Before we begin, elaborate on the dichotomy between these two statements: 1) The elementary, middle and high schools I attended were not only white-majority, but practically white-exclusive. 2) The environment was not racially diverse, but kids made a point to acknowledge, highlight and value their different ethnic backgrounds.
Over simplification inbound. Race is not the same thing as ethnicity. In the context of my middle American high school, we were all racially 'white.' There was ethnic variation between my classmates. I have an ethnic background based in the culture of a group of Finlanders who came to the US at the turn of the 20th century. A friend of mine is the first born son of a Ukrainian immigrant who came over here when things started getting squirrely after the fall of the Soviet Union. If there was a picture of the two of us, it would hardly be labeled 'Diverse' and our upbringings and culture were vastly different. In this case, 'white' is the national census sub-group we both fall under. We are racially similar, almost identical. My friend has been working hard at getting rid of his accent because it was giving him difficulties in college and more when he was looking for work. Racially similar, ethnically different. That of course is limited to this example, and other definitions of both 'race' and 'ethnicity' exist. In the 'ethnicity' field here at the hospital, you can check hispanic/latino, non-hispanic/non-latino, or other. That is different from the 'race' field, which has all the census favorites in it.
- Nobody in the United States is oppressing Laplanders. - Nobody in the United States is oppressing Ukrainians. - Nobody in the United States is oppressing Russians. I legit grew up a white minority in an environment where the Chicanos were the dominant ethnicity and had been for 400 years. The principle beef was between the Chicanos and the Native Americans, who together accounted for more than 65% of the population. Restaurants I couldn't eat at because I was white. Stores I couldn't shop at because I was white. You're sitting there with your entire family for 45 minutes and nobody brings you a menu... because you're white. And that was useful to experience. It was novel. And I thought I understood the impacts of racism until I moved in next to a charming black gentleman with a Ph. D from USC who taught at Cal Arts who had to sell his Ferrari because he got sick of getting pulled over every day. I thought I understood the impacts of racism until I had not one but two LAPD cops apologize for pulling me over because "they didn't realize I was white." As a white dude, I can look at you, white dude, and not only give no fucks about whether or not you're Ukrainian. I can look at you, white dude, and know your experience. More than that, you can know mine: yeah, I can throw out a couple anecdotes about the junkyard that said "we don't serve your kind and never will" but they're anomalies, not the dominant narrative. - Women will always be women. - Blacks will always be blacks. - Armenians will always be Armenians. - Hispanics will always be Hispanics. and you can't synthesize diversity out of a bunch of white backgrounds because they seriously don't fucking matter compared to the experience of minorities. I want you to imagine 8bit, sitting there all half-Arab half-African, in the middle of white-as-fuck UC Boulder, reading this: That's because you're willfully naive and ignorant on the subject. Wealth changes. Opinion changes. Race does not. "Diversity of background?" You gonna call the Amish a diversity hire? I'm not going to call Damore a nazi. But I'm also not going to crawl so far up my own ass that people who think black people suck should count as "diverse" because somehow opinion should count as much as fuckin' race.So when we talk about the value of a 'diverse' workplace, are we judging solely based on melanin content and facial features? Or is diversity of opinion something that is also valuable? How about diversity of background? I would argue that a rich white kid has more in common with a rich black kid than with a poor white kid.
Opinion should count more than race. Diversity serves purpose, and opinion-based-diversity will get a lot more done than race-based diversity.