Julius and I; a Retelling of “DisappEarIng: A Harvard Mystery” and Reflection on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Politics  

by Abdul Malik Mohammed

Mocking the plight of the many families dealing with missing loved ones will never be a tasteful endeavor. At least, it should never be. Drawing away from pertinent conversations, especially the welfare of actual missing people, is equally distasteful. We did not intend nor seek to mock or distract in making our film.  

Nevertheless, Julius Ewungkem Jr., a gifted filmmaker who freshly graduated from Harvard University (and one of my best friends), chose to risk being distasteful for the sake of sharing a message. A message that hit close to home for both of us. With me as his partner in crime, we marketed “DisappEarIng: A Harvard Mystery” on various social media to our friends, family, and followers. We sought to deceive them into intrigue, however awkward it is to admit. Taking the likeness of our friend Nathenael Hundie and molding it into the vanished, hair-oil-crazed  Joseph “RJ” Rhodes, we understood the work was cheap. Emphasis on cheap; the blow cost us broke graduates zero dollars. Nevertheless, the work was good for our first short film. Most importantly, it felt meaningful. With this film, we sought to communicate the misconception we believe many have with “DEI” and critique the national obsession with it as a driving force behind the failure of neoliberal institutions and modern social turmoil. 

With a bias and pride in our work, I perceive our effort as worth it. To be fair, how else does one tell and market a story of a missing person without cosplaying the realities of missing people? In this essay, I seek to justify this cosplaying with a thematic premise: missing people reflect the missing recognition of hard-working persons from minority communities. Our efforts are rendered futile and unseen under the shade of superficial diversity, equity, and inclusion. Like a missing person, we are identifiable only by our attributes flattened on two-dimensional pages of image and text. Instead of the police station, we settled for admissions offices– thankfully, but at a cost. Like missing people, our narratives are constructed by everyone other than ourselves. We are explained from the top down and propagated as images for the sake of being helped. But missing people are literally missing. There is a tangible utility in propagating their image: finding them. Fortunately, we are not lost or missing. We are blessed enough to be present and bear the fruits of some privilege bestowed upon us by our associations. However, we are treated as invisible with our worth unrecognizable.

The propagation of the DEI image does not hold the same utility for a missing person. It simply draws eyes toward classification and away from the person standing authentically before them. More dangerously, it results in the artificial culpability of those who have been historically overlooked for the failure of a status quo enforced by a Western elite. Propagated into propaganda. To blame the “DEI” for the faults of power structures has become a recent, incomprehensible trend. Candidly, I will never forgive the politicization of targeting those with scarce opportunities with a path to succeed at the expense of their talented people. “DisappEarIng: A Harvard Mystery” is a comedic reconciliation of this truth. 

For starters, Julius and I are both first-generation Americans from West African countries: Cameroon and Ghana, respectively. We are both black men living the Western experience from multicultural-urban lenses, he from Bethlehem, PA and I from Harlem. Also, we are both privileged and savvy enough to have made our way through Harvard. During our senior spring, Julius was bent on making a project that communicated a largely relatable message. There was so much going on at the time—it was a perfectly reasonable ambition. Our yard was undergoing an encampment that called for divestments and condemnation of Israel’s war in Palestine; random strangers villainously parked their doxxing trucks in the center of campus to expose their adversaries in the discussion. Our professors were being plastered all over campus for repressing their sexual assault allegations. Their peers even wrote letters defending them before their shameful retractions. The Supreme Court was striking down liberties as if recently equipped with lightning bolts; with abortion rights went the affirmative action I am wearily grateful for my matriculation. Our first black President was just predated and mauled by her academic and political opponents on the international stage. Our new interim was a bureaucrat who bamboozled the aforementioned encampment after threatening the commencement of their seniors. Our spring semester was filled with things to talk about. 

Julius and I would often chat about the troubling times in our common room. Overwhelmed, we would drift off and speak to the feeling of “selling one’s soul” to a corporation with our service at the expense of our morale, an impending question before graduating. Outside of our Faustian deliberations, we would talk about the nuanced differences within our similar characters to bring the best critic and man out the other, clowning in between. Our sparring catalyzed a joke on our former Harvard president’s name; Claudine Gay = Claw-dine Gay ∝ Paw-line Straight = Pauline Straight. Childishly, we felt we struck gold. 

But then we took our joke too seriously and developed it into a serious script that reflected the times we were in. Why was the real counterpart of our “Pauline Straight” ousted from her brand new seat? Decades-old plagiarism she would rather resign for than stain the prestige of her title. Plagiarism that when investigated for more than a minute can be seen as little more than poor citation. Plagiarism in a form that one can bank on finding in any of Claudine Gay’s peers’ academic collections. What did Julius and I think was the real reason for her ousting? DEI politics covertly embedded in a freshly sparked conversation on antisemitism. Powerful people fundamentally do not trust this black woman to lead and represent one of the oldest beacons of power. Her identity and politics are irreparably at odds with the standards of power, so much so that her cautious politicking is deemed genocidal enough to justify the microscope applied to her academia. Her appointment was just enough to satisfy the quotas of diversity, equity, and inclusion. She was never truly entrusted to lead but to simply represent. Once she overstepped the confines of simple representation by not bending blindly to one-sided narratives accepted by the elite, she was purged. The “shut-up-and-dribble” of academia. 

This was a charge far too high and politically extreme for the Harvard climate we existed in, infinitely concerned with the economics of face and appearance. But we felt our sentiments were shared amongst people who looked and lived like us. Amongst other DEIs. We found exactly what it was we wanted to talk about. This is when we decided that if we were to do this project properly, we would have to perform an impeccable balancing act. With his lead in directing and screenwriting, Julius allowed me to be as irreverent and socially critical as I wanted to be. He sat with me, his phone and notepad at the ready to record my unabated vitriol and our intermittent plotline comments. Sober-minded and hesitant to stray from the entertainment, Julius tamed my ramblings into a story. In the balance between making a statement and being entertaining, we found our “goldilocks” in being amusingly reflective. We advanced our joke on Gay’s name into a covert operation headed by Pauline Straight. Her secret board was all the reasons wrong with this world—even the vanishing of our loved ones. It was planting those it kidnapped as leaders across the globe. This justified the racist vitriol fueling the impetus against diversity, equity, and inclusion. Absurdly, with the modern reappropriation of the slur and the need to fill a racist verbal vacuum, DEI has even been used as a euphemism for “nigga”. What else would you call an under-qualified minority, equitably included in a diversified but collapsing society? Especially when all that was needed to attract them was waving some shiny hair growth oil?

Black stereotypes are considered so for one reason: they are not new. The power of the stereotype lies in its acceptance by the masses. It becomes dangerous when the masses have accepted a form of prejudice as truth. Ultimately, stereotypes “make sense” and dictate the conversation around their subject accordingly. For a story, this can wield a plot in a manner easily accepted by an audience as realistic. For a documentary, it can be seen as the truth. For our mockumentary, this was the perfect tool for Pauline Straight to use in order to lure the DEIs for her plan. Julius and I sought to capture the essence of this power without harming the black image we identified with proudly. We were looking for something truly tied to blackness—half stereotype and half-truth. This process felt like walking on eggshells—it was cliche and unmotivating to point to the laced bucket of chicken, as in Boondocks and Who Cloned Tyrone, or watermelon plated next to grape soda. We were left pulling at our 4A and 4C hairs for an answer. And that is exactly where we found it. 

A mystery hair growth oil that could repair, lengthen, and strengthen the crown? Compared to any other degrading stereotype, again—we felt we struck gold. Julius decided to make our missing character obsessed with the product encapsulated in glass droppers. A true DEI, incapable of harnessing their urge for an exploitable product. We assigned the character to Nathenael, whom we had ample footage of throughout years of friendship. He sported thick braids to complement the oil-crazed RJ and was even quite popular around campus. Everything seemed to fall into place. With a “Pauline Straight” wielding the luring power of hair oil to control the DEIs to run the world into the ground, why did Julius and I also decide to make our main character a missing person? Why not just limit the satire by documenting the conspiracy? One must step back for a moment to discern the world unfolding around us. 

On March 26, early in the semester, the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed after being struck by a massive cargo ship in the Port of Baltimore. The blame was put on the mayor, as most infrastructure failures are placed on rulers and authorities. The Ancient Chinese would call it the outcome of a forsaken divine right. What was Brandon Scott, the mayor of Baltimore’s charge? Him being a DEI. A diversity quota “equitably” included in American politics to lead one of its murder capitals. Forget that he is a duly elected incumbent. Forget that Baltimore is a troubled yet beautiful city, not fully describable by macabre statistics. Forget that reality is nuanced enough to make for diverse, adequate leaders to rise within their experiences—often of struggle—just to be defamed by sickeningly familiar bigotries within entrenched power structures. Most importantly, forget that Scott does not control any commercial ships nor can cause any collision. Forget the truth. Scott’s retort was a reminder to those who forget these things, or at least act like it's missing. He has earned his place. Secondly, it is a subtle challenge to the greater social standard that seeks to overlook and disempower people of color. Julius and I wanted to remind our Harvard community that this reality too is true for our former president Claudine Gay. As black men at Harvard, it is true for us as well. We needed to make everyone who forgets the truth see the DEI for their true, valuable selves. 

So why a missing person? To find them! To see us, DEI. As aforementioned, the difference between a missing person and a DEI lies in how helpful it is to propagate their image. For the former, it locates the person. In the latter, it draws attention away from the true person. Coincidentally, Julius and I had been recently sharing our infatuations with realism, surrealism, and Afro-inspired manipulations of reality in art. The opportunity for us to play with these elements ourselves seemed clear. Arguably, we already had taken it by stemming our satirical story from a joke about an actual person. Why not make the DEI a missing person, forcing the audience's attention on them? Why not make the concern surrounding them one of belonging, encouraging the return of a beloved DEI? One of the great powers in trying to find a missing person is the care with the image that is propagated. One is forced to engage with them endearingly; you are meant to sympathize with the missing and their families. The image shown to gauge this sympathy both venerates and victimizes the missing person. All their accolades listed, relationships sycophantically relayed, and contributions are commissioned as defenses of character. Not only is “missing” metaphorically tied with the overlooked circumstance of the DEI, but it serves as grounds for defending and caring for them. This effort is so powerful that it calls for the return of the missing DEI back into the community–as if they belonged there the entire time. Making the DEI a missing person offers a sense of belonging to them, shearing their overlooked circumstance into a valued one. We were intent on realizing this utility of a missing narrative for RJ, our chosen and molded representative for all overlooked DEI. We wanted our audience to care about him, offering him belonging to a community that once deemed him undeserving. 

RJ is a student at Harvard University. He is missing and everyone misses him. You can not help but pray and hope for his well-being and safe return. So much so, in fact, that you are willing to watch a quarter of an hour of his friends reminiscing about him in the midst of a never-before-heard-of scandal. RJ is also a DEI. Nothing but a pawn in a scheme much greater than he, operated by the cryptic Pauline Straight. He is akin to Brandon Scott and Tishaura Jones. To Claudine Gay, and to Julius and I. Our audience is forced to be emotionally invested in this particular DEI in a way all others are deprived of. In a way that Scott, Jones, Gay, Julius, and I, and the many similarly overlooked people reading this never get to experience. So, when his demise is attributed to an ominous institution with a DEI acronym, and it is realized that its leader is the fictional counterpart to our ousted DEI president, we hope our references become clear. We hope that once forgiven for wasting sympathy, we have helped our audience see that what they just watched is a glimpse into the true trial against DEIs. Is it not absurd? Is it not unbelievable? Is it not clearly anything but the truth about DEIs?

In addition, a missing student from Harvard is eye-catching. A reputable and prestigious school tied to a tragic scandal is attention-demanding. Feigning it as one’s truth can be rightfully concluded as attention-seeking. As students categorized as DEI beneficiaries, Julius and I felt we were fit to be attention-seekers. If anyone is to be forgiven for being such, it would be us; our case could only be more compelling if our identities were more fine-tuned into the margin. Our pursuit of attention truly is as restless as it seems. It comes from our conviction that the perspective demonizing diversity, equity, and inclusion as the bane of social infrastructure is bigoted and false. People often view efforts to reparate historical injustices as simply politically motivated. This elementary disposition of the realities making up the minority experience in America is dangerous. Leftist policies aligning with the interests of underrepresented people may be a ploy to secure votes. But the litany of programs and social awakenings that promote equitable opportunity are not. They are the early instances of access to resources for populations that have been denied such for hundreds of years.

Wherever there is an initiative highlighting affirmative policies for disadvantaged groups, the candidates are rarely underqualified. The average black SAT score at Harvard is still a good one—95th percentile. Compared to other races, the difference is just a couple more incorrect answers on average. Contextualized with income gaps, social circumstances, and albeit flawed personality indexes, they aim to provide holistic images of candidates. These divisive statistics become more digestible as they seem diversely equitable, attempting to weigh both academics and character. Combine this with the reality that plenty of DEI admits score higher than their non-DEI peers, the truth becomes muddled. Some choose to forget that this last point is utterly factual or feign as if it is negligible enough to ignore. Like these people are absent. Others choose racism to describe how characters are evaluated to outweigh academic prowess. What is clear is that most ignore the truth; unless their rich family paid for a reserved seat, everyone has earned their place. No matter how unlikely it was for them to be seen and considered by traditional academic officers, no matter how riddled with imposter syndrome. Marginalized people have been historically denied access to opportunity; DEI is an intentional step to widen this access.

Politicizing this intentionality feels criminal to me as someone who has earned his place; as a DEI. It is as if I am working hard-karoshi and being told that I do not deserve one’s notice. As if everything I have worked for in my life amounts to nothing but a quota working blindly in my favor. The effect is being overlooked and mishandled in my environments of privilege; I am forced to adjust in an unfamiliar setting where I am deemed unfit. More dangerously, I am compelled to affirm my inadequacy, viewing the once Harvard-admit I was as an imposter. I am missing and no one cares to search. This is not to say every parcel of the narrative propelling diversity, equity, and inclusion is benevolent. Funneling who the authority views as underprivileged into privilege is not a perfect entrance into an increasingly equal world. It is known that traumas layer generationally and need a great deal of unpacking. It is known that everywhere from college admissions to C-suite roles, the greatest beneficiaries of DEI initiatives have been white women. It is known that access to opportunity does not translate to fully realizing them against further obstacles. Following this essay, I hope it is also known that having the label DEI is like being a missing person. And one should seek to understand who and what is the DEI in question–outside of conspiracy-laden discourses that end with pseudo-nepotism––just as one seeks out a missing person. 

One of my central points in this piece is that the difference between the two lies in image propagation. For a missing person, the objective is to find them with their image. For a DEI, the goal is to forget them as their image. Julius and I made RJ a missing person so that he can be cared for and found. For him to be seen. Pay attention to the ramblings of Tee Menk Zanj; note how the elusive Pauline Straight is held culpable for a conspiracy that seems far-fetched. Question how much of this story is actually about RJ; are we trying to find our missing loved one, or uncover his role in a nonsensical scandal? Track the trails and gaps within the stories that RJ’s friends tell. See how aids like hair oil can be turned against the masses devoted to them. Notice how the real world has pivoted DEI as the modern face of racism. It is as if nothing is as it seems in this world bent on forgetting truth for the exhaustive sake of face. A world that, though Julius and I have comically reconciled with, we are tired of living in. 

Append: 24 July 2024

Dear reader,

A little more than a month after releasing our mockumentary on YouTube, the American political scene has erupted beyond its previous condition. Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt last week, leaving with a grazed ear and campaign fuel. He announced JD Vance as his running mate. Ironically, I had just watched a controversial advertisement of this Ohio senator accepting the label of “racist” right before finding out about his potential vice presidency. But what is most particular to me was Joe Biden’s concession to Democratic party pressure, making way for Kamala Harris to represent the DNC. This is the biggest stage a DEI has been on since Barack Obama, and again, we—the American people, people in America, and spectators around the globe—have front-row seats. So—what are the narratives surrounding Kamala Harris?

At the top of my X/Twitter feed is a spate of DEI hire mentions, a haunting feature of her entire political career. A haunting feature of America’s history of coded racism. It is her failure to secure a Mexican border she has no jurisdiction over. Her “big sister general” jokes and seemingly ironic projections of being cultured, and her misconstrued relationship with recidivism and the destructive crime bill unleashed by her party. It is about her dating celebrities in the early 2000s. The view that she is wrongfully endorsed as an undemocratic substitute for the same “rightfully” elected representative that faced an insurrection for voter fraud. That she is an unqualified woman, passing as black, and feeding the propaganda machine. It is so much more.

Maybe this is an arbitrary case of finding exactly what I am looking for. The profoundly genocidal, racist history of the United States and its current Christian nationalist political wave alongside the extreme polarization of today’s politics almost ensures the existence of these narratives. The support for Kamala is wide-ranging and is itself muddled with zealotry and misinformation, oppression-measuring contests, and gender wars. My personal politics have left me disillusioned with a callous and radically capitalist government that ignores true social issues for the sake of funding genocidal wars. This will remain constant this election season. But I know that the forefront of this presidential election, as always, is a battle of images: more promises for than actual change. I have come to feel one must vote locally, volunteer, or donate if one wants genuine reform. Offering one’s service and politics for a perceived good is as much one can ask for in a battle of images. It is also physical work—active activism. 

To ask who should be president has become a question of picking poison. In America, there are only two of these poisons and in 2024 one of them will be packaged as a DEI. Julius and I understand that the image of the DEI is not a real one. It is used to ignore the truth about that person. I challenge you, reader, to find out who the true Kamala Harris is. Find her “missing person.” View her stances and politics and scrutinize her public interactions carefully. Analyze her criminal history (not her criminal record). Understand the process of party nominations and the reality behind her seemingly unanimous nomination. After doing so myself, my conclusion has been that the greatest feature of her poisonous image not shared with her adversary is being an Indian-Jamaican American. 

In a careful assessment of my times, I understand the DEI  image has been weaponized to render Kamala Harris’ political contributions missing. These election tensions are baked in a Christian nationalist revival and seasoned with intolerance and separatism reminiscent of the extremes in America’s racial history. The result is a time unprecedented in its blatant hypocrisies and polarization, a morbid impregnation of bigotry in the vessel of not just Christian values but American. It is a time of dangerously dreaming up something new without addressing the horrors while awake. So if one is to pick a poison in this election, make sure to read the labels closely. I doubt the American people will, however. “DEI” is now a slur so vile I can see one putting down the vial just off the smell.

But if Kamala Harris is to become our duly elected incumbent, I hope she does not get Claudine Gay’d. 

Best,

Abdul Malik, the Bard

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BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Ewungkem Jr, Julius, and Abdul Malik Mohammed, creators. DisappEarIng: A Harvard Mystery. Mockumentary short film. YouTube, uploaded by AOTA (Julius Ewungkem Jr), 2024. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0MB1TzZ1gI.

McGruder, Aaron, creator. "The Fried Chicken Flu." The Boondocks, season 3, episode 13, Sony Pictures Television, 2010. IMDb, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1701877/.

Taylor, Juel, director. They Cloned Tyrone. Performances by John Boyega, Jamie Foxx, and Teyonah Parris, 2023. IMDb, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9873892/.

Maryland Transportation Authority. Key Bridge News. Accessed 27 June 2024. URL: https://mdta.maryland.gov/keybridgenews

Yu, Brian P. "Average SAT Scores by Race." The Crimson, 21 Oct. 2018. URL: https://www.thecrimson.com/widget/2018/10/21/sat-by-race-graphic/