your skin pigmentation is or what your religion is. I mean, as long as you're not using that religion to justify beheadings and stuff, you know, I mean, within limitations. But still, like these are things, your ethnicity, your national country of origin.

[00:05:12] These are things that you had no control over. So we shouldn't judge you based on that. I should judge you based on the content of your character. So they're getting rid of the DEI stuff. Apparently, the city of Asheville did not get that memo. I guess so ensconced in their liberal bubble. They were not aware. I don't know how that happened, but apparently they were not aware. And they sent in their disaster recovery plan to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

[00:05:42] And it happened to include a bunch of DEI crap in it. And so they were told, yeah, you're going to have to take that out. The HUD secretary, Scott Turner, took issue with a section that detailed how Asheville would support, as the Charlotte Observer calls it, vulnerable populations. See, that's how this is the way.

[00:06:05] So one of the other things you always got to keep in mind with the left is that they corrupt language in order to advance, to smuggle in their ideology. Most people would reject any proposal that came down the line and said, hey, for example, we want $15 million for small businesses, but we would very much like to discriminate against white males.

[00:06:35] They're not going to get any money. If you're a white dude or a white woman, you're not getting any money. We're discriminating against you. Most people, when they hear it like that, they would be like, oh, well, wait a minute. That doesn't sound right. That doesn't sound legal. That doesn't sound, dare I say it, fair. Because it's not fair, right? Because you're judging somebody based on an immutable characteristic. You're penalizing somebody's access to disaster recovery money based on the color of their skin.

[00:07:04] That is discriminatory. So they don't call it discrimination, as the observer dutifully pumps it out, to support vulnerable populations. Right? And this is what the E, equity, that's what this is about.

[00:07:23] It's about using race, using religion, using gender, using ethnicity, whatever, using these different characteristics of people and using them against certain populations in order to give an extra little boost to some other population. Right? Historically marginalized. You hear that too. The section stated in this plan, it said the city will prioritize assistance for minority and women-owned businesses.

[00:07:54] This has been the challenge with these MWB programs for decades. I remember the big fight over the city of Charlottes. They had one that was challenged, and before they could get their butts handed to them in court, they scrapped their program and created a different program where they try to mask what it is that they are doing. Right? So they get the pushback.

[00:08:20] Turner, the HUD secretary, says this incorporated DEI criteria to prioritize some impacted residents over others. The release, the press release from HUD, said that it had advised the city of Asheville that its plan was unsatisfactory and would not be approved in its original form. The city of Asheville assured the department it would update the plan to be in compliance.

[00:08:52] So did they do it? All right. If you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do, too. And you've probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources. Why? Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with Ground News. It's an app, and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information.

[00:09:17] You can check it out at check.ground.news. I put the link in the podcast description, too. I started using Ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The Blind Spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check.ground.news.com.

[00:09:44] Subscribe through that link, and you'll get 15% off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Let's go over to the phone lines and chat with Randall. Hello, Randall. Hey, Pete. How you doing? Hey, I am all right, sir. What's going on? Pete, I just wish someone would tell the truth about DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion.

[00:10:15] Most times when people talk about it, it makes it seem like it's a black thing. You know, that blacks are the fakes of those three letters. When in actuality, if they were just looking at research, they'd find out that the people that benefit the most from DEI are white women and Asians. Black people are at the very bottom of marginalized people. So what is the evidence, what's your evidence to support that claim?

[00:10:45] What do you mean by what's my evidence? What is your evidence to support that claim? You claim that white women and Asians, because like, let me just take the second part of it. And I like the Asian benefit, I think, is greatly reduced by the fact that they are actually cut out of opportunities, particularly at the college level. Right?

[00:11:12] This is why Harvard got sued over affirmative action. It was Asian students that couldn't get into Harvard, even though they had better scores than everybody else. They were not getting admitted. And it was based on their race. So I don't know if they're the biggest beneficiaries of these DEI types of programs.

[00:11:32] As for white women, I am aware that white women and just women in general will be sort of like the owner of a business on paper, you know, even though their husband might actually be the one who runs the business. And this way they can get contracts with city governments, for example, as a woman-owned business, even though they are not really running the business. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:57] But unfortunately, I didn't write down where I got the information from, where the study was done, where they kept track of DEI and who actually benefits from it. But my thing is that once you hear those three letters, that acronym, the first thing you think about is black people going into places where they're unqualified. They're being pushed ahead of everyone else. When unfortunately, that's not true. So, you know, it's sort of average person really don't understand DEI and how it operates.

[00:12:26] I know about that thing you were talking about, about where the Asians were not being admitted into the Harvard School of Business or Harvard University. But that's more or less an isolated case. That's not isolated. That's why they went all the way to the Supreme Court. It wasn't just Harvard. It was a whole bunch of schools. And that led to the dismantling of the program because it was so, dare I say, systemically ingrained that they were cutting Asian students.

[00:12:54] Because Asian students have, on average, much higher scores, academic scores, than any other racial group. You're exactly right. Right. And so they were outperforming all of their peers and schools didn't want to keep admitting, you know, 99% of the student body being Asian or whatever it was. And so they would just cut them. And it was based on race. So that's not allowed. You're not, I mean, unless you're going to make an argument to me that you should be doing it.

[00:13:23] And, well, I will. So let me just say this because you made a comment about hearing DEI and equating it with the race. I don't equate DEI policies with a particular race because it's going, just like the two examples I just gave you, one with Asians and one with women, it's just going to depend on how the policies are being implemented at whatever level it's being implemented, whether it's at a business, if it's at a government level, right?

[00:13:50] If you're, if you are, this is to me what DEI always comes down to. It is discriminatory. And that can manifest itself in many different ways, just depending on what the organization is that's doing the discrimination. Right. And I agree. But what I'm saying is I wasn't necessarily saying that you equate it with race. I'm saying that when the average person hears the word DEI, the face of that word is a black person or a black race.

[00:14:19] And that is not true. That's what I'm trying to get across. So I don't, yeah, I don't know if it's true or not. That's why I asked if you had any evidence for the claim, because I don't know if it is true or, or not. I don't know who benefit, like if we're looking at, if we're going to sort people into racial demographics to find out who has been the largest beneficiary of DEI programs or something like, maybe somebody has quantified that. I don't know, but I haven't, I've never seen that. So I don't know. Okay. Well, what I'll do at some other point is something at a later time.

[00:14:50] I'll get the information and when I call back, I'll have the fact of where I got it from, who said it, and then we'll go from there. No, that'd be great. Yeah, Randall, if you're able to, like if you know where or you're able to easily find where you got the data point from or the study or whatever, if you want to send me an email or you can call back in. But if you send me an email and tell me where to look for it, I'll go, I'll go track it down if I can. Okay.

[00:15:17] Yeah, because I'd be interested to know what the actual impact of the policies have been, because it may turn out that you're exactly right. And that I think would be a surprise to people to find out like if specifically white women have been the largest beneficiaries of DEI programs. But I, but I don't know that to be true or false. Okay. Yeah. What I'll do is I will get that information and I will email it to you. All right. Cool. Thanks, Randall. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for taking my call. Yes, sir. Have a great weekend. All right. I appreciate it.

[00:15:47] Um, yeah, because like I know with, uh, with the DEI stuff, there was a Robin DiAngelo's white fragility, right? Book. Remember that five years ago? Oh, it was all the rage. All the book clubs were reading it. White privilege, white fragility, all of that. And, um, white women took the brunt of that stuff, but they were also doing a lot of that stuff against their fellow white women. So that's what I mean.

[00:16:15] I don't like, I never checked. I never went through looking at the demographic, uh, uh, scorecard here to find out who was up, who was down, who, you know, all of this. Because to me, once you start, uh, justifying any kind of discrimination, you're already down the wrong path. And it doesn't matter to me what kind of discrimination you're doing if you're doing it based on anything other than merit. They either can pass the physical test to get into the fire department or they cannot, right? Like, that's it.

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[00:19:56] Got a message from Daryl who says, Marxists not only envy, they covet. They don't want the same thing you have. They want what you have. That is true, too. So I also just saw this. Let me see here. When did it come down? 11-17. So about an hour and a half ago. The White House put out a statement. The Department of...

[00:20:25] Or actually, the Rapid Response Team, their comms department, put out a statement that the Department of Education has opened investigations into 45 universities under Title VI for alleged impermissible use of race exclusionary preferences, race-based scholarships, and or race-based segregation.

[00:20:52] Arizona State, Boise State, Cal Poly, Humboldt, California State University, San Bernardino, Carnegie Mellon, Clemson, Cornell, Duke, Emory, George Mason, Georgetown, MIT, Montana State University, Bozeman, NYU, Rice University, Rutgers University, The Ohio State University, Towson, Tulane,

[00:21:18] University of Arkansas Fayetteville, UC Berkeley, University of Chicago, University of Cincinnati, University of Colorado at Colorado. Well, that makes sense. Like, why would you need to say University of Colorado at Colorado? Anyway, University of Delaware, University of Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska,

[00:21:45] New Mexico, North Dakota, North Texas, Notre Dame, UNLV, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, Wisconsin, Madison, Wyoming, Vanderbilt, Washington State University, Washington University in St. Louis, Yale.

[00:22:08] The schools under investigation for alleged impermissible race-based scholarships and race-based segregation are Grand Valley University, Ithaca College, that's in New York, New England College of Optometry. Missouri, wow, it's just weird they didn't see that coming. Sorry. It's up. Okay, never mind.

[00:22:34] Alabama, Minnesota, South Florida, and Tulsa School of Medicine. Okay, so just by coincidence, we were talking with Randall about these types of policies and how they're being used to discriminate. And so it's not just a one-off, it wasn't just Harvard with their race-based admissions programs, there were other schools, and now you can see, like, they've got 45 universities that used

[00:23:03] race-exclusionary preferences. And these are now under investigation. Now, we don't know. Like, they could all be fishing expeditions. Maybe every single one of these colleges is innocent. I would be surprised at that. So the city of Asheville puts together its disaster recovery plan. I don't know if they tried to sneak in a $15 million chunk of disaster recovery money

[00:23:32] for DEI businesses or something. I don't know if they tried to sneak it past the feds, but either way, the feds caught them. And they're like, no, we're not going to approve your plan because it's got these DEI preferences in there. HUD put out a statement saying that it advised Asheville that its plan was unsatisfactory

[00:24:00] and would not be approved in its original form. The city of Asheville assured the department it would update its plan to be in compliance. And the secretary of HUD, Scott Turner, said, once again, let me be clear, DEI is dead at HUD. We will not provide funding to any program or grantee that does not comply with President Trump's executive orders.

[00:24:27] On March 10th, the city of Asheville released a revised version of the recovery plan. The updated plan states that the small business support program is, quote, intended to support all businesses, including those that employ low and moderate income individuals and vulnerable populations. Okay, so I don't know if that's going to be enough for HUD or what, but I will tell you,

[00:24:57] this is a familiar tactic. We saw it with CMS when the courts said that CMS was no longer racist-y and they didn't need to keep using race to bus students. This was about 25 years ago. And so CMS devised a different way to get the same results that they were looking to get. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences.

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[00:26:24] I will get back to the CMS example momentarily. First, let me jump over here and get Joe on the program. Hello, Joe. Hey, how are you doing today? I'm good. What's going on? Well, number one, did you see the red moon last night? I did, actually, yes. Yeah, it's pretty impressive. So what I'm calling about is, you know, it's DEI and everything. One has to remember, I'm a retired doctor, surgeon, worked at a large university, you know, medical school.

[00:26:53] My son does now, too. And back in the 19, you know, there was difference in the MCAT scores that you had to take depending upon your ethnicity. And some of the MCAT scores, depending on your ethnicity, you only had to score two-thirds as high as some other groups of ethnic origin in order to be taken care of. And the thing I find interesting is when I used to talk to my friends that are Jewish, a lot

[00:27:22] of the discrimination and stuff that happened in the 50s in those schools that are now doing it to Asians and other places or other humans did it back in then. And so the interesting thing is, is that even though everybody's aware of it now, it has been existing in certain areas for a very, very long time in certain professions. Sure. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I remember, I'm trying to, what was it, School Ties, I think, was the movie I saw with

[00:27:52] Brendan Fraser a long time ago where he was a Jewish kid at some, you know, preppy academy or whatever, and there was, you know, rampant anti-Semitism there. Obviously, the discrimination against black Americans for, you know, a hundred years plus. Like, that's, yeah, it's, these are all dark parts of our history. But I thought when I was growing up, the point was that we were supposed to move away from

[00:28:18] those things because we recognize them as inherently bad, that we don't judge people based on those things. Right. Well, the interesting thing is, is that it all gets back, and maybe you don't agree, with the family unit as to how the family unit raises their children as to educational possibilities and what they want to do in the future. Because if the family unit breaks down, whether it be religious or rather ethical or regular

[00:28:46] morals, then you have whole generations that are not going to be as motivated as other generations. Yeah. Well, I mean, people only know what they know, right? You know, if they're taught, you know, a certain norm in their family, in their neighborhood, in their school, among their peers, then they're only going to follow that as the norm because that's what they were taught.

[00:29:11] And the sad thing is that maybe, again, you don't agree in some of the listeners, but the internet and social media is definitely dumbing down humans. Yes. Yeah. No, it's hard to argue with any of that either. Joe, I appreciate the call, sir. Yeah. Take care. All right. Yes, sir. Take care. Yeah. This kind of discriminatory practice has been going on for a very long time. And so when I read the story about Asheville with its, you know, disaster recovery plan,

[00:29:39] where they try to smuggle in some DEI funding, and they got called out for it by the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, HUD. And they were like, we're not going to approve your plan because it's got this money in there for DEI. So they're like, oh, okay. So we'll release a revision to the plan. And now the money is intended to support all businesses, including those that employ low and moderate income individuals and vulnerable populations. Okay.

[00:30:08] And when I read that, I start thinking that it shares a similarity with the way the Charlotte Mecklenburg School District behaved about 25 years ago when I first was a reporter here at WBT. And I was like one of the very first press conferences I ever covered for this station was at the Ed Shed, CMS Board of Education. And they were in litigation. They were getting this.

[00:30:35] The district was being sued over its busing, its desegregation busing program. And the school district's argument was that we cannot be trusted to fund all schools equally. We're racists, which was interesting because a majority of the school board was black. And so they were like, don't trust us. We have to have the race-based busing.

[00:31:00] The court said, no, you have removed the last vestiges of racism from the institution, from CMS. We are not going to bind you to this busing program any longer. And so now you can assign students to wherever. Well, a lot of the leadership did not want to do that. So they used as a proxy socioeconomic status.

[00:31:24] And so they wanted to keep busing based on socioeconomic status because it was a proxy for race. It wasn't a, you know, 100% one-to-one, but it was close enough. And that's what they wanted to keep doing. So they will keep trying to find ways to keep these kinds of discriminatory practices in play. And I kind of get the sense that that is what the city of Asheville might be trying to do here.

[00:31:50] Now, the city, they've got three public sessions planned to allow the public to give input on the plan before it must be submitted on April 21st. I suspect that those public hearings will not look or sound like the public hearing town hall that we just saw in Asheville yesterday with Congressman Chuck Edwards. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast.

[00:32:20] So if you'd like, please support them, too, and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecalendershow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening. And don't break anything while I'm gone.