The Wall Street Journal printed an article written by Daniel Henninger, entitled “The Death of Diversity,” where he illustrated the way the word diversity has changed over the course of the last thirty years.
The big debate over diversity, Henninger claims, originates from its use in the political and legal arenas as a “hammer to compel compliance [into cohabitating with other ethnic and social groups].” Henninger explains that Americans, as of late, who live in diverse communities of people of different ethnic groups, tend to “hunker down” instead of mingling with their neighbors.
Henninger refers to a study by Harvard professor Robert Putnam that showed how people living in ethnically diverse communities become more closed to the idea of living outside of homogeneity.
The real point of the seeming death of diversity comes in the form of another word that the American public has seemed to forget: assimilation. In years previous people new to an area would strive to learn the motions necessary to fit into where they lived so as not to stand out and to become socially acceptable. In this “more enlightened” era the call for people to embrace their differences has come to embrace a more combative nature among people. This reticence to acknowledge one’s differences and accept them comes from what Henninger describes as “people’s little confidence in the ‘local news media.'”
The real death of diversity, Henninger’s “hammer statement,” comes from the unwavering and steadfast resoluteness that politicians want us to be correct in their sense without allowing these new people to become accustomed to their surroundings like in the days of old. This is not to say that we as a whole cannot respect other people’s differences but it’s to say that we shouldn’t be forced into accepting them at face value.
The mark of true acceptance is to be fully acquainted with the facts. Everyone in this country judges everything by its cover and rarely is their first intuitions correct. Why might you ask? The answer is because the media has a spin on all things the American populace reads or sees and the government has purchased a seemingly increased stock in how the media relates information to the public. Therefore, the American people has decided that the word diversity is no longer of use to them and its launching a counteroffensive against the continued attack of the political war machine with its weapon of coerced diversification.
Henninger’s own model for moving forward in American society would be the use of the middle class and its assimilating virtues. He notes the slow, boring methodology behind it but it works. By this Henninger refers to the efforts of those people in the lower class working into the middle class and by doing so gaining a better understanding of the way society works.
Education is the best way for one to become acquainted with the full facts and may be then one can become friends with the facts and then they can become friends with their neighbors.