People should focus on different styles, not what makes us different

Diversity? We don’t need no stinking diversity.

Yet the call is out, there’s nothing we can do to stop it. All across the world, a hyphenated label is becoming the trendiest of status symbols. I’m a white, heterosexual male, so that means I’ve got the most status. Sorry, y’all.

What’s even more sorry, though, is the fact that I don’t even want to play the game. I’m winning, but everyone plays along, trying to enhance their own hyphens, content that at least as an “interest group” they can matter.

Those on the very top, who realize they’ve got to make some compromises to stay there, become obligated to pay attention to whichever groups are giving them the most money in what amounts to a feudal system of political power. Cool.

Not that cool, though, let me tell you. In fact, it sucks. “Diversity” is the new rallying cry. It’s time to get everyone together, and focus on just how different we really are. Well, that should solve everything. And all for only $29.95.

The result: We live in a world where children grow up being judged by both the color of their skin and the content of their character.

How different are we? Not very, though we try to make ourselves more so every day. Everyone in the world is a human being, and really, whether you thank God or chance, we all deserve the same fundamental respect, right?

Don’t believe me? Well, if you don’t then you probably never will, and that’s fine, but think, don’t we all love music? Whether you enjoy Bach or Marilyn Manson, isn’t it the same fundamental inspiration inside your brain?

There are so many things that can unify us: falling in love, eating your favorite food, the capacity to just be alive. These things are common to every person on earth, regardless of the details of whom you love, what you like to eat or how you live your life.

I say forget Diversity, it only leads to trouble. In Wednesday’s Skiff, columnist Rick Perez made a call for unity that I, for one, would like to echo. It’s time to focus on the universal qualities that link us, and not by shoving our differences in each other’s faces.
On this campus and on many others like it, administrators are falling all over themselves trying to increase Diversity. Whoever gets the most Star-Bellied Sneetches into their institution wins.

But why? Such an intense emphasis on what makes us different is just so much huffing and puffing that will never blow the brick house of prejudice down.

We all have different styles, but the more important thing is that we all have styles in the first place. Free expression of that which makes you an individual is a beautiful thing, but it doesn’t give you, or me or anyone else the right to assume that the way they live their lives is superior to any other.

We should all be ourselves, and if we meet up with people whose styles come into conflict with ours, at least agree to disagree and respect each other’s right to free expression. It doesn’t mean we have to be best friends, but why hate?

In saying that, I doubt anyone would disagree. We all want harmony and a peaceful co-existence with everyone, right? But we’re going about it all wrong, you see, and there’s got to be a change. If you want to gather and form specific groups based on common special interests, by all means do so, but I laugh at the idea that your group should have an agenda for dealing with the outside world. I am especially offended that your agenda should be deemed newsworthy or affect the way I want to live my life in any way.

The very idea that magnifying Diversity will break down the barriers between us all is a fallacy and ultimately an affront to logic. This game is stupid, folks, I say we all quit playing.

Daniel Bramlette is a senior radio-TV-film major from Ogden, Utah.
He can be reached at (d.c.bramlette@student.tcu.edu)

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