Just personally, in the last four years:
1) The acting Dean at my law school held a struggle session where white people declared they were “white supremacists”
2) My kids’ school adopted racially segregated affinity groups. My daughter was invited to go to the weekly “black girl magic” lunch once a month (because I guess half south Asian = quarter black in the DEI hierarchy). Following that lead, a kid tried to kick my daughter out of a group chat for her circle of friends by making it black-kids only.
3) I’ve had coworkers ask if I count as “diverse” for purposes of a client contract and have had to perform diversity jigs during client meetings.
I’m not even going to list all the alienating behaviors from overly empathetic but deeply ignorant white people—the likes of which I never encountered living in a nearly all white town in the 1990s.
For the avoidance of doubt, I 100% agree that right-wing media is telling a lot of outright lies and you pointed out some good examples. However, I have seen left-leaning criticise tokenism in companies' DEI efforts. Philosophy Tube and Unlearning Economics are 2 examples off the top of my head.
> Investigations of the form "what actually happened here, who was actually responsible, what should have been done differently, and what could be done differently in the future" simply get destroyed by very loud demands for racially discriminatory violence, culminating in rioters trying to burn people alive in a hotel.
I disagree with this because I feel it misrepresents the riots this summer as a genuine expression of rage. It was not. It was organised violence by hardcore Nazis and football hooligans bussed in from Stoke to smash up a job centre in Sunderland and attempt to murder women and children.
This is .. certainly something that might be happening, but it's also something that a lot of people are lying about. It's become increasingly difficult to find out what actually happened once it's been filtered through media, social media, activists, and algorithmic propaganda.
What happens if every single instance of "DEI overreach" is overreported, but incidents of actual racism aren't?
> slammed by left leaning media for taking positions to address the public’s concerns in a way that’s more thoughtful that how the Tories were handling it, as the far right in the country has toxified the issue for them.
Again, something a lot of people are lying or selectively reporting about. Which is why it's become toxic in the first place. You could occasionally see the same people who were complaining about Rotherham not being investigated complain when other allegations of sexual assault were being investigated ("cancel culture"). Or not investigated, such as the Met police rapist.
Investigations of the form "what actually happened here, who was actually responsible, what should have been done differently, and what could be done differently in the future" simply get destroyed by very loud demands for racially discriminatory violence, culminating in rioters trying to burn people alive in a hotel.