written by Anti-Racist Parent editor Tami Winfrey Harris
Diversity is important to personal and community development. Diversity is not organic.
Kathleen Parker’s article two week’s ago in the Washington Post helped me to crystalize my thoughts on diversity, its importance and how community’s can achieve successful and beneficial diversity. You may remember that Parker wasn’t sold on new radio commercials celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act:
Lately, the fine intent of eliminating discrimination seems to have morphed into diversity advocacy.Before I proceed, let me say that I prefer a world in which not everyone is the same. I like that my neighbors include a gay couple and a single mother and that several languages are spoken on my street.But happy diversity is an organic process that results when like-minded citizens congregate around shared values and interests. Often those interests and values have evolved from racial and ethnic identities, but not necessarily. Sometimes neighbors of diverse backgrounds share affection for old houses, or window boxes, or pet-friendliness.That not all people have access to all the same housing opportunities is called life in a free-market society. But the fair-housing folks want life to be more fair, and the ads are warming us up for some really fun social engineering. Read more…
One of the ads that so disturb Ms. Parker:
The wormiest of three ads posted online features a mother and daughter just home from visiting mom’s workplace. Daughter is breathless with wonder at how diverse Mom’s workplace is, but wants to know why everyone in their neighborhood “looks just like us?” Dum-de-dum-dum.
Horrors!
I tend to think those who disdain proactive encouragement of diversity are really poor students of human behavior and that they don’t really believe in diversity’s importance. It feels more secure to be surrounded by people who look and think and eat and worship and work and live and parent the way you do. The echo chamber of homogenity is comforting in the way it tacitly approves of your life and choices. Who wouldn’t want this? Like seeks like–it is easiest that way. It is the rare person who likes to be uncomfortable.
Diversity done correctly is almost always uncomfortable–at least a little. Living or socializing or working around people who are different–racially, ethnically, politically, religiously, etc.–requires compromise, requires empathy, requires withholding judgement, requires being open to learning. Being confronted with difference can mean having your way of looking, thinking, eating, worshipping, working, parenting and living challenged. It means having your biases and bigotry challenged (and we don’t like to think we have any of those, do we?). But these are good things, yes? The discomfort of diversity yields better people and better communities. Diversity done correctly is also almost always rewarding. But it should be clear why it isn’t and never will be “organic.”
Anti-Racist Parent columnist Susan Lyons-Joell also weighed in on the article:
What do people want in their neighborhood? How about affordable housing, access to decent hospitals, grocery stores and businesses, a police force on your side, and a good public education and the careers that come with it. It’s no coincidence that neighborhoods where those things are missing are those that overwhelmingly are minority-dominated. That’s not the “free market,” that’s institutional racism held in place by economic disparity. Where one grows up can be a burden or a blessing, and it is not easily negated after the fact. Contrary to what Ms. Parker claims, diverse neighborhoods are not produced deliberately and intentionally – they are more often than not a product of economic and social circumstance. For that matter, so are the non-diverse neighborhoods, like the 1950s white-only enclaves that have only recently begun to have ethnic diversity, as those neighborhoods decline and the white people MOVE OUT.
It must be so nice to be able to pretend that a diverse environment is something willfully chosen or unchosen based on your own personal preference and needs. But it’s not. It’s a social justice issue, showing the inequalities, often along color lines, that still exist in America. There’s nothing “free-market” about a social stratum that is stacked against you from day one because of where you live. Ms. Parker, if you’re not committed to fixing it, you’re part of the problem.
Readers, what do you think?
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Excellent post, and Anti-Racist Parent columnist Susan Lyons-Joell is a powerful writer! Parker’s viewpoint assumes everyone begins on a level playing field, and all they have to do is choose what color flowers they want in their front yard. We may start on a MORE level playing field now than before, but its not level. It never will be. When will people realize this?
As one who is fortunate enough to be able to choose among many neighborhoods in which to live (because I can afford decent housing), and one who works in a neighborhood where most residents cannot, I view Ms. Parker’s statements as mere justifications for the housing inequities that exist in societybecause of racism and poverty. To call the unequal state of housing opportunities that continue to exist a result of “free market economy” is shameful, at best, and indicative of the mindset of those who hold tightly to the unearned priviledge afforded whites in America. These kinds of justifying statements are what keeps our society polarized and unequal. They allow the Ms. Parkers to feel entitled to those unearned priviledges while blaming victims of classism and racism for not participating fully in the free market economy.
It depends on a lot of different factors. My parents are reluctant to rent out a house they own because of the Fair Housing laws. They live on a farm in a rural area and they’re aware of other land owners whose isolated farm houses have been turned into meth labs or been trashed by young people holding parties. Renting to a single mother with young children could leave them open to considerable liability if one of the children were injured while playing around the farm. So they haven’t fixed up the house and they’ve never listed it for rent. I imagine other landlords have similar concerns and their hands are tied by the law that says they can’t discriminate.
I don’t particularly care who my neighbors are, provided they aren’t overly loud. I don’t socialize with any of them. I suppose I wouldn’t care to live next door to the neighborhood sex offender or to someone with a violent criminal record. There are blacks and American Indians and single mothers with children in the neighborhood of apartment complexes where I live and it’s pretty much live and let live. But diversity wasn’t and never will be one of my requirements for the neighborhood where I live, just that the place I live is safe and affordable and permits me to have my cats. I don’t take kindly to the idea of enforced social engineering. Kathleen Parker has a point.
>I suppose I wouldn’t care to live next door to the neighborhood sex offender or to someone with a violent criminal record.
There are laws about where most sex offenders can live. There are also some laws about some criminal offenders.
Surely you’re not saying that “blacks and American Indians and single mothers with children” are on the same level as violent criminal offenders?
As for your parents’ house and liability: that’s what leases are for.
The sad part is that Parker is a pretty moderate social conservative. Nonetheless, this sort of thinking has gone on since the beginning of the country. Parker’s notion of things “naturally” leveling and and resulting in fairness and unity is, at best, unachieveable. The issue is power dynamics. I know I don’t want to rely on people that got power through genocide, lynchings, wife-beating, violence against homosexuals, etc.. to let us all unite and live in peace. Ain’t gonna happen. The ONLY reason anything has changed is people have forced the issues and exposed the injustices. Asking politely for some people to ‘come around’ is like asking an elephant that is stepping on you if it wouldn’t mind losing weight.
No, of course I’m not equating blacks, Indians or single moms with criminals. Why would you think I was? I was just commenting that my neighbors do include people of different types. I wouldn’t actively avoid living in a neighborhood with people of different races or sexual orientations, etc. I actually always have, at least since I went away to college, though it was more of a byproduct of where I could afford to live and the make-up of the college I attended than an active choice. I also tend not to socialize with my neighbors because apartment living tends to be pretty transient and people move in and out and keep different hours and because I’m extremely shy.
Diversity simply is not something I’d ever make a priority in choosing where to live. Affordability, safety, and a place that allows pets are my priority.
Regarding my parents’ house, a lease is all well and good and they could always throw out a tenant who violated the lease, but the damage can also be pretty hard to undo once the house has been wrecked or the chemicals from the meth lab have leached into the land. They don’t advertise the house for rent because they don’t want to take the risk. The Fair Housing Act has probably limited affordable housing for quite a few people, even as it outlaws discrimination against certain groups. It may well still be desirable, but that’s one negative consequence.
I still agree with Kathleen Parker’s column.
Anti-Racist Parent columnist Susan Lyons-Joell has some valid points