Down side of diversity


Carefully worded study still misses the point
When is diversity not diversity? When it is "bad" for the community.

IT HAS BECOME increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic diversity as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to pronouncements from political leaders, the message is the same: our differences make us stronger.

But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam -- famous for "Bowling Alone," his 2000 book on declining civic engagement -- has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings.

There are things that the "diversity" crowd always overlooks, the things that we share in our identity as Americans. Since the civil rights movement was perverted, that "Americaness" is the very thing that gets downplayed. Without common bonds, of course diversity is just a way of separating people.

The real news is that someone had to conduct a study to realize that diversity alone destroys communities.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Tue - August 7, 2007 at 12:52 PM  Tag


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