Talk:Diversity (politics)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 September 2018 and 7 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): WillyV24.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:37, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Politics

Moved from the main page:

In the political arena, diversity is a code word for forcing people to tolerate or approve people and practices they find repugnant. Diversity laws or rules forbid any criticism of certain protected groups of people; oof

are labeled hate speech.

• "Diversity laws" don't exist.
• In the West, there are no laws "forbidding any criticsm of certain protected groups".

AxelBoldt

• This is scary language. Maybe we should find some links for these people to look at. Their hatred and anger is evident.
• "In the West, there are no laws "forbidding any criticsm of certain protected groups"." This is untrue. There is controversy over how far hate speech laws goes in curtailing the free speech rights of individuals as one cen be fined or even jailed for saying things that might be construed as "hate."

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Removing: In the political arena, diversity is a code word for forcing people to tolerate or approve people and practices they find repugnant. Many US universities have speech codes that forbid certain criticism of protected groups of people; violations are labeled hate speech. Thus diversity masquerades as pluralism, which is the presence in one population of a wide variety of cultures, opinions, ethnic groups, et cetera.

As AxelBolt says, the facts are incorrect and the presentation is too partisan. Diversity is not solely defined or used as defined above. US universities do not forbid criticisms of "protected groups," only the manner in which certain criticisms can be expressed. -- April

Conversely, just about all institutions have some heavily enforced rules on the restriction of what they deem 'hate speech'. What constitutes hate speech is undefined, and it remains ambigous. With this in mind, any criticism has the possibility to be called hate speech and if it is (correctly or incorrectly) the governing authority will see that it has a duty to investigate, given to how serious the allegations are. This will (and does) lead to self-censorship, even when the criticism would be completely valid. There does not need to be a law banning any criticism for the law to do that. text adder: adding text

Honestly, it's just really sad that such people really think that's what diversity is all about. It's a little bit of hate speech all into itself. As I work with an organization on diversity, we'll be hopefully populating these diversity sites with some concrete information. Stay tuned... - Monica

This page is not for general discussions about diversity - please limit comments to the content of the article and ways to improve the article. See WP:TPG -- The Red Pen of Doom 18:45, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Disputed

"These critics claim that pluralism is a more accurate term for the presence of variation, and that, under the banner of "diversity," groups actually forbid criticism of groups that are, in essence, privileged by their minority status."

Isn't diversity actually a purely descriptive term which says that there a given society consists of more than one group? What is treated under the label of diversity here has more to do with value judgements of this situation and should, in my opinion, rather go under respect for diversity or perhaps multiculturalism.

Moreover, I find this whole section very partisan, representing mainly an anti-diversity POV. --Robin.rueth 07:02, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't the language 'privileged by their minority status' be removed?

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How exactly are white males a "non-minority group"? If 51-52% of the population are women, then men (or any proper subset of that category) technically can't be a non-minority, at least in the mathematical sense of these words. --66.102.74.57 03:29, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A: Men are a "non-minority group" because they are members of the dominant or privileged gender group. I agree that a better term is dominant group than "non-minority." For one the current literature in social justice uses "dominant group" more frequently and widely. (Maybe a page could explain this subtle difference.) I found the tone in the question very aggressive, but it seemed that it may have been implying that males aren't a "minority" or "dominant" group (race is irrelevant in the discussion of gender dominant groups; on a small-picture level...I know Race Matters). Such an assertion is reflected of an individuals inability or refusal to recognize their privilege, for whatever the reason -guilt, anger, ignorance, etc, and has no place here. To address the race comment because it's ignored too much...the same comparison made. Like people of male gender, people of white race -like myself- have privilege simply because they are white. If some needs to come to terms with that they should read 'Race Matters' by Cornel West, not debate a reality backed up by the dominant literature in social sciences, and particularly in social justice.

What has no place here is you telling people that they need to read books like "Race Matters" by notorious authors like Cornel West. You have no right to criticize another's point of view because they disagree with your opinion on "white guilt." Your ideas about race priveleges, racial irrelevance, and your opinion of "dominant literature" are just that, ideas and opinions and should not be treated as fact. There is tremendous evidence against white privelege and I encourage you to read the works of J. Philippe Rushton and Arthur Jensen who have degrees related to the subject at hand as opposed to Cornel West who was an admirer of the Black Panther Party, received a degree in Near Eastern languages and literature, and wrote a dissertation praising marxist thought. His bias as clear and his credentials have no academic bearing on the subject; his personal opinions have no more bearing than anyone else's here.Sonnavnorge

A taste of Cornel West's opinion from "Race Matters": "In white America, cultural conservatism takes the form of a chronic racism, sexism, and homophobia. ... for white America, this means primarily scapegoating black people, women, gay men, and lesbians." (Cornel West (Race Matters -- 1993, pg. 27)Sonnavnorge

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These arguments need to be elaborated upon in the article. FYI, quoting a book doesn't prove an argument. Cornel West is not infallible. Keep in mind, the pot is calling the kettle white. So:

1. Explain why "minority" does not refer to the mathmatically fewer group.
2. Explain what a minority is not. Is it any dominant group? Or is it a combination of all dominant groups, i.e., those who are Anglo-Saxon, male, mainstream Protestant, heterosexual, middle-to-upper-class, physically and mentally able, etc.? If the former, is a gay white male not a minority? If the latter, who are these people?
   

I don't know if there's an end to all this. These politically-charged abstract Latinate terms can mean whatever you want them to. That's how you "export democracy." Mikepjones 07:36, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Merge with Diversity (business)

I see little difference between the ideologies in the Diversity (business) (an organization (a business) with a diverse membership (employees) that work together well is positioned to do better than one that is not) article and Diversity (politics) (an organization (neighborhood, city, nation, etc.) with a diverse membership (citizens) that live in harmony is positioned to do better for its citizens than one that is not) article.

Any specific differences can easily be addressed in sub-categories. 144.15.115.165 16:54, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I personally think there needs to be a concrete page on "Diversity" before there can be pages on separate diversity topics. I think all these topics can converge together, and then when more information on these subtopics is discovered or added then unique subject sites should then be explored. -Monica

World-wide views of diversity

I removed this paragraph from the intro:

In a political context, the word "diversity" is often differently understood outside of North America: for example in the UK and most parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, the US concept of diversity does not wholly exist as there are few US-styled affirmative action programs. This is not to say that others are not supportive of the underlying agenda of US diversity, but it is usually described in different words, such as the terms "respect", "tolerance" and "multiculturalism."

This appears to be referring to a long ago version of introduction which equated 'diversity' to 'Affirmative Action' and no longer seems applicable. 144.15.115.165 22:00, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Political Communication

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 September 2022 and 21 November 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cat6095 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Sam12Sach.

— Assignment last updated by Deparkozee (talk) 19:17, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Potential Sources

I have found two academic sources that might fit into this article. I was thinking of using these sources to expand upon racial diversity in politics, since that part is currently not covered in the article.

1) Forest, Benjamin (2005-10-25). "The changing demographic, legal, and technological contexts of political representation". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 102 (43): 15331–15336. doi:10.1073/pnas.0507314102. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 1266125. PMID 16230615.

2) Griffin, John D.; Flavin, Patrick. "How Citizens and Their Legislators Prioritize Spheres of Representation". Political Research Quarterly. 64 (3): 520–533. doi:10.1177/1065912910373552. ISSN 1065-9129.

Cat6095 (talk) 00:31, 18 October 2022 (UTC)