Baltimore County Fire Department Chief James W. Wallace provides updates on the collapse and while Maryland Governor Wes Moore and Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott (far right) listen.
By Mary Sanchez
Tribune Content Agency
The world has now watched the stunning footage of the collapse in looping video feeds. The expansive bridge broke apart like a child’s toy. The trusses appeared to crumble like an Erector Set, crashing into the water below.
Just as quickly, the worst of America reacted. They displayed some disturbing thought patterns, ideas that are being shaped by a wide range of cable news hosts, rightwing politicians, and everyday keyboard pounders.
Unfortunately, we can look to Baltimore for an indication of just how shrill, nativist, and let’s just say it, plain old racist, this election season is poised to become.
This is no slight on Maryland, its people, or its political leadership.
The angry hordes throughout the country, always on alert, sniffed a new target and pounced.
Here is a taste of what swept through the Internet not long after the Dali cargo ship struck the bridge:
“BREAKING: Shipping company responsible for Bridge Collapse in Baltimore has EXTENSIVE Gender Diversity and DEI hiring practices and CEO awards to prove it!!”
If you’re sane, rational and reasonable, you might wonder why widely practiced business efforts were cited at that moment.
Rather than thinking about what might possibly have caused a vessel that large to lose power, the foolish reached for these strains sweeping through school boards and statehouses, the same voices that have stripped public funds from any efforts around DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion).
DEI is a nod to achieving workforce diversity. It acknowledges that indeed humans are born into multiple races and ethnicities. But no, it is not to be tolerated, or so goes the backward thinking of its opponents.
Somehow the link was made that the crash surely had something to do with the DEI efforts of the company connected to the ship.
Never mind that a group of Latino immigrants, road construction workers, who were repairing potholes when the bridge collapsed, had already perished. They would become fodder in the coming days, with some people posing questions about their legal status and more surmising about the “horrors” of our increasingly diverse nation.
In those first few hours, the fact that the ship was owned by Grace Ocean Private Ltd and flew a Singapore flag raised red flags for many online trolls: Singapore = foreign = Asian = bad.
Any negative incident, an accident and not, is now subject to this type of insanity. In reality, the massive cargo ship is simply a reflection of global commerce, the supply chains that fuel our economy.
According to the Associated Press, the Dali was built by a South Korean firm, Hyundai Heavy Industries, and had been chartered by a Danish firm to travel from Baltimore to Sri Lanka. The massive vessel had passed an inspection in Chile after some repairs in June of 2023. The U.S. Coast Guard inspected it in September and approved it for operation.
Understanding these factors, illustrative of the inter-related and multiple layers of international governance that impact trade routes, apparently isn’t nearly as interesting to these sleuths, who love to weave complicated conspiracy theories. Those efforts geared up when the ship’s black boxes were recovered and the National Transportation Safety Board had barely begun what will be an exhaustive yearlong study to dissect the incident.
But wait, there’s more!
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott was swiftly labeled the “DEI mayor” in social media slams posted after the crash. He’s a Black man. Some blamed him for the crash. Shortly after the collapse, Scott appeared alongside Maryland Governor Wes Moore at a press conference and was ridiculed because he wasn’t wearing a spiffy suit at the time, in the early morning hours.
Even worse, some GOP candidates for office around the nation jumped in, somehow twisting the incident to imply that it happened because Scott is Black.
The following day, March 28, Scott spoke strongly in an interview with MSNBC:“But they don’t have the courage to say the N-word, and the fact that I don’t believe in their untruthful and wrong ideology, and I am very proud of my heritage and who I am and where I come from, scares them,” he said.
DEI has been stricken by the same fate as CRT before it, which stands for Critical Race Theory. Critics use the acronyms as a shorthand for racial slurs.
GOP Utah gubernatorial candidate Phil Lyman outdid himself. Rep. Lyman – yes, people have already foolishly voted him into elected office – pointed a finger at a Black woman, the Maryland port commissioner. He posted on social media the following: “This is what happens when you have Governors who prioritize diversity over the wellbeing and security of citizens.”
He later added: “DEI=DIE.”
The Francis Scott Key Bridge fell with shocking swiftness, a calamity created at least in part because cargo ships have massively increased in size in recent decades and sail by bridges built in different eras.
Engineering experts will pinpoint the causes, complicating factors and accurately place blame, if blame is due.
As for America, we must begin challenging what is happening to our discourse, fairness, and the respect we should show to our fellow Americans.
Calling out the madness is the first step.
The ease with which people reach for such racist diatribe is galling. The attacks are swift. But repairing the damage will take far longer.
Readers can reach Mary Sanchez at msanchezcolumn@gmail.com and follow her on Twitter @msanchezcolumn.
©2024 Mary Sanchez. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
