The Beatles were essentially the world’s first corporate boy band. Formed in Liverpool, England, in 1960, the band was initially a punk band before being reshaped into a well-conceived unit with an eye on selling records and making hits. After the change in sound and cultivating a very specific image, the band appealed to young teenage girls like no other rock and roll band before them.
As their fame exploded worldwide, the band eventually found their own very specific looks and personalities, which many would argue also eventually led to the foursome’s demise. Of the band’s four members, only two survive. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr still record music and perform, although not together, and both, especially McCartney, are still considered players in the music industry.
George Harrison and John Lennon passed away, the latter famously murdered outside his New York City apartment building on December 8, 1980. Lennon was the most political of the band, and his legacy continues to live on today. His widow, Yoko Ono, is still alive, and Lennon fathered two sons.
Julin Lenno, 60, the son of John and his first wife Cynthia, has had a successful career since debuting in the 80s with his first album, Valotte. Lennon’s other son, Sean, who he shared with Yoko Ono, has taken a different path from his brother both musically and somewhat socially as well. Perhaps influenced by his father’s later years as a Beatle and his counterculture mother, Sean Lennon’s music and politics reflect his father’s, but in very different ways than his dad would have ever imagined.
The youngest Lennon has become very outspoken on certain social issues as America has taken a hard left under Joe Biden and the Democrats. However, unlike aging musicians like Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, and Green Day, Sean Lenno has taken a contrarian position against many popular talking points on the left and, most specifically, the use of DEI initiatives in America.
It’s fair to say Sean Lennon is no fan of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives based on a recent post on X. The son-of-a-Beatle posted on Wednesday, apparently in response to the resignation of disgraced former Harvard President Claudine Gay. He posted: “Have you guys heard of DEI? It stands for ‘Dumb Evil Idiots.’” He went on to further claim that those claiming to be battling institutional racism and oppression actually create it instead. He continued: “And absolutely no one should be surprised by this.”
Lennon also had some choice thoughts about ESG investing, which encourages companies to be environmental and social activists in addition to actually running a company. ESG initiatives have been under heavy criticism recently, and Lennon described them thusly: “Exploiting Seems Good.”
It would seem on the surface that Lennon would be against what DEI means in theory. Actually, it is quite the opposite. Sean Lennon realizes, hopefully what his father would realize were he still alive. That forced diversity, racial quotas, and valuing the color of skin over content of character and actual qualifications is bad. It’s bad for business, it’s bad for America, and it is bad for places like Harvard, which hired an unqualified black woman based on her gender and her race. It didn’t work out very well for Harvard, and it hasn’t worked well for America either.
