0801 Diversity Victimology
Apparently a diversity-driven victim mentality is alive and thriving in West Michigan. Not only that, but according to the West Michigan Chamber Coalition, economics dictates even greater promotion of diversity’s unity-through-disunity myth. According to focus groups led by less-than-objective facilitators, a majority graveling at the feet of minorities will help usher in prosperity.
The coalition’s report, “Strategies for a Culturally Competent Region,” begins with huge assumptions; the diversity movement is a positive social force, diversity doctrine operates through valid definitions and purposes, and cultural competency is the responsibility of “straight,” male, Anglo-Saxon conservatives. It is time for a reality check.
There is diversity in any open society because humans are not animals driven by instinct but are decision-making self-oriented beings. All people, whether part of a numerical minority or not, are quite naturally more comfortable with others like themselves and, naturally, tend to feel that everyone else should be like them. The result is groups of all sorts from close friends, neighborhoods, communities and nations to social movements, political parties and governments.
With social diversity there will always be minorities and majorities. There will always be, by the nature of reality, degrees of comfort and discomfort between groups. The key to survival and prosperity for any society is the ability of its members to accept a common identity and common core of expectations.
The diversity movement as it exists today is the illegitimate child of America’s precious civil rights struggles. But rather than shaping our future into one that values individuals simply because they are human beings made in God’s image, diversity propaganda wrongly places value in others based on which group they happen to claim allegiance to and how disjointed they feel toward the majority. Instead of promoting the need of any society for minority populations to learn, respect and seamlessly live as vibrant members, diversifiers promote the very things they claim to abhor; dominance, self-centeredness, entitlement-seeking, reverse discrimination, and marginalization of established society. This fairy tale of unity through disunity is slowly killing America.
Definitions and purposes are so open-ended within diversity thinking that almost anything may be claimed for the camp. It now includes academic ability, socio-economic status, language, sexual lifestyles and foreign workers.
It is often intimated, if not stated openly, that barely the mention of diversity in conservative circles creates a range of emotions from fear to rage. As with many things in life, there is actually a grain of truth to such accusations and, as always, “the devil is in the details”.
If there are negative responses by conservatives to diversity, it is not because they do not understand the natural world or that they fear or despise it; precisely the opposite. It is the distortion and abuse of natural diversity which they respond against. As Governor Granholm demonstrated last month with Proposal 2, diversity even trumps Michigan’s constitution.
In spite of lip services to the contrary, conservative Christianity and in some circles religion in general, is not part of the game; at least not in the public square where all other sectors of citizenship are expected to be enforced at the majority’s expense and through the strong arm of the courts. The most powerful factor for both civil and private tranquility, as our founding fathers acknowledged, is routinely misrepresented in the present and its history mutilated, sometimes beyond recognition.
According to the chamber coalition, “race-specific groups” and forced “sensitivity” will promote anti-racism and un-forced harmony. Such is modern diversity doctrine. It is a beast with a life of its own which roars tolerance and unity but mauls the common good by deceiving people into factions.