59 thoughts on ““Diversity””

1. Personally speaking, I’m glad I’ve never had to attend a diversity training course. Diversity is a fairly empty idea. For a company saying that they support diversity is as empty a phrase as workers of the world, unite. I’m not interested in the diversity of the medical staff at my local hospital, nor am I interested in the diversity of the local garbage haulers’ union. The mail carriers on our office route range from a short white woman to a gigantor-sized Sikh – that they both have strong legs matters more than their religion.

   Indeed, it seems that “diversity” does not mesh so neatly with “tolerance”

   Study paints bleak picture of ethnic diversity A bleak picture of the corrosive effects of ethnic diversity has been revealed in research by Harvard UniversityÂ’s Robert Putnam, one of the worldÂ’s most influential political scientists.

   His research shows that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone – from their next-door neighbour to the mayor.

2. taz, the article you linked to is pretty complicated…there seem a lot of issues at work. e.g.,

   But Feldhun said his program was used as a scapegoat for the university to fire multicultural coordinator Andita Parker-Lloyd, who filed a racial profiling lawsuit against the city of Wilkes-Barre.

   also, this sounded weird to me: “I think there might be other issues that accumulated that got (Parker-Lloyd) fired,” Virdee said. “I wanted action taken toward Ron because he offended me.”

   “offended”? does anyone find this ia weird use of the word ‘offended,’ which i find generally a mild appellation? outraged, yeah, take action. but not offended (if someone called me a terrorist i’d f*cking punch him [unless outnumbered, in which case i’d have to do the cost vs. benefit]).

3. KXB, racially diverse societies tend to be less socialist. look on the bright side 🙂

4. KXB, racially diverse societies tend to be less socialist. look on the bright side 🙂

   I loves me some capitalism, but I think this may only apply to Western Europe. Homogenous Japan seems less socialist than diverse India. Up until the 1990’s, less-diverse Pakistan was more open to private enterprise than more-diverse India.

5. What’s interesting about Putnam’s study is that even in comparatively non-diverse regions (rural South Dakota), introducing a little diversity (Norwegians meet the Swedes) had a negative impact on trust levels. Putnam seems to have accounted for race, income and class factors too (ie he doesn’t appear to have been comparing, for example, an upper-class white gated community with a mixed race ghetto).

   My response to this is that trust is overrated. I’d rather live with my own insecurities than have all my neighbours look just like me.

6. KXB, well, a regression only explains some of the variance (ceteris paribus & all), but….

   Homogenous Japan seems less socialist than diverse India.

   well, i believe there is a lot of public spending in japan. it isn’t commanding heights socialism (state ownership), but redistributative socialism.

   anyway, how increasing racial and ethnic diversity dampens support for tax increases.

7. more blacks = less AFDC per person.

   more racial diversity = less social spending.

   the latter is international data, the regression is pretty clear.

   My response to this is that trust is overrated. I’d rather live with my own insecurities than have all my neighbours look just like me.

   you might also live a shorter lifespan 🙂 (stress tends to weaken the immune system) anyway, i think the idea that people have to ‘look’ like you is only one dimension. part of ‘diversity’ is socially constructed. i think most europeans would be more stressed around ‘white’ turkish muslims than black or latin american christians.

8. My response to this is that trust is overrated

   In his book Trust, my homie Francis Fukuyama argued that how societies gauge trust often determines the level of commerical activity. In the Middle East and South Asia, almost any commercial transaction has to go through numerous checks and recommendations from family or neighbors – all this extensive checking slows commerce. In the West, you trust your dry cleaner to clean your clothes, without asking him a lot of questions first. If you want to buy a car, your credit rating matters more than how the salesman feels about you, or what they’ve heard through the church gosip group. The more trusting a society if of strangers in commercial transactions, the more commerce will flourish. If you limit your business contacts to family, trust is in short supply.

9. When I first started organizing in the environmental movement, the buzz word was “diversity.” The mostly white movement was trying to extend their base, and just didn’t get understand why people of color weren’t ‘interested in the environment.‘

   Any conclusions on why people of color weren’t interested in the ‘environment’?

10. Up until the 1990’s, less-diverse Pakistan was more open to private enterprise than more-diverse India

    KXB, just because India has a lot of diverse people doesn’t mean it embodies diversity. There is a lot of casteism and classism existent. Even college-educated folk don’t think twice about spewing religious and/or casteist hatred. So, in that sense, India does not embody the values of diversity, just the reality of it.

11. guju, Tension Over Immigration and the Future of the Environmental Movement. in the 1970s the environmental movement was really pro-zero population growth. immigration means more consumption. and latinos have a lot of kids compared to other races (including blacks).

12. Maybe because people of color have real, immediate political problems to address, while environmentalists are mostly privileged white people lacking such problems. As more minorities become rich and insulated from the problems of the lower and middle classes, more of them will probably worry about things like the environment.

    yes. i think this is a big point. whites didn’t care about the environment several generations ago. the ones that did were the elites, like teddy roosevelt.

13. KXB,

    Strikes me that Fukuyama and Putnam are talking about trust in two very different senses. ‘Commercial’ trust can flourish in highly diverse communities (ie do people in LA or Montreal not trust their drycleaners or bankers?), while personal trust deteriorates (I’m not sure about that Whitey who lives next door, looks like he might be an infantile leftist). In the very non-diverse enclave of Ballygunge Kolkata, for instance, no one trusts anyone in a commercial sense, but there’s another sort of trust which definitely thrives – ie everyone comes from the ‘right’ background and can be invited over for tea and weddings and might be good enough to marry etc.

    Razib, Fair enough – I’d still rather stress out and have neighbours who were different in some way than live in fusty old Ballygunge with the bhadralok.

14. Wow! This Wilkes U story is just a cornucopia of victimization. Trying to confront racism, the university sets up a diversity training which itself gets accused of racism. So, they take measures to correct this by firing the person in charge but wait, they’re still racist because that move was just a ruse to get rid of a “strong black woman.” You can’t make this stuff up.

    When it comes to racism and the sensitivity brigade, there is no way out. We should all just take a lesson form our great leader, George W. Bush, who knows how to transcend race.

15. We should all just take a lesson form our great leader, George W. Bush, who knows how to transcend race.

    i learned my lesson from his miscegenating brother 🙂

    btw KXB, i think there are multiple vectors we’re addressing.

16. But I think there are a lot more important issues out there, like helping people.

    But Bidismoker, what if the two were one and the same?

    Let’s not all jump to conclusions here. Just because Taz encountered a lot of brown people not interested in the environment, doesn’t mean its true. There are plenty of good greenies in India and elsewhere in the big brown world.

17. Just because Taz encountered a lot of brown people not interested in the environment, doesn’t mean its true. There are plenty of good greenies in India and elsewhere in the big brown world.

    i think correcting for SES is a big point. i think brownz are hardcore into the outdoors, but middle to upper middle class brownz. i think latinos, blacks, etc. correcting for SES are more environmentalist too. i think affluence is a big way to encourage concern with ‘intangibles’ like environment.

18. So, in that sense, India does not embody the values of diversity, just the reality of it.

    The national slogan of “Unity in Diversity” was something that got beat over your head over and over again and for the vast cultural differences between regions (language, caste, religion) it is amazing that India exists as it does.

    The socialist structure in India resulted in large black markets where commerce attempted to flow around the large bureaucratic structure. India was a case of an artificially depressed market. With strings removed, the potential for excellent growth via capitalistic markets is being realised. If you take a longer view of the subcontinent, it was always an excellent region for commerce and trade (between smaller/larger princely states, foreign traders…)

19. Yeah, to a lower primate all human races look the same.

20. bidi, we’ve been over this. my experience cancels out your experience.

21. In his book Trust, my homie Francis Fukuyama argued that how societies gauge trust often determines the level of commerical activity. In the Middle East and South Asia, almost any commercial transaction has to go through numerous checks and recommendations from family or neighbors – all this extensive checking slows commerce. In the West, you trust your dry cleaner to clean your clothes, without asking him a lot of questions first. If you want to buy a car, your credit rating matters more than how the salesman feels about you, or what they’ve heard through the church gosip group. The more trusting a society if of strangers in commercial transactions, the more commerce will flourish. If you limit your business contacts to family, trust is in short supply.

    This difference you notice is that because trust is commodified in the West vis-a-vis the enormous legal industry. It’s not so much trust per se but that you have legal recourse supporting every transaction, and nearly every social relationship.

22. Maybe because people of color have real, immediate political problems to address, while environmentalists are mostly privileged white people lacking such problems. As more minorities become rich and insulated from the problems of the lower and middle classes, more of them will probably worry about things like the environment. For the record, I’m not against environmentalists. I recycle and respect the environment. But I think there are a lot more important issues out there, like helping people

    .

    It’s the practically of what is preached by the western environmental movement that at times failes to see the reality/boundary conditions/constraints others are working under.

    My school promoted memberships of the WWF in India. We learned about the environment, animals, needs, etc. However, it never got preachy. When disucssions were engaged, they revolved around how to solve real, nuts and bolts type issues. How to pragmatically and evolutionary address problems along the human-natural world frontier.

    College campus enironmentalist breed tend to be a good incubator of the grand ideas/visions of what the movement is about, but there is very little trickle down into objective analysis and proposed pragmatic solutions.

    Another point may be that most people, in this day and age, are already sold that the environment is important and steps need to be taken. How this translates into real world solutions is a totally different ballgame. The uncompromising nature of environmentalists public face isolates quite a few. My impressions, YMMV.

23. This difference you notice is that because trust is commodified in the West vis-a-vis the enormous legal industry. It’s not so much trust per se but that you have legal recourse supporting every transaction, and nearly every social relationship.

    there is something to this, but japan is an example of a high trust society where rule-by-lawyers is not as omnipresent as the USofA.

    like i said, i think ‘trust’ can be an orthogonal vector….

24. I think its interesting that most comments here have presented environmentalism and helping the poor as a trade-off. It might not be. Sometimes, its the poor that have suffered the most because of unsustainable industrialization. When an area/city/town is environmentally decimated, guess who are the only ones left living there? Look at the socio-economic status of all workers who have suffered from industrial exposure and I think the answer is pretty obvious.

25. But I think it is pretty clear that environmental protection is not high in importance to most Indians. When in fact, you could argue that it is much more important in India than here.

    In the Skeptical Environmentalist, Lomborg acknowedges, along with the scientific consensus, that global warming is real. Rising sea levels may wipe out large swathes of, say, coastal Bangladesh and Korea. The difference, Lomborg argues, is that the educated people in Korea work in office towers, the poor people of Bangladesh eke out a living cultivating. Tens of millions of Bangladeshis may be killed; Koreans will not suffer so traumatically. His solution: Spend money on educating Bangladeshis; forget about environmental awareness. …

26. Bidismoker:

    For the record, I’m not against environmentalists. I recycle and respect the environment. But I think there are a lot more important issues out there, like helping people.

    You seem to imply that the two – environmentalism and helping people – are mutually exclusive. Why?

27. When an area/city/town is environmentally decimated, guess who are the only ones left living there? Look at the socio-economic status of all workers who have suffered from industrial exposure and I think the answer is pretty obvious.

    i think this is simplistic. industrial exposure is bad, but jobs at ford allowed tens of millions to go from working class to middle class. the trade off is simplistic too, but there are serious socioeconomic interests which environmentalists need to fess up about. the poor and working class aren’t heavily involved simply due to lack of consciousness raising, they do have other day-to-day concerns….

28. guju, Tension Over Immigration and the Future of the Environmental Movement. in the 1970s the environmental movement was really pro-zero population growth. immigration means more consumption. and latinos have a lot of kids compared to other races (including blacks). Let’s not all jump to conclusions here. Just because Taz encountered a lot of brown people not interested in the environment, doesn’t mean its true.

    Razib, that is a good reason why people think the enviro movement is racist, but not a good reason why POCs are not interested in the enviro movement- most POCs now hardly know that is even an issues in in-fight amongst enviros.

    SkepMode, Don’t put words in my mouth- I studied environment as an undergrad and was a part of the movement for half my life- it’s how i got started in organizing. I made it a POINT to find brown people doing this kind of work, and I transitioned into voter work because our desi community was too young to be able to organize them around environmental issues, when we didn’t even have our political voice figured out.

    There are not a lot of browns/POCs in the environemnetal MOVEMENT- i didn’t say they weren’t interested in the environment. One of the reasons why it was hard for the largely white enviro movement to organize desi-americans, POC americans was the outsider organizer coming in and “saving” your community. There is a seperate POC driven environmental movement – The environmental and economic justice movement – theses groups developed out of a “don’t build that power plant in my poor neighborhood” kind of a backlash. So basically Guju, two main reasons – 1) Organizing needs to come from within the community, not outsiders coming in to exploit, and 2) Most POCs in the US have too many other things to worry about, (such as food and shelter) instead of worrying about the rainforests in the amazon. This is a part of the whole continuous discourse on how do we make environmental issues accessible- (such as recycling everyday).

    And yes, there are environmental desis in India- I’m the biggest fan of Vandana Shiva. But who are the desis-AMERICANS working for the enviro movement here in the US? There’s hardly any (I know them all), and the environmental movement of the Carl Popes and Al Gores are in dire need of flipping the dialogue to make real change.

29. Taz, I have to agree that article you linked to is hardly clearcut. It seems very much like a case of he-said, she-said, and quite possible that events did not transpire in a patently and objectively offensive way.

    re: getting non-whites into environmental groups—it’s hard to separate out conflated factors like economics and geography. I wouldn’t be surprised if suburban people in general are less environmentalist, b/c they’re living in an artificially propped up environment. Personally, the environment is my #1 issue, and the one I probably have historically given the most money too, but it’s also harder to organize around at a micro level.

30. the poor and working class aren’t heavily involved simply due to lack of consciousness raising

    I guess thats the point I am arguing against. I think the poor and working class are very aware of environmental issues because they are disproportionately exposed to them. However, I will concede that this awareness rarely translates into organized or personal action. It is even more unrealistic to expect them to adopt the principles of global/national enviro-groups, which tend to be disproportionately elite.

    Doesn’t mean that the poor and working class have not organized at all. Some of the best stories of environmental activism come out of rural areas.

31. re: brown americans & the enviro movement. i think the key is how many american born and/or raised browns are there who are college educated? we are still a mostly FOB community. just because we are 1% of americans doesn’t mean we’ll be 1 out of 100 environmental activists.

32. bidi, what % of the gates’ foundation’s money is going to public health in the third world vs. environmental causes?

33. if you have ‘no idea’ about such details then why do you feel comfortable spewing generalities like ‘But saving a panda or a rainforest is a sexy gesture that rich people will support; providing basic education and nutrition to impoverished kids in Tamil Nadu or Michigan usually isn’t.’

34. Desi Education Here

    But I really don’t see how this helps the argument- because in the US, depite the perceived “upper class” attitudes of desis, the enviro movement is disproportionatey deviod of browns. And the browns that were there, were organizing other POCs- not browns. It was a big personal frustrating point.

    BECAUSE fo the diversity training, and acceptence of diversity values we commited ourselves [our org] into doing the work- we put an extra effort to reach out to non-traditional youth and train young folks in enviro-poltiical skills that were POC…

35. depite the perceived “upper class” attitudes of desis, the enviro movement is disproportionatey deviod of browns

    probably for the same reason there are disproportionately more brown doctors, programmers and motel owners. we are a product of those values handed down to us. doing something about the earth came a distant third to “respect your parents” and “study well”.

36. doing something about the earth came a distant third to “respect your parents” and “study well”.

    that’ll change. peers matter. doctors and programmers are well represented in the enviro movement.

37. no, more like a distant fortieth.

38. If ethnic diversity leads to less trust in the society, what does it mean for us browns? Go live in brownlands? Work towards making sure that the society does not become any more diverse?

39. diversity indices.

40. What difference would that percentage make?

    say no more…. 🙂

41. Once upon a time, I worked for an environmentalist group called NYPIRG. I would go door to door soliciting money. NYPIRG would pay me 50% of all funds raised and I was their superstar, bringing in $300-500/day. We would usually hit wealthy neighborhoods, but one day they accidentally dropped me off in a poor black neighborhood.

    When my hot granola chick boss picked me up she realized what she had done and was apologetic and mortified. Then I whipped out $600+ bucks. Back in the office, my young lefty-granola management tried to grasp what had just transpired. They theorized that the poor and oppressed were really the most attuned to environmental issues because they had been abused by government and big business themselves.

    Truth is, poor Americans have much more money than it seems, since so much of it goes unreported as anyone in the retail mortgage or insurance business knows. So the secret of my success was that I was actually soliciting money in a secretly “loaded” neighborhood that was under-serviced so to speak by telemarketers, door to door salespeople, and solicitors, ie. no competition for me. Additionally, I would always disregard the script NYPIRG gave me and instead cater to peoples’ self-interest via scare tactics (i.e, we are fighting the construction of a power plant in your neighborhood which will cause you to die if you don’t support us.”–I’m exaggerating, but that’s the gist).

    I made some serious money there for a kid at that time.

42. probably for the same reason there are disproportionately more brown doctors, programmers and motel owners. we are a product of those values handed down to us. doing something about the earth came a distant third to “respect your parents” and “study well”.

    So what, now you are calling me an anomaly?

    I beg to differ that the reason of disproportion in brown career choices isn’t because of “values” but because of selective immigration laws that changed in 1965. I strongly believe everyone has an inherent value for a healthy environment. It’s the outreach and education to desis in a compelling way about the environment that we have missed the connection.

43. Manju,

    You were a PIRGie?!?!? Talk about enviro groups lacking diversity…. 😉 Glad to see you survived. (Desis/POCs and philanthropy is a whole other topic, but I’ll save that for another post)

44. But saving a panda or a rainforest is a sexy gesture that rich people will support; providing basic education and nutrition to impoverished kids in Tamil Nadu or Michigan usually isn’t.

    Can you produce some numbers to back this astonishing assertion. Do you seriously believe that the total charity that is received by Churches, NGOs in 3rd world nations and other humanitarian groups is lower than the amount of money given to green groups.

45. Manju, You were a PIRGie?!?!? Talk about enviro groups lacking diversity…. 😉 Glad to see you survived. (Desis/POCs and philanthropy is a whole other topic, but I’ll save that for another post)

    Yeah Taz, I was the only non-white there. It was kinda like going to a grateful dead concert.

46. So what, now you are calling me an anomaly? I beg to differ that the reason of disproportion in brown career choices isn’t because of “values” but because of selective immigration laws that changed in 1965. I strongly believe everyone has an inherent value for a healthy environment. It’s the outreach and education to desis in a compelling way about the environment that we have missed the connection.

    Taz, I’d say that selective immigration and the values held by the majority of those pre-screened immigrants are not mutually exclusive. I’m not so sure about people in India giving two shits about the environment, at least not in the cities. People urinate and spit on public grounds like it’s the national sport. People, my own cousins, throw garbage on the ground when the garbage can is TWO FEET AWAY.

    Granted, it’s a tougher job, with the pop density being that much higher.

47. I’m not so sure about people in India giving two shits about the environment,

    I do not have proof beyond the links blogged here but religion does converge potently with environmentalism at the grassroots level in some parts of india. if the immigrant population is representative of their native lands, the ethos is present.

48. i think airy_d has a point. i’m normally averse to mapping culture:public policy, but i think china and india are interesting contrasts, third world nations with large and dense populations, but the chinese and indian attitude toward the environment differences some (e.g., there are environmental movements in both countries, but i think the indian ones can leverage the nature-friendly streams of hinduism which are more prominent in south asian than nature-friend streams of daoism).

49. Taz:

    But I really don’t see how this helps the argument- because in the US, depite the perceived “upper class” attitudes of desis, the enviro movement is disproportionatey deviod of browns.

    What is your personal experience here? I mean, having been so involved in the environmental movement yourself, you must have personally tried to get brownz to be involved. What replies did you get?

50. ” religion does converge potently with environmentalism at the grassroots level in some parts of india. if the immigrant population is representative of their native lands, the ethos is present.”

    “Mother Earth”, Bhumi, Prthivi, etc.. does have strong undercurrent in Indian religious ethos, but where are the practical manifestations, in day to day activities? I’m restricting my analysis to cities, and don’t know what kind of attitudes are prevalent in smaller areas.