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Diversity, we are told, is the lifeblood of America. Diversity is good! Let's "celebrate the differences."
California NOW appreciates that the only way to end discrimination is by celebrating and embracing diversity, including race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, size or any other arbitrary factor. ‑ NOW Acts
What of Blacks? How do African American leaders view the issue of diversity?
In this diversity is our strength. Many people, all equal under one flag. ‑ A Quest For The Moreal Center? Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., DNC, August 15, 2000
I agree. Diversity is one of our great strengths. But by definition, diversity means we are not the same. Similar, certainly, in many ways. But not the same, else what differences would there be to celebrate? Yet, the protectors of political correctness insist we are both different and identical. That our differences are only a fiction, a "social construction," and equal success should automatically come from equal opportunity and access:
To be fully effective for girls and boys, the design and operation of a program must consider gender‑not in a manner that regards gender differences as innate and unchangeable, but in a way that explores the social construction of gender and invites young women and men to challenge gender norms, examine gender privilege, and create a balance of power between girls and boys. ‑ The New Girls' Movement, Ms. Foundation for Women
Being an equalitarian kind of guy, I'm totally cool with challenging gender norms, though I doubt the good feminists at Ms. would much appreciate my input on how to balance power between the sexes. But I have to wonder at the egalitarians whose demands so clearly run counter to what is so plainly evident:
As a matter of daily experience we observe that some individuals are bigger, smarter, better athletes, superior artists, better singers. It isn't all nurture: Raise me as Michael Jordan was raised, and I would still be short and slow. We also observe that some groups consistently excel others. We pretend otherwise because the penalties for not pretending are severe. ‑ Race, Rushton, And Us, Fred Reed, April 8, 2002
Penalties can be severe, indeed, particularly when it concerns race or gender. Yet some bravely forge ahead, asking the forbidden questions:
There is at the University of Western Ontario a scholar named J. Philippe Rushton, much in disrepute among the clergy of nurturism. He is a sociobiologist, a member of an outcast class holding that much of behavior is biologically shaped. His book, Race, Evolution, and Behavior, is intensely reviled among the keepers of proper thought. It purports to describe and explain differences in intelligence and behavior among races. This we must never, ever do. ‑ Race, Rushton, And Us, Fred Reed, April 8, 2002
Why not? Why the pretense? Because to acknowledge the truth is to risk the legal institutionalization of sexism and racism. Because once upon a time supremacists like Adolf Hitler used such arguments to commit genocide. It's not the facts in and of themselves that are dangerous, but what some people might do with them.
But almost any knowledge can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Any low paid farm laborer with access to fertilizer, or a reasonably bright high school chemistry student, can create a horrific bomb. It's not the knowledge, but what we do with it that matters. And there are significant, measurable differences between the races which supremacists could use to further their perverse political goals:
Asians have somewhat larger brains than whites who have substantially larger brains than blacks. Measured aggressiveness follows the same pattern of a small gap between yellow and white and a larger gap between white and black. The pattern applies for other characteristics: East Asians are lowest in testosterone levels, latest in entering puberty, lowest in size of genitals, degree of criminality, sex drive, rates of fertility, rates of divorce and promiscuity. Blacks are at the other extreme, with whites falling between. ‑ Race, Rushton, And Us, Fred Reed, April 8, 2002
Despite the damage racists could do with such information, other more insidious risks may lurk in our imposed ignorance. What becomes of a society in which acknowledging real differences evokes perilous legal, economic and social consequences? This is an important question, though not so important, perhaps, as to understand why, of all people in all places, blacks in America should eagerly embrace this forbidden knowledge. For the fact of this matter is that America is a melting pot wherein races mingle their traits in a thrashing celebration of our differences.
Asians marry whites, whites marry blacks, blacks marry Asians, and the resulting offspring possess a combination of traits which are often better than the pure strains. So why fight it? The hazards of inbreeding are known. Crossbreeding stirs the pot and refreshes the genetic mix. We are a nation of mutts: Mutts rule!
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