Why I No Longer Use the Words “Diversity” or “Diverse”
When we started our multicultural summer camp for kids twelve summers ago, we celebrated the word “diversity”. It was all over our web site and elevator speeches. I bragged about how we were “diverse” and reveled in our “diversity.” That was then.
Now, the word “diversity” has a host of non-positive connotations. It has become a negative code word signifier for non-white male. There are now negative implications of using the word. Instead of the narrow, now-negative term of “diversity,” we should strive for “equity.” Perhaps, as we continue to move forward with our human progress, we can celebrate and appreciate true diversity at camp and in the larger world, and maybe in time getting back to where the term isn’t a negative.
“Diversity” has become a negative code word for non-white male, used often by white males, meaning…
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“all those other folks.” In this context, the word provides white males with a cover for inaction. When confronted with trying to create a culturally competent workplace or other broadening of horizons, they can use the maneuver of saying, “I don’t know how to do this or put in the hard work, so can someone else please do the work for me?”
There are now negative implications of using the word.
“Diversity” sometimes signals quotas to be filled rather than authentically valuing people.
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At the biggest firms, women and non-whites continue to make up a small percentage of the white collar work force. The few exceptions to this rule are held up as evidence of widespread change–as if a few individuals by themselves constitute diversity.
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When the word is proudly invoked in a corporate context…it can give a person or instutitution moral credibilty, a phonemenon that Nancy Leong, a University of Denver law professor, calls “racial capitalism” and defines as “an individual or group deriving value from the racial identity of another person.” It’s almost as if cheerfully and frequently uttering the word diversity equals doing the work of actually making it a reality.
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…small victories are often overenthusiastically celebrated as evidence of larger change. In 2017, for example, when Viola Davis became the first African-American woman to win the Best Actress in a Drama Series Emmy, the moment was cheered in the press as a triumph of racial equity in Hollywood. But just a month before, Stacy L. Smith, a professor of communication at U.S.C. who, with other researchers, had just released a damning report that studied gender bias in 700 films made between 2007 and 2014, lamented “the dismal record of diversity, not just for one group, but for females, people of color and the L.G.B.T. Community.”
There are differing conceptions of term, depending on the background of the person using it.
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Adding to the ambiguity is the fact that the definition of “diversity” changes depending on who is doing the talking. The dictionary will tell you that it is “the quality or state of having many different forms, types, ideas,” and the word is often used, without controversy, to describe things like the environment and stock-market holdings. Diversity is a positive bio-concept, but, when applied to people—the notion of diversity feels more fraught, positioning one group (white, male Americans) as the default, and everyone else as the Other. Multiple studies suggest that white Americans understand “diversity” much different than black Americans. When Reynolds Farley, a demographer at the University of Michigan, researched the attitudes of people in Detroit about the racial composition of neighborhoods in 1976, 1992 and 2004, most African-Americans considered “integrated” to be a 50/50 mix of white and black, while a majority of whites considered such a ratio much too high for their comfort each time the study was conducted.
Overuse has diminished the term.
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The word “diversity” has become so muddled that it loses much of its meaning. It has gone from communicating something idealistic to something cynical and suspect. This has happened via a combination of overuse, imprecision, inertia and self-serving intentions.
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It has become both euphemism and cliche, a convenient shorthand that gestures at inclusivity and representation without actually taking them seriously.
We need to strive for “equity” not “diversity.”
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Golden Globe–winning screenwriter, director, and producer Shonda Rhimes favors a more progressive term: “normalizing.”
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Jeff Chang, author of 2014’s “Who We Be: The Colorization of America” prefers “equity” to “diversity.”
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“‘Diversity’ is like ‘Ugh, I have to do diversity.’ I recognize and celebrate what it is, but that word, to me is a disconnect. There’s an emotional disconnect. ‘Inclusion’ feels closer; ‘belonging’ is even closer.”
Pursuit of equity and progress for all is why we celebrate and appreciate true diversity at camp.
Pursuit of equity and cultural competence at at all levels need not be just racial, i.e. background, culture, family structure, socioeconomic.
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We can and should normalize storytelling from the perspective of ethnic and other minority groups, making them the standard rather than the exception.
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“You should get to turn on your TV and see your tribe,” …“Your tribe can be any kind of person, anyone you identify with—anyone who feels you, who feels like home, who feels like truth.”
Source: New York Times