Fredrick Douglass Housing Project Towers in Detroit. (Wikipedia)
Diversity is among the most abused words in the English language, and in today’s hyper-politicized society, it is fashionable to talk about it endlessly.
To many, it is an obsession. Universities are infatuated with it (see Missouri, Columbia, and Princeton). Corporations race to be the most diverse and “inclusive” in their industry (see Target). Politicians do everything in their power to give the impression they are extending their privileged hands to the historically underprivileged (see Kennedy and Clinton families). Meanwhile, the sophisticated denizens of America’s coasts preach the merits of diversity and multiculturalism from the safety of exclusive doorman buildings and wealthy suburbs. You see the point.
To the radical left, diversity is a hussy—a tool, a slogan, a fount of power and money. In the name of diversity funds are raised, congressional races are won, and college students have an excuse to stop studying so they can attend “social justice” rallies and feel good about their meandering, hung-over existence. These days, true diversity has been lost in a storm of intolerance that condemns anyone who dares to challenge the latest social trends or mindless groupthink.
But this is not to say that diversity is not an important aspect of our culture. Nothing is more static than a civilization that fails to understand external customs and ideas, or that refuses to acknowledge anything beyond its borders. However, today, true diversity is under siege.
Diversity is now a one dimensional concept that rejects the idea of moral judgment, refuses to acknowledge differences as complements (e.g., men and women complement each other, but are not the same), and sees conformity as its greatest ally. The contemporary language of diversity has become true diversity’s own worst enemy.
Diversity is an integral part of any healthy culture, but contemporary notions of “diversity” have become the concept’s own worst enemy.
In politics, the Obama administration’s latest foray into the diversity issue centers on Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, who recently detailed a plan to increase Section 8 housing subsidies to allow recipients to move into wealthier neighborhoods.
On the surface, this sounds commendable, but the fine print is less appealing. The administration views several zip codes, including Clinton’s own Westchester County, New York, as too white and too wealthy, and thus, in need of federal intervention to make them more diverse. To do so, the administration, whose policy is set to be enacted in October 2016, would increase subsidies to Section 8 recipients (sometimes by more than double) who agree move to the suburbs while lowering subsidies to those who remain in cities. This would force many families to relocate, even if they did not want to leave their homes. By some estimates, 350,000 families would be re-settled out of urban areas.
What the administration fails to acknowledge is that when HUD first piloted a similar program in the early years of the Clinton administration, the results were disastrous. When families were moved from urban centers and given access to nicer homes and more substantial government subsidies, relocated adults still failed to obtain better employment, while their children did not perform better in school. In fact, relocated families realized little benefit while once quiet communities witnessed a noticeable spike in violent crime. Politicians merely moved the problem of poverty around instead of trying to solve it. The policy was an undeniable failure.
Of course, social liberals blamed this debacle on an insufficient investment by the government to provide adequate funds for the program. As usual, excuse followed excuse until HUD decided to double down with taxpayer dollars.
In the name of “diversity,” the government says it must initiate full-scale urban resettlement programs.
In 2012, HUD provided significant funds to relocate Section 8 recipients to various Dallas suburbs, which are now seeing crime rates rise to unprecedented levels. Once again, HUD failed to achieve its goal of raising the living standards of the urban population, but instead destroyed once pleasant neighborhoods in the process. The program hurt many more families than it helped.
The central planners at HUD seem unable to grasp that genuine diversity is not achieved simply by moving persons from one place to another like inanimate objects or pawns in a game. Genuine diversity is something that is achieved by incorporating disparate elements of the community into an organic whole. Diversity is more than color, sex, or ethnic origin, despite the overtures of the PC-Police.
Genuine diversity is achieved not by identifying people on the basis of race and moving them around like pawns in a game. It is achieved by incorporating disparate elements of the community into an organic whole.
Displacing families through coercive welfare programs is not a means of achieving diversity and is certainly not a path to opportunity for the urban poor or struggling minorities. Meanwhile, honest objections to such failed programs are treated with contempt and charges of bigotry or elitism, reinforcing the idea that diversity is narrowly defined by whatever constitutes the far-left’s ever-shifting agenda.
Diversity is an integral part of a healthy culture. But the half-baked diversity forced down America’s throats by liberal elites is not real diversity – it is a farce perpetrated at the expense of those it is meant to benefit. It’s about time we call it what it is – an utter fraud.
Glen Sproviero
Glen A. Sproviero is a commercial litigator in New York. Read his previous columns here.
Fredrick Douglass Housing Project Towers in Detroit. (Wikipedia) 
