With the New Year now in full swing, we should expect a ritual popularized by the anti-diversity crowd. It will be an echo of a conversation about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that took place two years ago — an absurd exchange between two business moguls.
I refer to the 2024 Martin Luther King Jr. holiday discussion between the New York financier Bill Ackman and another controversial billionaire, Elon Musk. NBC News then reported that Ackman described the “DEI movement” as an ideology that ran counter to the tenets of MLK’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. Let’s ignore, for now, the characterization of DEI as a movement or ideology — rather than a talent-recruitment practice. Ackman’s assertion, which has been characteristic of other anti-DEI advocates, had focused exclusively on the “content of their character” quote from Dr. King’s iconic address.
That oligarch exchange illustrates the cherry-picking fallacy in anti-DEI testaments. The cherry-picking fallacy occurs when someone selects only the evidence or anecdotes that support their argument, while ignoring a broader, more complex picture. In the context of DEI, anti-diversity critics often spotlight a single utterance of someone who is Black, such as Dr. King, and typically take a statement out of context.
Yet, stupidity is neither conservative nor progressive. And no amount of wealth buys the right to rewrite oral history.
Ackman and others fail to note that MLK’s speech also indicted the American legacy of systemic racism and inequality. In that same address, King had spoken metaphorically of the “bad check” issued to Black Americans and how the nation defaulted on its “promissory note” guaranteeing effective freedom. Many would argue that Black people are still waiting for the country to make good on that bounced check. Many would also attest that, in 2025, the federal government raided the metaphorical bank where Blacks, women, and other communities of color have stored their limited progress — while working to deposit more.
Nonetheless, the posture of these anti-DEI cherry pickers is uniformly uncompromising. If they identify any instances of DEI that may have been poorly implemented, no measure of reform or correction will appease them. If a single tooth in the mouth of diversity should have a cavity, their response is to rip out every tooth.
Too Many Fallacy Cherries to Pick
But do not think that I have cherry-picked the Ackman-Musk exchange as an isolated example of this logic failure. Search the public record for more of Ackman’s statements on the issue: You will find at least one or two more. Unfortunately, he is not alone. Thus, I cite this small sampling of contortions of King’s testament:
- Sarah Huckabee Sanders. After the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders celebrated the decision by tweeting King’s famous line about judging people by character, framing the ruling as aligned with MLK’s dream. Critics noted this interpretation ignores King’s advocacy for systemic remedies to racial inequality. The invocation of MLK’s classic quote is cited without reference to the totality of MLK’s advocacy.
There appears to be a pattern here. This is not critical thinking; it’s more akin to idiocy. All of these incidents illustrate a selective use of King’s words to oppose race-conscious policies. Meanwhile, they ignore his broader calls for economic justice. However, Musk’s sentiments are potentially the most threatening, given his dominant presence in the nation’s AI and technology infrastructure.
If anti-DEI assertions infect social media and AI algorithms, much less are rocketed by SpaceX into outer space, the country risks an Orwellian nightmare where fallacious thinking and outright bigotry rule. (If ever there were a need for Afrofuturism’s perspectives, it is to confront this potential for techno-tyranny.)
Toward Honest Dialogue
Thus, our response is pretty simple: We must recognize that this cherry-picking of Dr. King is an attempt to exercise power — subjugating power. It is comparable to how 19th-century plantation owners (the oligarchs of their era) selectively used passages from the Bible, such as Genesis and Ephesians, to justify the horrors of slavery. Conveniently, the pro-abolition portions of Christian scripture were ignored as those antebellum oligarchs spoke with forked tongues — similar to that serpent featured in the Garden of Eden.
So, is this cherry-picking ritual mere stupidity or something devilish? Or both? Regardless, Trump’s Justice Department is now threatening corporate diversity initiatives.
Hence, we are obliged to challenge the interpretations of DEI opponents. We do so by remembering that “context is king” — particularly when quoting Dr. King. Just as context is required when using generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, it also applies to exposing the deceitful duncery of cherry-picking. We should insist that the King-quoters acknowledge the full context of MLK’s canon of social commentary. We should demand that anti-DEI provocateurs “prompt” themselves, as a chatbot would, for the holistic frame of reference of the cherry-picked claim.
Accordingly, the debate over DEI should be rooted in honest, comprehensive analysis — not selective storytelling and the performance theater of the purportedly color-blind. We must recognize the cherry-picking fallacy for what it is: a rhetorical device that distracts from the ongoing work to build a fairer society.
So, by rejecting this fallacy and demanding nuance, we can move toward solutions that benefit the economy. America needs human capital from all its demographics. That should not be a radical aspiration.
Nevertheless, another MLK holiday will soon arrive. So be prepared for more stupidity and another cherry-picking fest.
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G. Lamont Blackstone has led talent diversity initiatives as a volunteer in New York and nationally for organizations such as the Urban Bankers Coalition, African-American Real Estate Professionals of New York, and Project REAP. He is the former chief investment officer of the first national equity investment fund to target inner-city neighborhoods.