English Literature

Diversity in America is largely meant to be racial integration. America is said to be a diverse country with diverse cultures and people from all over the world. However, invariably, people who think alike and have similar cultures tend to stay around each other because they complement each other and because of the comfort it brings. The American society is not different and that is why there is lack of diversity in America. This has been discussed by many scholars, and David Brooks discusses and illustrates the lack of diversity.

In his discussion Brooks points out that the American society is noticeably segmented in terms of people who may be from the same community or social status because, he argues, they complement each other and, accordingly are comfortable. This, inevitably, has led to some kind of isolation due to such groupings. He challenges the reader to consider this position and brings into light evidence supporting his argument towards getting the reader to realize that this may not be a good direction for the country.

Diversity may be argued to exist with some examples however, there is no direct confirmation of the diversity being widespread but merely a peculiarity and in fact, the general observation that one can make is that the American people endeavor to stay close or group with people who are similar to themselves.

In support of Brooks analysis and observation of people grouping themselves with similar people, he gives an example of the various regions or states in America and the groups of people who he has observed live there. In the Washington D.C. area, he has observed that Democratic lawyers invariably live in the suburban Maryland area and the Republican lawyers invariably live in suburban Virginia area. On this observation he compares the effect of suggesting an option to the occupants of certain areas and, for example, if you were to proposition to a Democratic lawyer to move from his or her house in Bethseda Maryland to Great Falls Virginia of the same value and status, it would be likened to asking the lawyer to purchase a pickup truck fitted with a gun rack and giving chewing tobacco to her children. People, for example, from Manhattan and from Orange County may not be able to fit into each others lifestyles due to the established groupings.

It is said that places in America are starting to look similar with regards to a clear cut pattern of social integration where people of similar cultures, races and color are clearly seen to congregate and settle in one area. In this regard, Brooks reveals that the late James Chapin told him that every place becomes more like itself. People in general are rarely tied down to the places they work at like factories and mills and that they may move to another area in search for cultural affinity or an area where their values are reflected by the people there. Once this is found, likeminded people move in and reinforce what is unique or what distinguishes the place. An example from history is the Boulder, Colorado area became acceptable to mountain bikers who moved there in great numbers and thus developed a distinct culture that overtook the original culture.

Human nature, however, is such that happiness is attributed segmentation by finding places where we are comfortable and feel that we can prosper. This invariably leads to uniformity as opposed to the diversity that may be sought. Brooks observes that the United State, though largely diverse, institutions and blocks are similar.

In The United States, the term diversity is akin or meant to mean racial integration. However, human nature as discussed before seems to go against the effort to increase diversity in the United States. Brooks recognizes that eliminating housing discrimination has been attempted successfully in the past. Nevertheless, housing discrimination is on the rise as seen in the analysis of the 2000 census data.

1990s did see an increase in racial integration but has been on the decline as seen in the foregoing census. It has been seen in the rise of middle class and upper middle class African American families who tend to congregate in predominantly black neighborhoods for some reason may for psychological comfort or due to racism.

Evidence has shown that there are previously integrated neighborhoods have become integrated over time. Examples of such areas are Nevada and Arizona which do not yet have reputations and, therefore, people move there for perhaps economic reasons. However it has been observed that as neighborhoods develop and mature, the neighborhood develops a certain personality and segmentation comes about. Brooks predicts that perhaps the new suburbs in the Southwest of America may be as segregated as the ones in the Northeast and Midwest, which are more established, in a few years.

Race and ethnicity runs deep in the American society, however, it is possible to locate areas that may be culturally diverse. Although the areas may be culturally diverse, the occupants of such areas do not show any interest in building a diverse community. People with similar tastes and preferences tend to congregate in certain areas and, in particular, ZIP Codes. Therefore, consulting firms have become helpful at locating potential customers for potential business owners.

One such consulting firms is known as Claritas which has divided the United States population into sixty-two demographic clusters based on various factors such as relative income, reading and television programme preferences and previous purchases. Brooks gives examples of two demographic clusters by Claritas known as suburban crawl comprised of young families getting an annual income of approximately 41,000 and residing in fast growing areas such as Pennsylvania, Bensalem, Burnsville and Minnesota. Claritas indicate that these people are more likely to have a three way calling, buy Light n Lively Kid yogurt. The other one is the towns and gowns cluster which is comprised of college graduates from Florida, California, Berkeley and Gainesville. They have been observed to purchase Dove Bars, Small foreign cars, read Rolling stone and Scientific American and watch Saturday Night Live.

The American people are predictable and this may be seen by the way the people can be efficiently clustered by the marketing and consultancy companies. In this regard, he refers to an observation that was made about the highest consumers of imported wine drinkers are concentrated in three metropolitan areas (New York, San Francisco and Washington D.C. Another observation with regard to motor home dealership where people in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania do not like RVs but people in Monroe County, Pennsylvania are motor home friendly and invariably like RVs.

Geographical segmentation from people who are not like us is not the only kind of division that is found in America. In this case Brooks brings to light the differences in likes towards certain news broadcasts, churches where people worship, people they marry in terms of educational similarity and the kind of friends and company they keep with regard to similar backgrounds and perhaps financial status.

The Foregoing pattern of segmentation is seen in a chapter of The Bell Curve by Richard J. Harrenstein and Charles Murray. The said Harrenstein and Murray put forward that chances of twelve randomly friends graduated from college is six in one thousand and the chances that six  have degrees would be less than one in a million. He intimates that the chances of any of your friends having studied in the top universities in America including Harvard, Yale, MIT, Cornell, and Chicago are more than a billion to one.

The institutions or occupants of institutions and, in particular, elite universities, that advocate for diversity and talk about it the most are the ones that are the most consistent in their politics, values and mores. This is reflected by a study of several universities by the conservative Center of the study of popular culture and the American Enterprise found that approximately ninety percent of the professors in the arts and sciences who had registered with a political party had registered Democratic Party. Fifty-four out of fifty-seven professors at Brown University were Democrats. The results found in Brown were consistent to the results from Penn State, Maryland, Harvard and the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Once again Brooks, from the foregoing, places blame on human nature and the need for people to seek out and be around people similar to themselves. It is for this reason that people would naturally avoid people dissimilar from themselves. This can be seen by the careers in academia being dominated by registered Democrats.

Diversity and equality are dreams and ideals that we celebrate yet challenge in practice by not taking action when such segmentation suits us. It is clear that Americans do not know about each other and are largely intolerant of views that are not similar to the ones within our group of likeminded individuals with whom we share the same values and beliefs. This makes it easier to believe anything that is negative about people whose beliefs and values are not consistent with one segment

One cannot forcefully impose diversity into any society, people or country and, in this regard, human nature does put a limit to the extent of diversity and many facets of the society will stay homogenous in culture beliefs and values. Furthermore, it may not be practical to forcefully impose diversity into institutions and organizations so that the United States can be validated as a diverse country.

However, it is worth noting that diversity is experienced in life by individuals by going through various institutions which may be individually homogenous. Perhaps the youth should be put through the national service so that they can interact with people who are unlike them and adults be encouraged to interact outside their social circles. Therein lies the richness of diversity and as opposed to avoiding people, groups, communities, institutions and organizations that may not hold the same beliefs values or have a different culture provides a wealth of experience and an opportunity to see the diversity that is in America.