US companies spent $8 billion on DEI initiatives in 2020: report

A MSNBC report said that companies spent $8 billion on "diversity and inclusion" programs in 2020. 

In a clip from the Mehdi Hasan Show - whose Sunday night show was recently canceled by MSNBC - Hasan said the spending on DEI for US companies in 2020 was $8 billion, in an interview with Robin DiAngelo.

The clip, posted by Mythinformed on X, has resurfaced amidst national debate over the topic surrounding Claudine Gay's resignation at Harvard and Bill Ackman slamming DEI on X.  

The full interview of DiAngelo in 2021 on Hasan's show, labeled, "Why White Progressives are Part of the Problem" on YouTube touched on DEI, Critical Race Theory, and other topics. 

Hasan asked DiAngelo about her book, which she had just published at the time, "Nice Racism," and what it had to do with corporations spending money on DEI and race workshops.  

Hasan asked DiAngelo about whether or not the spending on DEI workshops actually works and if the large spending would rather be giving companies "racism get out of jail free" cards.  

"Well, I don't think it does work if it's not sustained and consistent. So, if it's a one-time thing - a check the box kind of approach - it's not going to keep going. It has to be sustained," DiAngelo said. "I really would have us question why we think there would be a simple answer or solution. We can take this workshop - or we should be able to take this workshop - and figure out something as perennially complex and deep and enduring and highly adaptive as racism." 

DiAngelo then went on to say that racism has adapted and transformed into "voter suppression" and "laws enacted that say you can't acknowledge that racism exists" or "teach the history of the civil rights movement." 

DiAngelo called racism a "moving target" that has to be constantly addressed by racial training. She then endorsed "affinity groups" as an advanced technique to use in DEI trainings, in which people are separated according to race because there "are aspects" of DEI that need to be done "separately."