Are Americans Suffering Diversity Fatigue?

[cmotherofpirl]

Are Americans Suffering Diversity Fatigue?
People are willing to be tolerant, but only to a certain point. And from California to the Midwest and Florida, signs of exclusionary thinking are popping up all over.
By PO BRONSON WITH ASHLEY MERRYMAN
Has it become okay to exclude again?

Perhaps one of the most treasured of American rights is the freedom of association. This is the right to hang out with whomever we want, wherever we want. It's a complicated right, because when we hang out with "people like us," inevitably someone gets kept out. Where and how to draw the line is a question we all seem to be struggling with right now.

Black Jack, Mo., made national headlines late last month when it drew its firm line. An unmarried couple with three children tried to move into the house they had just bought. The house is zoned for single family residences—and the city decided this family does not fit their legal definition of family. The couple pleaded with the city council to change the law. The city said no, and intends to evict. When this news broke, many assumed Black Jack must be one of those white, religious conservative towns in the Bible Belt. But Black Jack turned out to be a suburb of St. Louis, and it’s 70% African American. Their enforcement of the zoning doesn't seem to be motivated by race or religion—just a genuine desire to preserve the pro-family environment.

My friends in liberal Manhattan were appalled. "It could never happen here," they insisted. But it is happening there—at the corner of 70th and Broadway. The Sherman Square condominium tower rejected the application of an unmarried couple. (No, the couple is not gay.) The co-op says it isn't a moral judgment. It feels it shouldn’t be forced into a legal contract with two people who are not even willing to be legally bound to each other. Isn't that reasonable?

Down in central Florida, developers have broken ground on a new township called Ave Maria, which they hope will be populated with conservative Catholics. The town will surround a colossal church, shaped like a pontiff's hat, with a 65-foot crucifix at the front door. They're also moving a university from Michigan to Florida, so the students and faculty can seed the town. If you're a parent who does not want your child to attend the Catholic elementary school, you will have to put your child on a school bus to be educated elsewhere in the county—Ave Maria plans no public schools. The planners know darn well they can't exclude non-Catholics from buying one of the 11,000 planned homes. But they won't need to.

These anecdotes make us liberals uncomfortable, but isn't congregating with like-minded people a natural impulse? Lawyers like to drink at lawyer bars, and moms have their mommy groups. Cubs fans don't go to White Sox games, and while Girl Scout troops don't exclude lesbians, they do exclude boys.

Nor should we assume this urge to withdraw is only a conservative tactic. In the state of Nebraska, the only black member of the state legislature is Ernie Chambers. Ernie is so liberal that a colleague in the legislature said, “Ernie sees racism when he pours his breakfast cereal.” But Ernie Chambers recently pushed through a new bill that carves Omaha’s school district into three—a black district, a white district, and a Hispanic district. He thinks this will protect black schools from being cheated of their fair share of bond proceeds. He also says black families should decide what black children are being taught. They think they’ll be better off taking care their own.

Meanwhile, out in Northern California there's a city called Hercules which decided it hates Wal-Mart. Hercules wants to build a cozy tree-lined street of small shops where an old dynamite plant used to be. They don't mind chains, like Starbucks and The Gap. They just don't want a Wal-Mart, which they believe will crush the small stores like sugar ants. Hercules has found no legal means of forbidding Wal-Mart from building on the vacant lot it owns, so this week the city voted to use eminent domain and take the $15 million lot from Wal-Mart. So far that appears legal. Across the Bay in San Francisco, people cheered.

Even in socialist France, they now want immigrants to swear to their love of French culture. We can't do that here, because we protect free speech, so we're just making English our "official," language, and leaving the rest implied.

People are willing to be tolerant, but past a certain point it feels like being ordered to eat the peas. So at West Side High School in Gary, Ind., school officials let a transgendered teen named Kevin Logan come to school in drag every day. He's a popular boy who performs with the girls on drill team. But last weekend, when Kevin showed up at the prom in a slinky fuschia dress, he was barred from entry by the principal. They already had a rule that boys can't wear dresses to the prom. Kevin's classmates were angry. But much of the country is siding with the principal. I disagree here. If a boy has already spent $200 on a manicure and pedicure, he should be allowed to showcase his glamorous toes.

It's clear people are tired of walking on eggshells, afraid to offend those with different beliefs, ideas, and lifestyles. It's grown exhausting, and they want their lives back. The idea of diversity seems to have worn out its welcome. It is now like a house guest who has stayed too long.

We don't want to lose what makes us "us." We're freezing up, right as our melting pot gets to the melting point, and our disparate identities are about to blur away. Can we as a society turn the heat back on without passions becoming so inflamed?

[jezic]

i have yet to figure out who thought diversity in the fashion that it has become is a good thing.

I am tired of parents today saying they want their children to have every single opportunity in the books. They want them to experience everything so they can decide. Hello!!!! you are parents. Your "job description" includes looking after your kids best interest. In this case that means telling them no to some things. Since when is just "experiencing" your family a bad thing?

We want a "diverse culture" and the college i attend even has a "diversity council" to promote inclusiveness in the extreme. It seems though that our inclusive nature and our desire to have diversity have backfired because now there is no standard.

I wish people could realize that living a life that your parents lived isn't so bad, as long as you choose to do it. If you want something else go look for it, but there are many things in the world that are not good to experience. Sure you can grow through them, but my better guess says that you don't need to mess with some stuff.

[scardella]

I think it's about dang time. I'm glad someone is realizing that it's natural to want to be with people like you. It seems as much a violation to force diversity on people as it is to force uniformity.

[Mercy me]

Juxtapose this article with what is happening in Canada where Canadian authorities speaking about the terror arrests said "It's important to note this operation in no way reflects negatively on any specific community or ethnocultural group." - right before revealing a list of suspect names that read like a cast list for Osama bin Laden's "E! True Hollywood Story." Quote courtesy of the NY Post. Let's all be PC.

[scardella]

They're being bigoted against terrorists! The brutes!

[Guest T-Bone]

[quote name='Mercy me' post='999148' date='Jun 6 2006, 07:57 PM']
Juxtapose this article with what is happening in Canada where Canadian authorities speaking about the terror arrests said "It's important to note this operation in no way reflects negatively on any specific community or ethnocultural group." - right before revealing a list of suspect names that read like a cast list for Osama bin Laden's "E! True Hollywood Story." Quote courtesy of the NY Post. Let's all be PC.
[/quote]

Hmmm....if it was a bunch of Irish-Catholic men that were responsible for terrorst attacks world wide, don't you think that there'd be quite a few "O'Connors" on the lists?

[Lil Red]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' post='998945' date='Jun 6 2006, 09:02 PM']The co-op says it isn't a moral judgment. It feels it shouldn’t be forced into a legal contract with two people who are not even willing to be legally bound to each other. Isn't that reasonable? [/quote]yes, it is reasonable.

[heavenseeker]

i dont think we are

[Norseman82]

"Celebrate diversity" has become "celebrate perversity".....