diversity

I've seen multiculturalism and diversity discussed in two different ways. Intelligent, objective-minded people are aware of various cultural idiosyncrasies and behaviors and use them to their advantage. For example, the Japanese put a very high weight on respect for seniors and traditionally avoid direct confrontation. The French, on the other hand, tend to love intelligent, witty debates. These observations aren't racially motivated, they're based on the climate where a "French" person was raised and taught how to act. You may draw the same conclusions about someone born and raised on a mid-west farm as opposed to someone who grew up in Beverly Hills... their world views will most likely be very different. The only time this pushes over into the realm of "racism" is when you start making accusations like "You're from a farm? You must be stupid and not know what a cell phone is!" or "Oh, he's Japanese, he'll do whatever someone older tells him to do." I've taken project management classes where we were given country based generalizations of populations in order to better manage multi-cultural groups. This wasn't to make us into racist PMs, saying the Indians couldn't be trusted because they'll agree to anything a superior says... it was to make us understand that it goes against Indian culture to disagree with a superior... so if you have someone on your team, constantly agreeing with you, you may want to step back for a minute. Does he really agree with me, or does he just not want to disagree?

The other type of discussion says that everyone is a racist. EVERYONE. We need to promote diversity because when people are given the chance, they WILL be racist and do everything they can to cater to a certain skin color/religion/background/foot size (or something else just as ridiculous). So obviously we need to make sure everyone falls over backwards in order to accommodate anyone who is currently considered a minority. Actually... let's be more specific. I believe the current politically correct term is "marginalized"... since most "minorities" aren't the minority anymore. Anyone falling into this school of thought is too busy running around calling everyone racist and making sure every group of people out there has every marginalized population accounted for (and not caring if there aren't any non-marginalized populations included) to even begin to think of what they can do to actually STOP racism.

If you think about it... what is currently perpetuating racism? Obviously there is a correlation between the intensity of major incidents and the knee-jerk racism against the perpetrators of said incident (terrorist attacks = I hate Muslims, France doesn't like our war = I hate the French) that will always exist, but what else is currently going on that labels people based on their skin color or backgrounds? Cultural awareness. How exactly are we supposed to move beyond race, when a bunch of insane crusaders are making absolutely-fucking-sure that we make sure we notice skin color FIRST, and the actual person second. Take my company, for example. We have mandates for our diversity spending. We have to make sure that of every company we contract out to, at least 30-40% of them are either minority owned (obviously this directive is outdated... they use "minority" instead of "marginalized"), women owned or owned by a female minority (which, unfortunately, does not count twice). Right from the start of an engagement, we have to split up each subcontracting company into groups based on their sex and color of their skin. How is that not racist?

Oh, you think that is completely fair? That we need to give those marginalized populations a shot at business they otherwise wouldn't get? Won't giving business to a MWB (minority or women owned business) that doesn't deserve it based on merit just marginalize that population even more? What about the white owned company (since what else is really non-marginalized at this point) who scored better than the MWB, but doesn't receive the business award because (and only because) it's owned by a white male?

Let's go into a little example. An African-American child grows up in a poor household and goes to a really shitty school. She doesn't have textbooks, doesn't have good teachers and can't really learn in such an environment. She studies hard, does comparably well in said school, and then fares decently well on whatever college entrance exam she decides to take. She then applies to colleges. They look at the sheet, see the "minority female" boxes are checked, and she goes into a smaller pile, where they will take into account the fact that she had a substandard education and deserves a shot against the other children who had every opportunity in the world. That seems fair, right? Now let's say her next door neighbor does the exact same thing. He goes to the shitty school, shares textbooks, etc etc and does just as well (but not that great) on his exams. He applies to the same schools, but... Oh look! The "Caucasian male" boxes are checked! He goes in the main pile and obviously will NOT be getting any special treatment since he's white, and he therefore must have had racial advantages that all those children in the small list did not. Fuck. That. Shit.

If you really want to put some affirmative action bullshit in place, base it on socio-economic background... base it on the level of education the person received... base it on something that ACTUALLY MATTERS. Don't base it on skin color - that makes you racist, you hypocritical fuckhead. If anyone was actually reading this, they are probably thinking "OH SHIT... WHAT A RACIST!!!" What if I told you I was a black female? Or a Muslim paraplegic? Or an Argentinian mongoose? Would that matter to you? Would my skin color change your stupid opinion, you fucking racist???