If Diversity is Wrong, I Don't Wanna Be Right
The Boston Globe's Aug. 5 article, "The Downside of Diversity," highlights Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam's findings that diversity deters civic engagement. According to the article, "the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects." The Globe reports that this finding stunned the liberally-minded Putnam, while validating Conservative pundits who have been down on diversity for years.
The findings of the study are not an indicator that diversity is bad for us. Rather, the study indicates that our thinking about diversity needs to change. If we don't feel engaged in our communities because they are diverse, then shame on us.
White Americans historically have been the most afraid of living in heterogeneous communities, and the blame for this research should lie on us. Since the days of slavery, white people have segregated themselves apart, living in fear of losing power and privilege. De jure segregation outlawed in 1954, white people kept it alive through de facto segregation by fleeing to suburbs on interstate highways built to evacuate cities under nuclear attack during the Cold War era. The nuclear attack never came, but white people were sufficiently terrified of living in interracial neighborhoods enough to flee just the same.
As W.E.B. DuBois argued, the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution weren't for African-Americans, they were for white people. African-Americans already knew they were free; it was white people that needed to be educated of this fact. White people needed to be educated that citizenship not be denied a person due to skin color. Perhaps it is white Americans again that need to be educated that diversity is our greatest asset: difference may lead to misunderstanding, but also to conversation, which begets growth and enlightenment. Without difference, we cannot be challenged or truly creative. We cannot reach our fullest potential.
The ancient Mayans believed that it was difference which propelled the universe forward due to the inherent creative energy in conflict. If we shield ourselves from conflict, what have we lost? Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote, "I am a part of all that I have met." Similarly, St. Augustine wrote, "The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page." How small are we who do not open ourselves to those different from us, and how greatly to be pitied.
posted by drivebybanjo @ 5:36 AM
15 Comments
15 Comments:
I really liked your posts. I had some comments about the most recent two. On white people being scared of diversity: an unfortunate recent example is that fueled by racist press hoopla, some folks are trying to shut down a soon-to-open Arabic dual-language school in Brooklyn. My personal response to this problem can be found on my blog zahavalaska.blogspot.com
Also, on the water posting, I just wanted to add that in traditional Judaism, dishes and eating utensils are also dipped in the mikvah when they are ritually unclean, such as when they are first purchased. I have had the opportunity to both immerse dishes in a mikvah and myself, and while both were spiritually powerful moments, for some reason the dishes had more of an impact on me.
Thanks for your post! Yes, about the dishes, thank you for mentioning that aspect of the mikveh. That is very interesting how it impacted you. I have been to the mikveh for self immersion but have been wanting to kasher dishes and utensils.
I look forward to reading your blog post about the Arabic language school!
I saw the article too, but personally, I don't see a decline of "civic engagement", but rather, a modification of the meaning of "civic engagement". People are deciding for themselves how and with who they will relate. They are freeing themselves from the myths of the "nation" and "the one". Moral relativity is a fact. Diversity is a fact. I therefore see no reason to accept either the melting pot or the salad bowl views. People can be free to relate as they wish. All that is needed are the rule of law, property rights, and people who know how to mind their own business.
To me this is a hyper-individualistic point of view expressing the notion that community, or communion among people, doesn't liberate us. What liberates us, according to your opinion, is the rule of law, and our ability to disassociate from our geographic communities if we so desire. In a sense, you seem to be arguing that we are most free when we can be the ultimate consumer, when we can pick and choose from a menu of options every aspect of our lives. While I am very attached to the freedoms of choice and association we enjoy in our society, I am not ready to believe that I am most free when allowed to inhabit all of my own comfort zones. I guess this is because I think there is a freeing that comes from dialogue with people who challenge our thinking and assumptions.
I like your heart and your passion, drivebybanjo, but I hope you don't let them do your thinking for you. Unless you just didn't mention it, the study you cite says nothing in particular about how much "white people" engage civically. All it says, or so say you, is that everybody votes less, volunteers less, gives less to charity, in diverse communities. You can beat up the white majority any time you like about segregation and fear of diversity, but in this case the criticism may be mis-applied.
I don't see it as hyper-individualism because I don't think people need to be forced to be members of communities. Its not about living alone or living in communities, but rather, about the right to choose one's own communities. Would you say that some sort of "freeing" would occur if we were forced to form communities with facists, racists, thieves, or child molesters? I doubt that you would, and I think the same principle applies to forcing people to join in communities with people they simply do not trust - for whatever reason. And honestly, I don't think the idea of geographic community makes a lot of sense in the modern world, or that it is even necessary.
I don't think that the goal is to get all people to get along as "one". I think the idea of the "one" is a myth. I think the goal is simply to avoid violence which requires only the rule of law, property rights, and a basic understanding that our primary responsibility to one another is to leave one another alone.
P.S. I like your site and the way you present your ideas. I will recommend it.
Thanks David and Randy for your comments, I will respond to them in one post:
to David:
If I am letting "them do the thinking," who is them? As you point out, there is nothing in the article specifically "beating up white people" as I have done, so where did I get my argument? As a person who has spent much time and energy in the academic arena pursuing questions about history, race and whiteness, I believe I do have something to say about these issues that doesn't come out of simply "heart and passion." Not that those qualities are bad, as you point out, but I find it distasteful to assume that that is only where I am coming from. If I have presented myself as a non-thinking entity, I will re-assess my writing style.
I do believe that much of the fear of diversity in our society that currently exists is the result of a very specific history of white people dominating the halls of power. You are right that the Globe article does not mention anything about white people specifically, but I feel it is an important part of the equation that should be recognized. White privilege and power are real factors in social outcomes, as "The Kerner Report" demonstrates. Critiquing the still dominant white majority is not "beating up," but speaking truth to power. While white people constantly benefit from the legacy of racism in this country that has left us with inherited wealth and the best educational advantages, housing, etc, we lose much due to our fear and exclusivity, and the social problems that come from a long-standing imbalance of power in our country.
To Randy:
I do feel that our immediate geographic community, at least, is important to be part of in some way, and our ability to disassociate ourselves from it is one problem with modernity, not a plus. I am aware of the scholarship that nation-states are a myth, and do not disagree that there are positives to boundaries and distances becoming obsolete. But in addition to the benefits, I believe there is a human and spiritual cost to this, as noted in my previous posts "Our Borders, Ourselves..." and "The Shared World." At no point do I advocate a myth that we should all be "one," as we are all different, and there is an integrity in difference. Rather, I hope that we can grow to see difference as good, and as something that helps make us a better community, if we work at it rather than disengage from it.
I think the question of the use of force is integral to the discussion. For example, it is one thing to say that it would be good for different cultural groups to communicate, but something else entirely to place blame and/or assess damages for the differences. The former is a learning experience, the latter a confrontation. Certainly there is a time and place for confrontation, but let's not mistake it for community development. Confrontation is confrontation, and the response will be more confrontation. This is not a new situation. Human beings have dealt with rivalry and competition since at least the beginning of recorded history. The solutions; the rule of law, property rights, and learning to leave one another alone.
Thank you for returning to comment - I do very much appreciate a lively discussion. The issue I have with your argument is that the rule of law, property rights, and leaving each other alone are things we've always had in our country...but they haven't always guaranteed freedom for everyone. Through much of our history, women couldn't vote or hold property, and neither could people of color. So how did those whom the law did not favor become free?
In the Alabama of the early 1960s, it was the state apparatus that brought violence against peaceful civil rights protestors; an example where the use of force was misapplied and the law was wrong. The fact that these things were televised to a nation of viewers helped to change minds and eventually change the law. The viewers of these events could not ignore them. My point is that people getting active in their communities and engaging in nonviolent forms of resistance have helped expand freedom in our society where the law originally failed.
Good point. The way I see it, the problem is that the law does not always force people to leave one another alone (e.g., slavery, denial of civil rights, and women not being allowed to vote). That's why I state leaving one another alone as a separate principle, and I do believe that the law should go much farther than it does to require people to leave one another alone. Some examples; I don't believe the law has any business deciding who can or cannot marry, what drugs people choose to take, who is allowed to practice a profession, or which people to subsidize at the expense of others. I agree entirely that resistance to measures that allow some to interfere in the lives of others is of great value. Such resistance is indeed an act of community. The measures themselves are often exactly the opposite of community.
P.S. I do make exceptions to most of the above in the interests of public safety, but not interstate commerce.
Apologies for the delay - thanks for defining what you meant by leaving one another alone. While I don't see eye to eye with you on the government regulation issue, I do appreciate your perspective. I cannot be so thorough in my rejection of gov't interference in peoples' lives, as I think the law can help us progress as a society - integration, women's suffrage, giving gay people rights to marry, etc. Also, while I am currently housed and well-fed, if I ever came upon misfortune I would hope that the government would help provide in some way. That is why I cannot condemn welfare or subsidized housing, because I don't know what roads people have traveled who are in those situations or what life may have in store for me. I do know that because of government subsidies for GI veterans after WWII, my grandparents were able to buy their own house and move up from the poverty in which they were raised. This is certainly a factor in why I myself have never known poverty, in addition to their hard work.
You're right. We have an unhealthy relationship with conflict. We see competittion as bad precisely because there is conflict involved -- when that is precisely the kind of creative conflict that makes the world a better place overall. War and Peace are not creative conflicts -- one must have one or the other. Competition and cooperation are creative conflicts, and help to create strong communities with strong economies.
This posting is incredibly naive -- or ignorant of history, anthropology, ethology, etc. Racism is the historical norm throughout the world. It was in the West, and especially in the U.S. (and especially among white Americans) that racial barriers were tackled. The problem isn't that racism is a problem in the U.S., it's that racism isn't a problem everywhere else in the world. Americans feel guilty about racism, while everyone else in the world is perfectly okay with it. That is, they don't see racism as a problem to be solved. They see it as normal and natural. Racism is found in every group, but the West has done the most to fight it, both within the West and worldwide.
While you may disagree with my posting, you are mistaken and rude in calling my comments "ignorant" and "naive" of the academic disciplines you mentioned. Anthropology and history are two favorite disciplines of mine and I have studied them at both the undergraduate and graduate levels at two historically elite universities in this country.
Clearly our definitions of racism are different - you see it as a 'natural' inclination, whereas I subscribe to Beverly Daniel Tatum's definition, that racism "is a system of advantage based on race" that is unique to the historical and social contexts in which the institution is created. While I would agree there is the tendency of humans to group themselves and war against others throughout history, institutions of racism depend on how race is constructed in particular societies due to historical processes. Your argument seems very Jared Diamond-esque, although I am unsure that he would even go so far.
The West, you argue, has done the most to fight racism. Indeed, the West should do the most, as through colonization and imperialism, racist institutions favoring whites economically, politically and socially have been established on every continent. While Jared Diamond may argue that any other people in the world would have done the same given the same advantages of Industrialization, the fact remains that the West did this. In light of this, the West hasn't done nearly enough to combat racism.
bell hooks made an observation that most eloquently describes how I feel personally about your argument:
"Why do so many people have bleak, passive responses to racism, where they just act as though it is some kind of illness that will never change, that will never go away. Why do they have this feeling that there's nothing you can do? I kept thinking how this passiveness really belies the history of resistance to racism in our culture. The idea that racism can't be dealt with, that it cannot be altered, that we cannot be transformed as a culture, loses its reality base when one remembers that history."
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home