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I grew up with Italians, French Canadians, Polish, German, Russian, Greeks, Chinese, Japanese, Hungarians, and others. All speaking their native tongues and broken english.
So why is this good? Well, as you will probably agree, it prepared me a little bit better for the world. My world was perhaps bigger than someone growing up in a small town with no diversity. As a child I heard stories from the father of my friend who were Polish, about concentration camps. I ate real Italian, Chinese etc food in the homes of these people. I saw bits of their culture daily.
When I travelled, I was already familiar with some of the food, and the languages, although not understood always, didn't sound so odd to me.
It made me learn that different doesn't always mean bad.
I don't think I'm fetishizing it, it's just a fact.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaylord_Focker
Diversity sounds so much sexier than a lot of white people who get along.
lol this ^ pretty much summed up my point I was about to make to that post.
I would agree with you NAT. I'm actually happy to live where I do and i'm not going to look at any 'opportunity' costs because I don't live in a place with a strong monotonous culture. There are some benefits to those places but whether you call it functional harmony or whatever, living with people from a variety of cultures/ethnicities, as well as experiencing the culinary, musical differences and engaging with folks who may actually bring a different p.o.v to the table, being either in a work meeting or in a social setting is pretty gratifying for me. It really is all I've ever known and i'm ok.
That said, I don't think it is superior either just different. I have nothing against cities or places that value long standing traditions, strong native culture and character. I do however have an issue with any notion that places that embrace diversity are somehow 'missing' something and are just not in a natural state of being. Throughout history we have many examples of cities that have been settled by people from all over - crossroad cities.
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It is arguably a natural state of being that people living together in close proximity will morph into a more cohesive whole eventually.
In some cases humans have worked against these natural impulses with discrimination which is why for example African-Americans remain somewhat distinctive from the broader American whole. If they had been treated like normal people black people in the U.S. wouldn't be any different from white people any more than redheads are different from blondes or people with brown hair. There is nothing fundamentally cultural about skin pigmentation. We can of course debate whether or not African-Americans remaining a fairly distinct entity or not is a good or bad thing, but what I say is still true.
I also think that some people are losing sight of the fact that the diversity their have in their midst is very much a "moment in time" thing. People are saying they're so happy to have been exposed to diversity in their lives - but a large part of that happiness is simply because that's what we are used to.
Someone living in Toronto ages ago may have been totally happy to be living in an all-British city. Someone in Japan today is probably quite happy to be living in an all-Japanese milieu.
This doesn't make any of us necessarily more or less ignorant.
Still with the "moment in time" it's quite likely that at some point in the future global and domestic migration and immigration patterns will be quite different from today. If I were to bet I'd say we're close to peak immigration levels in a lot of places, and everything from domestic to global politics, to mechanization of lots of jobs to increasing socio-economic affluence in the developing world will put downward pressures on immigration eventually.
So in many cases we'll end up with mostly the people who are already there at that point mixing around in a melting pot, salad bowl or mosaic, depending on your point of view.
And we'll all become a whole lot more similar to one another. Like we've always done when we've rubbed shoulders.
I never said that people who live in non-diverse locations can't be accepting of diversity, but they do have to experience it and live it to a degree, to be truly accepting of it. Otherwise it's just lip service.
Conversely, there are those that live in very diverse places and aren't accepting. The majority of these IMO are afraid of change, feel threatened by others, sometimes quite ignorant of the differences. Plus they seem miserable.
I agree. It's easy to say diversity doesn't matter, if you're not a minority.
Most minorities don't really care about "diversity". They care about being respected themselves for what they are personally.
"Minorities" are often racist are against other "minorities" that are different from them. Sometimes more than the majority can be.
This notion of "minority solidarity" is largely a myth.
Are you a minority? Not sure how you can speak for most. I'm a minority but I'm not bold enough to speak for all
I mean everyone wants to be "respected," white, black, brown or yellow. I don't think it's a crime to want to be in a city that has some people that look like you.
Are you a minority? Not sure how you can speak for most. I'm a minority but I'm not bold enough to speak for all
I mean everyone wants to be "respected," white, black, brown or yellow. I don't think it's a crime to want to be in a city that has some people that look like you.
Except for linguistically I guess I am not a minority.
I never claimed to speak for them, but one thing I do is I listen plenty to what they have to say. And I also am able to observe their behaviour just as well as anyone else.
As you kind of alluded to, they're humans just like all of us. This means they feel a need to be respected. But it also means they can have prejudices.
An Armenian isn't going to automatically start loving Turks by magic simply because he's now living in North America.
Also, it's not uncommon for more recently arrived minorities to adopt historic local majority prejudices against established groups like African-Americans in the U.S., or aboriginal Canadians in Western Canada, or French Canadians outside of Quebec.
My family has roots going back over 400 years in Canada and I've on occasion been subjected to prejudice from new Canadians not even born in the country who were "visible minorities".
Except for linguistically I guess I am not a minority.
I never claimed to speak for them, but one thing I do is I listen plenty to what they have to say. And I also am able to observe their behaviour just as well as anyone else.
As you kind of alluded to, they're humans just like all of us. This means they feel a need to be respected. But it also means they can have prejudices.
An Armenian isn't going to automatically start loving Turks by magic simply because he's now living in North America.
Also, it's not uncommon for more recently arrived minorities to adopt historic local majority prejudices against established groups like African-Americans in the U.S., or aboriginal Canadians in Western Canada, or French Canadians outside of Quebec.
My family has roots going back over 400 years in Canada and I've on occasion been subjected to prejudice from new Canadians not even born in the country who were "visible minorities".
Oh totally. Some of the most racist people I know are minorities. But, my point is, generally it's a positive to be around people similar to you.
Oh totally. Some of the most racist people I know are minorities. But, my point is, generally it's a positive to be around people similar to you.
Which, when you think about it, depending on how many there are relative to other outgroups, isn't really "diversity".
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