I was talking to a white woman and one of my dawgs earlier this week when the conversation somehow ended up on diversity.  Obviously not taking into account her audience, she said with a straight face that “diversity is not about color.”  She claimed that Polish people and Russian peole are diversifying

[America] becasue of their different languages and cultures.  Of course I almost lost it, then I brought myself back and I said “that’s an interesting theory.”  And that was it.

I didn’t curse her out like a dog because I was overhwelmed by her ignorance and didn’t think a person like that could be talked to anyway.  I could not begin to explain the psycological, economical, physical and social ramifications of being black in America, and how it ties into the idea of diversity, to such a loon.  I was amazed that someone, white or black, living in NYC could hold such a ridiculous opinion.  There isn’t one European ethnicity that brings diversity to this country.  White folk are white folk wherever you go.

When normal people think about diveristy, at least in this country, they think of people of color, which almost always means black (or hispanic).  We forget that this very basic idea of diversiity is sometimes lost on our more ignorant fellow Americans.  For a place to be considered diverse, whether it is a workplace, a neighborhood, or a school, it had better have a black person somewhere in the mix.  Perhaps I should have ranted and raved about how Dr. King did not die so that white Europeans could “bring” diversity to America.  But I didn’t.  Instead I rant to you. 

Diversity (I know I have said that word a lot in this blog) may not be solely a black thing, but it certainly is not a white thing.Â