Red & Blue, Black & White … Or Purple & Gray?

In his column today, William Raspberry recognizes, as Barack Obama pointed out in his Democratic convention speech, that there are “blue people in red states and vice versa,” and that most people are purple. Overlooking this fact, Raspberry writes,

tempts us to think of the electoral majority in each of those states in equally oversimplified terms. We imagine that we know what particular voters in Massachusetts or Mississippi think on any number of issues.

Good point. And it applies equally well, or better, to what passes for “diversity” on campuses and elsewhere these days. To assume that “diversity” is automatically enhanced by adding a dollop of blacks or Hispanics to the mix is even more offensive than the geographical red/blue stereotyping of which Raspberry properly complains.

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  1. Salt Lick November 15, 2004 at 2:55 pm | | Reply

    A moment I will always treasure came when I asked a university administrator if a discussion panel on affirmative action would be “diverse” if it consisted of:

    1. Clarence Thomas

    2. Linda Chavez

    3. George Will

    4. Michelle Malkin and

    5. William Krystal.

    The congnitive dissonance on the adminstrator’s face was priceless. He just had never quite thought it all out…

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