Do You Believe Diversity is Necessary

Diversity offers unique, differing solutions to problems,so I feel it is necessary.

 

Yes, I believe they do. Government should reflect the people who live in the area governed, in my humble opinion.

 

I think diversity for the sake of it is kind of silly and artificial - ie, hiring a minority just because you don't have one. But I think having different viewpoints shaped by different experiences and different backgrounds gives you valuable information, so it seems like something an organization would want for legitimate reasons.

But that said, it depends on the organization. If you just have a bunch of people like Desmond from LOST who just sit and push a button all day long, I think it's unnecessary. That kind of organization doesn't really generate the key benefits from diversity.

 

Since the diversity question came up regarding the government of a state, I think the question of diversity is very pertinent. The government of a state, a city, a country should reflect the diversity of the people living in that political entity, in my opinion.

 

I wouldn't care if everybody in Austin was Chinese and everybody in Washington was Mexican, as long as they do a good job.

 

Diversity can transcend race, gender, etc. Two white men can have vastly different ideas about how something could be run. If you have a white elitist and a black elitist, the racial mix is diverse, but not necessarily the end result. Generally, you will get a good mix of ideas from a diverse group, but diversity for diversity's sake is not needed.

 

How can we have diversity and true color blindness when all we do is talk about who got a job because of their color and who lost one because of it?

As a descendant of Middle Eastern immigrants and a person of tan color, I would refuse to accept any job in which the primary criteria for my selection was the color of my skin. With that said, I agree with Kasich on this one, he shouldn't pick people just to fill the diversity/racial quotas demanded by the Ohio Black Caucus.

I was having a similar argument with a friend yesterday who argued that since Hispanics make up 37% of the Texas population according the new Census, therefore they should also control 37% of the House seats from Texas. To me, that is a flawed argument and has no logical merit. Yes, I would like to see more minority representation, but not at the expense of creating permanant racial political machines in which each races depends solely on a member of the same race for political representation. Personally, I tend to vote strictly based on my political philosophy rather than race or skin color. I do not care if a white, black, hispanic, or asian represents my district. As long as we have common political objectives, I am going to support that candidate.

 

if everyone does a good job, it doesn't matter who or what they are. unfortunately, when it comes to government diversity or lack or diversity doesn't help them do an even half way decent job

 

agreed.

 

Yes, pretty much. For my hourly workers, I think I would simply hire on straight qualifications - who's going to generate the most widgets most efficiently or whatever the criteria is. For management, I think it would be more ambiguous. For example, if I'm producing toys, I would want people in management that have a pretty solid feel for whether the toys would appeal to different genders or ethnic groups, etc. So in that regard, I think there's a lot of benefit to having people who have those experiences rather than having to rely on focus groups (or missing simply things like the urban legend Chevy Nova in Mexico).

Now, this assumes that there's no real benefit to my organization for having diversity in the production line people. I've never been in manufacturing, so I'm not sure if this would be the case.

 

I'd use the word desirable over necessary. We've already demonstrated we can run all kinds of organizations without diversity; but maybe we could run them better with diversity.

But, generally, I think we perhaps over-sell it. Diversification of your stock portfolio or your energy base has obvious benefits for avoiding idiosyncratic risk. You don't get really get that with diversifying by race. So, I'm always scratching my head a little trying to connect the dots between diversity and profit.

And sometimes it feels like wanting diversity is a cover for wanting a leg up for your own race. My wife talked to a black mother who was checking out our private school and she complained that the student body wasn't 'diverse.' This is Awty International, so they have kids from well over 100 different countries and classes are done in several languages. The one thing they are not short on is diversity; but I suppose they didn't have enough black faces.

I was thinking about something like that, except was going to use accounting as my example. Accountants don't have ideas anyway. :grin:

I do think the diversity-of-ideas is a benefit with market-facing functions (selling, marketing, product development, upper management, etc) because it would give you different perspectives on the customer. Since an executive in government definitely falls in that cateory, I think diversity in the original example is a good idea.

Besides, there is an obvious penalty to not having diversity.

 

In my businesses, we've never purposely looked for diversity...we've just tried to find the best people we could and that has always led to a pretty diverse workplace...

 

Aren't you contradicting yourself a little? If having different view points is a necessity, then you SHOULD be looking for diversity for the sake of it.

 

But having different points of view on an assembly line ISN'T necessary. Having it in management more likely is. So it depends on the organization and the position.

 

Diversity of race, religion etc. aren't necessary. Diversity in thought is.

 

When diversity and race is not a part of such talk, this country truly gets past the racial problem.

 

It is necessary b/c there are still racial problems in this country.

 

I'm with Yallmean. Why even mention "diversity"?

How about instead of submitting names for jobs, we submit a number so that people don't see our names as "Jose Garcia" or "Billy Bob Applethorn" or "Xiao Ling" on our applications?
How about instead of showing up to a jury, we stand behind a one-way mirror while we only listen to the testimony without knowing if it's a certain race or a certain gender?
How about we don't make national or local organizations that "defend certain races" like LULAC, KKK, Quanell X, NAACP?

Minorities will cease to exist if everyone is treated equally... isn't that the goal?

While in school, I tried to stay away from "race-specific" or "ethnicity-specific" organizations. I will continue to do that.