John McWhorter is a Linguist, Not an Attorney Much Less a Legal Scholar. Nttawwt, but...

He is spot on in assessing how the way we use words change, but perhaps a little bit light in understanding why, for the sake of Diversity's Lost Cause -- legally -- it is necessary to continue the fiction of using "neutral" words like diversity and discrimination in common parlance.  

Because according to our U.S. Constitution, it indeed is illegal to discriminate against other people on the basis of race.  Period.  (Saying racial discrimination on skin color is needed to keep the peace in society don't make it right, boss...)

We can try to "preference" "diversity" by appointing more black bodies (and brown!) (and rainbow colored!) (and pink too!) to leadership positions in American society, but without competitive qualifications -- and the importance of legal fiction words like "diversity" (and "critical mass" and "penumbras", in another context...) -- McWhorter is arguing his own professional existence into a more questionable state:

As Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (not the Chief, but that's racial discrimination for you... John Roberts is the white legacy hire, say... with the questionable family adoptions and the rainbow tint to him) noted in his book, so long as affirmative-action policies  created NOT to redress the policies of the past but to put out a welcome mat to darker-skinned people, are seen by society as suspect, the advancement of American blacks will be seen as temporal, in an age when America "tolerated" unConstitutional and discriminatory racial policies to help advance the poor dark-skinned offspring of former slaves.

Thankfully, in today's mixed-race America -- with soo many Black immigrants coming in from the islands, as well as Africa itself, who have not been crippled by America's past history of slavery and dependence and "uncle Tom-is" (selecting a lighter-skinned black to serve in the Master's house and do his bidding with the others) --  it will be much easier for today's Supreme Court to pull the plug on the programs that Sandra Day O'Connor put on a 25-year lifeline*...

UnConstitutional is illegal, in black or white (or brown, or ... Asian!  Hello tomorrow).

McWhorter does us all listening a service by admitting essentially how ambition black professional "geniuses", aided by their White liberal allies, have successfully worked the system to install undereducated and lesser qualified Blacks (here, the artificial Capital letter seems representative) into positions of power in the government and corporations using wordplay alone.

Soon, and very soon,* I suspect the Court will correct this as our growing demographic classes give farce to the use of the word diversity as McWhorter defines it down today.  Discrimination based on race is indeed illegal.  It's time we up and say that, with one national voice...

-------------

* Between you and me, I think the Court will overturn affirmative action before they overthrow Roe.  Much easier legally, and as distinguished the conservative legal scholars are, they are still privileged White men for the most part, with their fingers to the wind testing the t/Times to see what actions will go over best with today's public.  Sad, but in the end, they'll show courage as a whole.  You cannot jettison conservative principles the way you can words which lose a universal meaning when adopted by different tribes for exclusive warfare wordfare.

--------------------

* “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary.” Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003)

I'll help with the math -- 2028, at the latest...  

America's demographics, history of electing "diversity" at all levels, and need to secure ballot access for American citizens over non-citizen wannabe voters, will ensure that the Court guides Grutter to its natural demise in a diverse, pluralistic society that preferences action, achievement and results over false promises, stagnation and the artificial promotion of the unqualified and elderly over non-connected persons (read: independent, not owing to the somebody somebody sent... Know what I mean?) who can think and perform better, due to natural traits like youth, health, faith, integrity, personal planning and self-reliance.**

Those words still retain their basic meanings, even today. 

For society to survive, for example, words like "wom(b)an"  can't overthrow linguistic meaning to meet the fleeting needs of the house revolutionaries of today. (They want to craft the new rules, while still under the Master's financial protections against reality.  But Nature, the ultimate master or mistress -- choose your gender preference -- still has her say...)

Sexual discrimination, much like racial discrimination, has almost come 360 in American society, and it is time to revert back to the days of no artificial hands on the wheel, steering the nation into where we've come...

By freeing individuals in American society from the written rules that Courts and government bureacrats have crafted of late, creating a raft of legislation that illegally favors this artificial identity class or that, the American people -- citizens and workers, and non -- can once again participate in society and have a say directly in the policies that shape their lives.

Priceless.