I don’t understand why people engage in arguments about diversity. Diversity is something that is factual. It is always defined in
context. For example, if I were to walk into a room full of men, and I noticed that there are no other women present, I might
wonder if I had walked into the wrong room – a true experience. The only reason diversity gets attention in that scenario is because
in context, gender diversity is lacking. However, if I considered Texans as the context, then I would have fit right in with the room being
full of Texans. But again, any non-Texans in the room would have been considered diverse.
In context, diversity simply means different. Either something is different when compared to other things or it isn’t. So, the debates
shouldn’t be about diversity itself. Either things are the same or they are not. When someone mentions, “I don’t agree with diversity?” I ask them to be more specific because again, you can’t argue with fact. I don’t engage in debates about diversity itself. What I prefer is to get an understanding of what may be behind the question or statement.
Now where things get tricky is when we explore the reasons for the state of the context. Let’s go back to my example. If I were to
ask, “Why are there only men in this room?” Where the discussion truly gets interesting is in deciding if we want to do anything about it and if so,
what might that entail. It’s not just enough that we argue about what exists. Predominant spaces are just that – predominant spaces. However, why are these predominant spaces? What, if anything, do we want to do about it? What is the overall impact?
What I put forth is that we need to understand history so we know how certain spaces became predominant around a particular
identity. Next, we need to understand power dynamics so we know who suffered and who benefitted from that history. And finally,
we need to understand if and how that may be perpetuated in our current situation. For brevity:
- Understand how the predominant space was created
- Understand the power dynamic
- Understand the legacy and its impact
Once we have that, we can determine if we want to do anything about it and what that might be. I don’t have an issue having
vigorous debate about this. I believe doing so can help create change that benefits everyone. It gives me insight to what the other perspectives
and viewpoints are and opens up knowledge, awareness and even understanding. I think we need more of that.