Quotes about Diversity

We align ourselves not with the ever-expanding human monoculture, nor with the abstract vision of a global economy, but with the far more sustainable prospect of a regionally diverse and interdependent web of largely self-sufficient communities – a multiplicity of technologically sophisticated, vernacular cultures tuned to the structure and pulse of particular places. We know well that if humankind is to flourish without destroying the living world that sustains us, then we must grow out of our adolescent aspiration to encompass and control all that is. Sooner or later, we know, our technological ambition will begin to scale itself down, allowing itself to be oriented by the distinct needs of specific bioregions. Sooner or later, that is, technological civilization will accept the invitation of gravity and settle back into the land, its political and economic structures diversifying into the varied contours and rhythms of a more-than-human earth.

As technological civilization diminishes the biotic diversity of the earth, language itself is diminished. As there are fewer and fewer songbirds in the air, due to the destruction of their forests and wetlands, human speech loses more and more of its evocative power. For when we no longer hear the voices of warbler and wren, our own speaking can no longer be nourished by their cadences. As the splashing speech of the rivers is silenced by more and more dams, as we drive more and more of the land’s wild voices into the oblivion of extinction, our own languages become increasingly impoverished and weightless, progressively emptied of their earthly resonance.

There is a new science of complexity which says that the link between cause and effect is increasingly difficult to trace; that change (planned or otherwise) unfolds in non-linear ways; that paradoxes and contradictions abound; and that creative solutions arise out of diversity, uncertainty and chaos.

Science tends more and more to reveal to us the unity that underlies the diversity of nature.  We must have diversity in our practical lives; we must seize Nature by many handles.  But our intellectual lives demand unity, demand simplicity amid all this complexity.  Our religious lives demand the same.  Amid all the diversity of creeds and sects we are coming more and more to see that religion is one, that verbal differences and ceremonies are unimportant, and that the fundamental agreements are alone significant.  Religion as a key or passport to some other world has had its day; as a mere set of statements or dogmas about the Infinite mystery it has had its day.  Science makes us more and more at home in this world, and is coming more and more, to the intuitional mind, to have a religious value.  Science kills credulity and superstition but to the well-balanced mind it enhances the feeling of wonder, of veneration, and of kinship which we feel in the presence of the marvelous universe.  It quiets our fears and apprehensions, it pours oil upon the troubled waters of our lives, and reconciles us to the world as it is.

In the seed there is nothing but the seed - no diversity. At the same time there is the notion of potential diversity [of flowers, fruits] supposedly present in the seed. Even so, cosmic consciousness is one, devoid of diversity; yet the universe of diversity is said to exist only in notion.

If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.

Listen to the stories.  You want to help the world?  Read the poetry of the people we're bombing.  Write poetry for them.  Sing songs for them, and for us.  And listen to everybody.

You cannot control how diverse any room is, or any institution, or any policy.  But you can control how diverse you are, and who you love and who you listen to.

So tonight, don't go hang out with your mirrors (whether that's physical or ideological).  Go find somebody you disagree with, and go hang out.

In a perfect world, Barney Frank and Jesse Helms are best friends.

Seeing color, is being blind.

" Walk a path of the elders for ancient knowledge is within our soul. We have the history of humankind within us and if we embrace this truth ours will be a world of love , light and laughter where diversity is our constant companion and peace our lifelong friend."

" The essence of life is to honour all paths and all people. For to embrace diversity is to celebrate the beauty of truth and the mystic power of humanity."

I am too many flavors for one f***ing spoon.

I want to erase the lines so I can be me.

If we do not speak, who will?

Black people are the magical faces at the bottom of society's well.  Even the poorest whites, those who must live their lives only a few levels above, gain their self-esteem by gazing down on us.  Surely, they must know that their deliverance depends on letting down their ropes.  Only by working together is escape possible.  Over time, many reach out, but most simply watch, mesmerized into maintaining their unspoken commitment to keeping us where we are, at whatever cost to them or to us (Bell).

Black people are the magical faces at the bottom of society's well.  Even the poorest whites, those who must live their lives only a few levels above, gain their self-esteem by gazing down on us.  Surely, they must know that their deliverance depends on letting down their ropes.  Only by working together is escape possible.  Over time, many reach out, but most simply watch, mesmerized into maintaining their unspoken commitment to keeping us where we are, at whatever cost to them or to us (Bell).

Diversity is not an abnormality but the very reality of our planet. The human world manifests the same reality and will not seek our permission to celebrate itself in the magnificence of its endless varieties. Civility is a sensible attribute in this kind of world we have; narrowness of heart and mind is not.
~ Chinua Achebe, 1930- ~

Being tatttooed has opened up a whole new way of life for me.  I now have a whole circle of interesting friends.

The light that the sun casts on the planets is the same for all, but each planet reflects it according to its own color, and the radiation that it returns is determined by its constitution.  In this inevitable diversity of color there is no treachery or false transmission, but it does explain why no teacher, however great, can all himself the sole possessor of the Truth.  He can only teach according to the type and “color” of his own soul, and to his capacity for faithful representation.  Beyond this limit he would be exceeding or misdirecting his mission, and adding a heavy responsibility to his burden of karma.

"...when a nation encourages the individual pursuit of happiness,  there is no guarantee that everyone is going to like what everyone else  is doing. That is part of freedom—tolerance of diversity."

Expressing Unity in our rich diversity is the ultimate ennoblement for our race.

 ‘The great sin against the human spirit is closure against the diversity and variety of human experience -- a narrow dogmatism that insists on the absolute and exclusive validity of some particular language and the particular version of reality that this language articulates. And the central virtue, therefore, is openness to experience, caritas for the difference and diversities to be found within experience'

Being a friend is to like a person for who they are, even the parts you don't understand.  The reasons you like them makes the things you don't understand unimportant.  You don't have to understand, or do the same, or live their lives for them.  If you truly care for them, then you want them to be who they are; that was why you liked them in the first place.

"Why is it sports is the only thing white people see us being successful at? I don't want to play football," he said. "I wanna be a lawyer."
"That's fine with me," I said, a little annoyed. "I've just never heard of a Negro lawyer, that's all. You've got to hear of these things before you can imagine them."
"Bullshit. You gotta imagine what's never been."

I said, "If I was a Negro girl—"
He placed his fingers across my lips so I tasted his saltiness. "We can't think of changing our skin," he said. "Change the world—that's how we gotta think."

"I wish you could've seen the Daughters of Mary the first time they laid eyes on this label. You know why? Because when they looked at her, it occurred to them for the first time in their lives that what's divine can come in dark skin. You see, everybody needs a God who looks like them, Lily."

I honor businesses for what they do, I honor nonprofits for what they do, I honor government for what it does, and then I invite everyone to the table so that together we can come up with innovative and broad-based solutions that can serve as many people as possible. The fewer or less diverse voices you invite to the table, the smaller and narrower your solution will be and the fewer people it will serve.

What we actually learn from trying to carry out the program of philosophical education or teaching in the humanities or liberal arts (no matter how it may be done or via what materials), is demonstrably a lesson in diversification:  if there is anything "universalist" or "uniformitarian" about human nature, it defies being evidenced.  Students as individuals and as groups are very differentially susceptible to learning the arts of self-mastery and self-criticism:  if every human being were equitably competent to penetrate and discompose his own illusions and delusions, not just philosophy classes but education at large would be mostly superfluous.  People in general could just sit and think for themselves. 

The coffee mixes with the cream only if you STIR it up!

What Diversity "Problem"?

"Dealing with Diversity Problem." "Clearing the Diversity Hurdle." Assimilating the Rainbow within the Workplace."

You've read dozens of business-journal headlines like that, right? And do you agree with me that they're silly?

Diversity problem? Hurdle?

Diversity creates one and only one thing: opportunity.

Business, in the mad global marketplace, needs a rush of serious creativity. Creativity is invariably, a byproduct of sparks, new views, juxtaposed interests, etc. How does a company acquire those assents? Diversity!

All other things being equal, which company (car maker, textile producer, bank) is going to create the more interesting product or services?

This one?

The 17 members of the executive group of Company A file in the boardroom. All U.S. born (whoops, sorry, one Canadian). Fifteen are white males, best guess at average age: 47. One female: One Japanese-American. Dress: suites, suites, suites as far as the eye can see.

Or this one?

Company B's 16-person top team noisily straggles into the boardroom attired in everything from Brooks Brothers to Calvin Klein to Banana Republic to Venice Beach leftovers. Six of the 16 are white males, four are women (two white, one African-American, one Hispanic), plus two Indian-born males, two British-born male. Average age: about 42, with two or three who are clearly on the low side of 32.

It's a no-brainer: Company B by 20 furlongs.

Sure, I'm oversimplifying. Or am I? It seems obvious to me that Cacophony, Inc, a wild mixture of colors, sexes, styles, and ages will almost automatically generate and pursue more interesting ideas than Homogeneity, Inc. My argument is a simple statistical one: The variety of experiences, from birth onward captured in a Company B executive meeting is immensely greater than in a similar meeting at Company A. An unusually high level of curiosity among Company A's OWMs (old white males) makes virtually no difference; Company B's folks bring hundreds of years of um, diverse perspectives to bear on everything from soup to software.

Is Company B a sea of tranquility? Of course not. Diversity implies clashed, subtle and overt. People (men and women, London born and L.A. born, 20-somethings and 50-somethings) will bridle at what they feel are bizarre -- and dumb -- views held by others from time to time. The Company B top team (and the rest of the company, too, assuming its makeup mimics the top) could probably benefit from a hefty does of sensitivity training. But the point of such training is not to "clear a hurdle" or "solve a problem." On the contrary, it's to help the company reap maximum possible strategic leverage from its diversity advantage.

People can only live fully by helping others to live. Cultures can only realize their further richness by honoring other traditions. And only by respecting natural life can humanity continue to exist.

Compassion can be put into practice if one recognizes the fact that every human being is a member of humanity and the human family regardless of differences in religion, culture, color and creed.Deep down there is no difference.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)