Is 'Diversity' the Root of All Stupidity
UPDATE: School board weasels out of suspension. The local school board passed a resolution changing the rule that kindergarteners and first graders would only face a 3 to 4 day suspension. Video here.
I don't mean actual diversity (that's another debate) - but the "diversity" mantra that rules our society, and I mean the stupidity we find in our public institutions. The recent persecution of a 6-year old Cub Scout by his school district highlights my meaning. The boy brought his brand new knife/fork/spoon camping utensil to school to eat his lunch, and was dutifully suspended by his school for possession of a weapon and will need to spend 45 days in reform school before he can return. Of course there are wails of protest insisting on "common sense" in these cases, but the school's superintendent is not persuaded. “There is no parent who wants to get a phone call where they hear that their child no longer has two good seeing eyes because there was a scuffle and someone pulled out a knife” he intoned.
But the reason for this policy is made clear in the same article:
So there you have it. In order to justify the suspension and prosecution of urban students for bringing switchblades to school, we must equally punish white suburban cub scouts who bring eating utensils to school, even when they're six years old, or else we are guilty of violating the fundamental rule of diversity: There are no differences whatsoever between different ethnic/racial groups, and therefore any measured differences are the result of discrimination.
The "zero tolerance" is not for the behavior being controlled. What there's zero tolerance for is disparate outcome. Thus, no individual in authority can be trusted to use common sense, because common sense is inherently racist. On a much more dangerous level this is our approach to terrorism. We can't possibly discriminate against immigrants based on the terroristic proclivities of their native lands; nor can we profile Arabs or Muslims based on their disproportionate engagement of murderous terror activities. As a result the civil liberties of all must be curtailed, whether you're a 90-year old grandmother or a 15-year old freckle-faced schoolgirl. All are equally likely to commit mass murder.
So we can all ridicule the buffoons in Delaware all we like, but they're just following the rules we've given them. It seems every 6 months there's another story of a 7-year old put in handcuffs or a kid thrown out of school for taking an aspirin, but as long as we hold "diversity" to be the reigning principal of our age, we can't expect anyone to risk using "common sense."
I don't mean actual diversity (that's another debate) - but the "diversity" mantra that rules our society, and I mean the stupidity we find in our public institutions. The recent persecution of a 6-year old Cub Scout by his school district highlights my meaning. The boy brought his brand new knife/fork/spoon camping utensil to school to eat his lunch, and was dutifully suspended by his school for possession of a weapon and will need to spend 45 days in reform school before he can return. Of course there are wails of protest insisting on "common sense" in these cases, but the school's superintendent is not persuaded. “There is no parent who wants to get a phone call where they hear that their child no longer has two good seeing eyes because there was a scuffle and someone pulled out a knife” he intoned.
But the reason for this policy is made clear in the same article:
Education experts say that zero-tolerance policies initially allowed authorities more leeway in punishing students, but were applied in a discriminatory fashion. Many studies indicate that African-Americans were several times more likely to be suspended or expelled than other students for the same offenses.
So there you have it. In order to justify the suspension and prosecution of urban students for bringing switchblades to school, we must equally punish white suburban cub scouts who bring eating utensils to school, even when they're six years old, or else we are guilty of violating the fundamental rule of diversity: There are no differences whatsoever between different ethnic/racial groups, and therefore any measured differences are the result of discrimination.
The "zero tolerance" is not for the behavior being controlled. What there's zero tolerance for is disparate outcome. Thus, no individual in authority can be trusted to use common sense, because common sense is inherently racist. On a much more dangerous level this is our approach to terrorism. We can't possibly discriminate against immigrants based on the terroristic proclivities of their native lands; nor can we profile Arabs or Muslims based on their disproportionate engagement of murderous terror activities. As a result the civil liberties of all must be curtailed, whether you're a 90-year old grandmother or a 15-year old freckle-faced schoolgirl. All are equally likely to commit mass murder.
So we can all ridicule the buffoons in Delaware all we like, but they're just following the rules we've given them. It seems every 6 months there's another story of a 7-year old put in handcuffs or a kid thrown out of school for taking an aspirin, but as long as we hold "diversity" to be the reigning principal of our age, we can't expect anyone to risk using "common sense."
posted by ziel | 10/12/2009 06:15:00 PM
8 Comments:
Have you noticed the sentence, "We VALUE diversity" popping up everywhere in the usual places?
In coming decades it will not be a notion that the United States VALUES diversity, but that Diversity is one of America's values.
Growing up I was taught that freedom and justice were our national values. I can tell that the left intends to shoe-horn diversity into being one of our "values" slowly but surely. When whites are indeed made a minority here (and in Europe), we will really have no other choice. WE will be the minority then, and will cling to diversity so the new majority doesn't make political mince-meat out of us. The open-borders republicans are either willfully stupid, completely unconcerned about this nation after their deaths (and hence their offspring), or are agents of leftism who are hoping to abet the demographic takeover of this nation. There is no way any rational conservative could be for seeing whites outnumbered in the United States, thinking it good for conservatism.
"Diversity" has the same scary shapelessness in the day-to-day debate as the commerce clause does in constitutional law. Unlike the commerce clause, though - that Swiss army knife of state power - diversity's negative consequences are a bug, not a feature. Take away disparate impact and you take away diversity's sting. Disparate impact will not be easy to repeal, but the project is not necessarily doomed.
I apologize for this brief deviation from my usual unrelenting pessimism. It's a lovely day, you see, and I just got to work.
Still sticking with your 65 or 75 year remaining lifespan for the former UNITED States of America?
Still sticking with your 65 or 75 year remaining lifespan for the former UNITED States of America?
Well, maybe 50 to 75 years:)
I'm not so worried about suspensions like this since they're very rare and aren't that harmful to the suspended kid.
What's worse are the related actions that affect almost every little kid and in a big way. For instance, toys to help little boys enjoy some mock violence are all but gone among large retailers. Guns, swords, etc., especially.
The big toy stores bowed to the moronic, paranoid public starting in the mid-1990s, and it was over by the early 2000s. Toys R Us, Children's Palace, Kay B Toys, and then Wal-Mart.
So, just because a handful of hooligans would use toy guns to hold people up, all kids must be deprived of the fun of playing with mock weapons. It's a rite of passage for boys.
Now when you go into Toys R Us, you don't find guns and swords but instead some overpriced doodad that helps your kid learn how to surf the web before he starts pre-school -- wouldn't want him to fall behind.
Great point, agnostic. Sometimes it seems like the public schols want to turn all little boys into nice, cooperative, ritalin-enhanced, female nerds. Good luck with that project. I think I know now why the public teachers' union in my state is trying so hard to stamp out home schooling.
uwi: Would you have any problem turning the knife toting blacks into, "cooperative, Ritalin-enhanced, female nerds"? The argument against demasculation always loses because the teachers and educational policy makers are mostly female and they can't see the arbitrary line that's so plain for us to see.
agnostic: You're forgetting about video games. Instead of playing with fake guns in real life, they play with real guns in fake life.
Ah yes, it's well known that evil takes over the brain once a child hits the 2nd grade.
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