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By Lewis Morris

Leftists love to manipulate language. Just like Beelzebub himself, they use language to trick people into giving them what they want without even realizing the damage people are doing to themselves, their freedoms, and their society.

Take the latest buzzword “equity,” for example. Until fairly recently, equity was a concept attached to real estate and property ownership. But, in case you hadn’t noticed, it has become an oft-repeated word regarding race, virtually replacing the word “equality” altogether. No one on the Left is talking about equality anymore. Instead, they’re talking about equity.

When did equity slip into the lexicon and become so pervasive and penetrating a concept? Equity is a byproduct of Critical Race Theory, the belief that race is not a biological construct but a weapon wielded by whites to create a society that is inherently and deliberately racist from top to bottom. It perpetuates tribal concepts that divide Americans into groups based on their skin color, and it pushes an anti-American, anti-Western mindset that sees all our institutions as systemically racist. According to CRT, even concepts like achievement, hard work, and discipline are tricks of whites to oppress blacks.

CRT is utter hogwash, and former President Donald Trump did his best to squelch it by preventing it from being used in federal “diversity” training programs. But President Joe Biden is all about equity, and he reversed this stance upon taking office. His administration has assured us that every agency of the federal government will now be getting into the “diversity” business.

“We need to make the issue of racial equity not just an issue for any one department of government,” Biden said. “It has to be the business of the whole of government.”

Yikes.

Tracing equity’s origins is not as difficult as trying to define the concept itself. Equity is a nebulous term with a meaning that can change at the whim of whoever is embracing it. And that is perfect for the Left, where moving goal posts has become something of an art.

“Equity is a term that has no meaning,” explains Shelby Steele, senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, “but it’s one that gives blacks power and leverage in American life. We can throw it around at any time, and wherever it lands, it carries this stigma that somebody’s a bigot.”

Equality as a concept fell out of favor with leftists in large part because it is quantifiable, and they didn’t like what it was measuring. Equality can be measured in terms of the economic viability of blacks, how many college degrees they have earned, the type of jobs they hold, and so forth. This is good, until it is discovered that the lack of equality between whites and blacks doesn’t necessarily indicate racism.

“Inequality may be the result of blacks not standing up to the challenges that they face, not taking advantage of the equality that has been bestowed on them,” explains Steele. He points out that affirmative action and diversity did not do the work they were intended to do, noting that blacks now have lower measures compared to whites in education, income, marriage, and so forth than they did before the civil rights movement.

For this reason, equality no longer works for the race hustlers. In their quest to deconstruct America by blaming everything on the so-called “white power” structure, leftists cannot accept that some of the reasons for blacks not achieving equality may rest with blacks themselves. So, rather than ditch outdated and unfair concepts like racial quotas and preferences, the whole idea of equality has to go. In its place comes equity, which means literally whatever the Left wants it to mean in any given situation.

Equity will not solve racial differences any better than affirmative action or racial quotas. All equity can do, all it was designed to do, is stir more racial animosity and white guilt. So be especially wary if someone comes to you in search of equity. As Steele said, “If you hear me using the word ‘equity,’ I’m shaking you down.”