Diversity

Let me begin by saying I have always thought Diversity to be over rated. Not real diversity, but the modern concept of diversity for its own sake. Also, the definition of diversity bugs me. It simply means a room full of people who look different. Or in the model of corporate America, a room with more minority faces than white.

I remember a friend once telling me she had always wished to be part of a dinner club where the couples were made up of one white, one black, one Asian and so on. How strange, I thought. How about a dinner club of couples who all had a passion for food or conversation or drinking wine.

Diversity surely plays an important role in relationship. The relationship at the core of our society, the marital relationship, is based on the inherent diversity of the primary players. Men and women are by physical nature, complimentary. I think most will also tell you the differences go beyond mere physicality. We each bring something to the table. Society's survival depends on the diversity of men and women.

But the heart of all relationship is not diversity. It is unity. What creates friendship, teamwork, marriage is not what makes us different, but what we have in common. We belong to a church community because of our shared beliefs, we belong to a team because of our shared love of a sport or hobby, we commit to a marriage because of shared core values. Our friendships also require that we have something in common, something that unifies us. This can be shared values, geographical proximity, the need to get children to the same place at the same time, books, movies, Bunko, Poker.

The beautiful thing is that when we are looking for commonality, we often end up with diversity. We share a space with our neighbors and find unity in our desire to protect, beautify and socialize in that shared space. In doing so we find different values, faiths, hobbies. We carpool with the families of our children's friends. While establishing this pragmatic relationship, we discover people who know of things we do not: art, fishing, origami.

The liberal left knows what I know. Diversity doesn't have anything to do with skin color. To them, Justice Thomas, Condi Rice, Bill Cosby aren't really black. Why? Because while they say they want diversity, what they really want is unity. A unified ideological perspective. That is all well and good, but don't market your desire as a desire for Diversity.

When will the elites stop trying to force the subject. We common folk don't do it. I don't know many people who pick their friends based on physical realities nor do they exclude for a similar reason. We create communities because of what unites us. Sometimes the demographic may look to be homogenous. My school community is primarily Catholic. Well, that is because it is a Catholic School. My adoption community is made up of mostly racially mixed families. Hm, maybe because we all adopted internationally. In both cases, while we may look similar and we do have things in common, the groups are fantastically diverse because they are each made up of human beings.

This may sound heretical coming from a person with an incredibly diverse family. But I can assure you that diversity has never and will never be a goal of mine. I don't want diversity, I want unity. I want to find in those around me what unites us: What passions, goals, values we share. I want to surround myself with people who love something that I love. That does not mean they have to love everything that I love. My Literature Pals do not have to have a passion for the treadmill. My soccer moms do not have to read Shakespeare in their spare time. My dinner club does not have to read the Psalms on Thursday mornings.

But if we love nothing in common, I don't care what color, nationality, height, weight or gender they may be, I don't see a friendship there. And to try and FORCE one simply will not work. It goes against human nature. We are drawn to those who are most like us. And while the social engineers think we are all shallow enough to think in our deepest DNA this means to those who look like us, they are wrong. We are drawn to those who love what we love. Think back to the marriage bond. We are drawn to those who are physically most UNLIKE us.

And when we share a love of something beyond ourselves with another, we naturally love the other. We love them despite our differences. We love them because their difference adds to the relationship. We have a common goal, a unifying principal, and our diversity serves that goal, enriches our lives, shows us something we could not discover on our own.

So to the elites, the corporate watchdogs, the social engineers: Can we quit seeking diversity for its own sake and instead seek to find things to love, things to unite, things to enrich. In the unity we can't help but find diversity. True diversity, not fabricated or physical. The diversity of personality and of a unique soul unlike any other: The diversity that is worth of our love because it has nothing to do with the book cover, but the deep and rich story that is on the inside.