Diversity is proving to be utterly moronic. It was not too long ago when the charge of racism went rather like this: White folks failed to recognize the full humanity of non-white folks. That is, many white folks did not see a non-white life as being of equal value to a white life. And what Martin Luther King marched for is a day when every group of every kind would recognize that all human beings are equally human regardless of their ethnic background. Here are King’s actual words:
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
Well, what passes for Diversity is beginning to make an absolute mockery of the ideal of equality that King so eloquently expressed. For equality has now morphed into what we may call proportional equality. This is the view that the percentage of any ethnic group in a given area of public service should be equal to the percentage of the ethnic group in the population of municipality in question. So if 20% of the population is black, then blacks should make up 20% of the police force, the fire department, and so on. This line of thought is so moronic that it calls into question the very insanity of those who advocate it.
What would make anyone think that proportional equality has any rational basis? What would make anyone think that this conception of equality has anything to do with equality? Suppose for instance that Native Americans make up 29% percent off the population of Syracuse NY and that they have a tradition of pursuing careers in teaching and medicine. Indeed, let us imagine that 89% of Native Americans who purse post-baccalaureate studies take up either of these two careers. Only 11% have any interest in any form of public service. What could possibly be wrong with that?
Surely it is just ludicrous to suppose that we have true equality in Syracuse NY only if the percentage of Native Americans in public service areas in Syracuse NY equals 29%.
For the record, the idea of proportional equality is the argument that is being used in New Haven CT as a defense of the view that there should be more blacks as fire chiefs in the New Haven fire department.
I can pretty much demonstrate that the very idea of proportional equality is none other than a pure political maneuver. 1. You will notice that nowadays people justify all sorts of behavior on the grounds that it is constitutive of their ethnic identity. Thus, it is said that black people like this kind of food and enjoy such-and-such music as well as speak in certain ways (recall the fury regarding eubonics) owing to none other than their ethnic roots. 2. If sheer ethnicity is that determinate with respect to behavior, then surely proportional equality cannot be determinate of genuine equality. 3. Indeed, proportional equality and the demands of ethnic identity can be formally incompatible with one another. If owing to ethnic identity Latinos are moved to pursue careers in education and medicine, for example, then insisting upon proportional equality is tantamount to insisting that Latinos go against the inclinations that are constitutive of their ethnic identity. 4. Which is it? Is our ethnic identity constitutive of who are? Or, is it the case that indeed ethnicity is no more than skin deep, if that? 5. We cannot consistently have it both ways.
Lest there be any misunderstanding, I do not think for a moment that if we reject the view our ethnic identity is constitutive of whom we are, then we are formally committed to proportional equality. Nor do I think that if we reject proportional equality, then we must embrace the view that ethnic identity determines who we are.
In my view, what is important is simply that individuals are flourishing. And this they may do however it pleases them (insofar as they do not bring (unjust) harm to others. Individuals may follow the traditions of their family or their ethnic group. Or, they may align themselves with those who are not like them or they may go at it own their own. And it is my deepest view that each and every individual in society should have the political and institutional freedom to do just that.
We do not have equality at its best when and only when the percentage of an ethnic doing public service activity X in society is (roughly) identical to the percentage of that ethnic group in society. Rather, we have equality at its best when each and every person is prepared to do right by others regardless of their ethnic identity or sex or sexual orientation, and so forth.
Proportional equality is in effect inimical to equality just articulated; for it teaches people to be suspicious of others not on account of the wrongs that they do but simply owing to the color of their skin. Thus, proportional equality is not just an intellectually bereft idea, it is also a morally vapid one, at best, and a tremendously unjust one, at worse.
It is so obvious that proportional equality is an intellectually and morally bankrupt idea that it is truly painful to see it advanced by those who once rightly complained of past racial injustices in the United States. Having veered towards justice with considerable success, America is on the verge of becoming an unjust society yet again. This time, though, it will be minorities rather than whites who will be responsible for the moral chaos that will occur. Increasingly, the charge of racism has become no basis than reality. Increasingly, the charge of racism is simply about crying wolf and so is none other than a convenient way to promote self-interest not in the name of justice but at the expense of justice.
We have come to be in such a pluralistic society, that has lead us from one of any idealism for the public or common good over private interests to one where the public-policy process is is a matter of compromising resolutions of group and private interests, due to the indulgence of our country in the diverseness of our culture and our 1st Amendment rights. Justice and accountability of position and power does not belong to any overarching public good, but rather to group and private interests, of rights and liberty, guaranteed not from any one authoritative source, but to a sphere of justice and moral code upholding human rights that is so undefined, and is free to be exploited in our wonderful democracy.
Furthermore, with such infatuations, I believe it is very unlikely that we’ll see MLK’s dream on a large scale basis, too much is group identity and oriented. Many times not any one of these groups fault, but to a history in the world of unrestrained appetite for superiority.