The ‘diversity’ buzzword has been done to death over the last few years, and it’s time we abandoned this philosophy and returned back to the notion of ‘equality’ instead.
“If you want to be treated equally by others, then stop seeing yourself as being different”
Grumpy Owl, October 2022
At the risk of repeating myself again, I’m going to quote from an article I wrote here a couple of years ago.
How many times do you hear the repeated phrase “diversity is our strength”?
Diversity can be a wonderful thing, as long as everybody is treated equally and fairly, and I have no objection to that, as that is my own philosophy, everybody should be treated fairly and equally and with respect, regardless of their skin colour, their sex/gender, their age, their religion etc etc.
After all, regardless of our ‘physical differences’, we are all human beings.
The problem as I see it is that the modern ‘diversity culture’ is failing to ‘bring people together’, while there is such an obsession with ‘identity politics’.
Instead of bringing people together by celebrating all that we have in common with each other, there is far too much focus on dividing and segregating people into identity ‘pigeon-holes’, and thus creating ‘minority groups’ to become ‘victims’ being ‘oppressed’ by the majority.
“Seriously, ALL Lives Matter” – Grumpy Owl, June 23rd 2020
The way I see things now, ‘diversity’ is a means of prioritising minority interest groups over the interests of the majority. Not very equal then.
As well as equality, the notion of ‘meritocracy’ also seems to have been abandoned in favour of ‘diversity’.
The world of employment is a good place to start analysing this. When a position becomes available within a company, it used to be the case that recruiters would always seek to employ the ‘best person’ out of the candidates that put themselves forward.
There are of course equality and discrimination laws already in place in this country, which means that regardless of your race, gender or sexuality, everyone gets an equal opportunity.
In a hypothetical example, someone is tasked with recruiting someone to fill an available vacancy within their company. Of the numerous candidates that apply, five are whittled down for selection via an interview as well as an aptitude test.
Of those five candidates, two are white men who from the results of their aptitude test would be outstanding candidates, another is a less competent white man, while the other two are black men, one of whom is also less competent, with the other one being clearly unsuitable.
They all have an equal chance of getting this job from the start, however as the company is looking to recruit the ‘best and brightest’, it should likely be one of the two white men who gets the job, with the others left mildly disappointed.
Back to the job centre you go, and best of luck next time!
That’s how things used to be when equality and meritocracy meant that the best people (in terms of aptitude and qualifications) would get the job.
But no, not in this age of ‘diversity’, where HR managers are keen to show their ‘diversity credentials’ are satisfied by ensuring that various diversity boxes are ticked, and it seems now that many companies are recruiting staff based on ‘protected characteristics’ (ie box ticking) rather than how good they may actually be at the job they are being employed to do.
So going back to the above example, ‘diversity’ means that the two outstanding candidates get overlooked simply because they are ‘white’, while the job goes to the ‘unsuitable’ black man, because he is apparently registered disabled.
And people wonder why this country is a mess and why many businesses are failing?
Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve been an employer before and I have happily recruited outstanding candidates who have been black, or female or even gay, so I can only speak from my own experience, however I have sadly worked at other companies where some woman has got the job simply because “she’s got fantastic tits” or some poor guy got rejected because “the boss doesn’t like Indians”, so I don’t deny that this doesn’t happen.
But in general, ‘diversity’ doesn’t help, and it riles me when I see headlines or press releases along the lines of “police want more BAME (black and minority ethnic) officers” or demands for more CEOs “that are female”.
You can’t force people into roles they don’t want to do. In a meritocracy and with equality, people from minority backgrounds should have the opportunity to apply for those roles, but only if they want to of course.
The other problem with diversity and divisive ‘identity politics’ in general is that because minority groups are constantly being told that they are ‘victims of oppression’, this culture of victimhood just breeds generations of people who don’t want to progress and better themselves, simply because they perceive themselves as ‘victims’, everything is ‘somebody else’s fault’.
With that kind of mindset from the off, is it any wonder that when it comes to honest employment, many of these people find themselves at a ‘disadvantage’?
And then of course, when they get rejected for jobs because of their unsuitability, the ‘racism’ accusations get bandied about, thus further fuelling the ‘victimhood’ narrative.
Recruiting people to your company based on the colour of their skin, or their sex/gender, rather than how good they actually will be at the job they’re employed to do, is not a very good company policy.
“Diversity is our strength” – I don’t think so.
