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Illinois taxpayers were treated to a taxpayer-funded diversity training that compared white people and police officers to mosquitoes. Yes, that is the literal metaphor used in a state Department of Human Rights course. The video, titled “How Microaggressions Are Like Mosquito Bites,” turned awkward workplace comments into blood-sucking insects and ended with a Black woman torching the mosquitoes with a flamethrower. If you needed proof that DEI has jumped the shark, this is it.
What happened in the training
The Illinois Department of Human Rights ran a session that used that mosquito video to explain microaggressions. Trainers showed examples like “When I look at you, I don’t see color” and “Where are you really from?” The lesson: small comments add up and, in the video, become bites that make people want to “go ballistic.” Then the video escalates. One line equates some “mosquitoes” with strains that “can even kill you,” and police are folded into that metaphor. The session was led by an IDHR staffer and ended with participants getting a certificate signed by IDHR Director James Bennett. That certificate carries the weight of the state, because this is an official, taxpayer-funded training program.
Why Illinois taxpayers should care
There are two big problems here. First, the training is paid for by Illinois taxpayers. The Department of Human Rights has a large budget and offers courses to public and private participants across the state. Second, this isn’t harmless sensitivity training. Turning whole groups of people into disease vectors is not education — it’s indoctrination. When state-backed programs label police and white people as dangerous insects, they do real damage to workers, public servants, and community trust. And for a governor who wants to be taken seriously on the national stage, Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration should ask whether this is the image they want to project.
The real problem with DEI theater
Calling routine social missteps “mosquito bites” and then setting fire to the pests is theatrical. It is meant to make viewers feel a certain way. But feelings are not a substitute for policy. Dehumanizing metaphors create division, not healing. They train people to speak through fear of being labeled rather than through common sense. If the goal is safer, fairer workplaces, this kind of spectacle will push some people away and harden others. Funny how the people preaching inclusion often use tactics that do the opposite.
What should be done next
First, the Department of Human Rights should pull this module and explain why it thought the mosquito metaphor was appropriate for a state course. Gov. JB Pritzker and IDHR Director James Bennett owe taxpayers a clear answer. Second, Illinois should stop funding political theater under the guise of workplace training. If employers want real help with harassment prevention and compliance, they should get practical training that teaches law, communication, and conflict resolution — not propaganda. In short: scrap the flamethrower, keep the civics. taxpayers and public servants deserve better than this DEI circus.
