On diversity
I don't agree with the modern definition of "diversity". Apparently, in the view of some people a difference in opinions and life experience doesn't represent diversity, only a skin color does. Diversity is supposed to mean that a group is being composed of distinct or unlike people with distinct or unlike qualities. In our society in order to be called diverse a group of individuals is supposed to be composed of people of different races and different genders. Thus, it means that a black woman and a white man (for example) can't be alike, can't have the same qualities or similar life experiences. I was thinking of an example that would describe better my point of view and I came up with the following:
Remember the show “Golden Girls”? One of the women (Dorothy) is a second generation Italian-American, who grew up in Brooklyn, New York. She’s a substitute teacher, she’s smart and she got married young when she got pregnant as a teenager only to divorce forty years later. Second woman (Rose) is a nitwit widowed housewife from Minnesota. She is of Swedish descent and comes from a farming town in a middle of nowhere. The third, Blanche, is a southern belle from Georgia, self-confident and oversexed. In simple terms the Golden Girls are a very stereotypical ‘classical’ Hollywood example of three girlfriends, where one is smart, one is stupid and one is a slut. The three of them are very different women and their different approaches to life enhance their experience of living together and make the show funny for us, the audience.
Let’s apply now, the ‘accepted’ principles of diversity (the same way we apply them to our workplaces and college acceptance standards) to the “Golden Girls” show. We’ll make it a show about three women, who grew up in the same apartment building in Brooklyn, went to the same school, same college (where all of them studied German literature), all married high school math teachers, had four daughters each and went to live in Florida after their husbands died. Our show is going to revolve around their Saturday nights. In our version of “Golden Girls” all three of them would sit on a wicker couch every show, reading Kafka or discussing the importance of Thomas Mann's short stories to German literature of the XX century. Of course there would be a very interesting twist: one of our women would be white, one black and one Asian. Now, wouldn’t that make a great show about diversity?
Hopefully my little example will make you think about what diversity means. As long as we accept diversity with all its stereotyping we’ll never be able to see people for who they truly are and we’ll never be able to become a color blind society…
