Reading Response #2

When I first decided to read an essay from “who wants diversity” I automatically thought that I would not agree with the authors’ viewpoints. I want diversity and I think if you asked almost anyone they would say the same thing. However after reading “People Like Us” by David Brooks I began to question whether or not we really wanted diversity. According to Brooks we don’t really care about diversity we talk about it but we tend to segregate ourselves. The United States may be a diverse country but block by block, city by city we are not at all diverse. Some evidence suggests that areas become more segregated as time goes on. What Brooks is basically saying in his essay is that people don’t want diversity because it is human nature to look for similarities in others. He says that people with similar tastes tend to congregate by zip code. For example recent college graduates in places like Berkley Ca are big consumers of dove bars and Saturday night live, they tend to drive small foreign cars and read rolling stone. Another example he gives is successful blacks are increasingly moving to neighborhoods where other successful blacks live. This essay made me think about how diverse my daily interactions are.
Michigan is one of the most segregated states in the country not by law but by choice. We all know of certain areas that are mostly black or Middle Eastern or white. I guess we don’t want diversity as much as we thought, now that we have the opportunity to mix and mingle with other cultures we still tend to stick with those that are similar to ourselves. After I thought about it most of the people I know are very similar to myself, and I’m sure most people could say the same thing. Most of us tend to choose our friends or partners based on the fact that they have something in common with us. Why is it that we tend to stick with people that we have things in common with, is it because we feel threatened by people with opposing viewpoints? This segregation prevents us from having real discussions about politics or religion because we tend to surround ourselves with people just like us.
One thing this essay brought to mind was the typical high school lunchroom. Jocks at one table popular kids at another, rebels’, smart kids, cheerleaders all sit with others similar to themselves. In a way the U.S is like that high school lunchroom, we stick with people like us. We all say that we want diversity but don’t do anything about it, we still keep ourselves separated from each other. As brooks said “The dream of diversity is like the dream of equality; both are based on ideals, we celebrate them even as we undermine them daily.” This is a very good essay. I suggest that everyone reads it and thinks about how diverse their daily interactions really are.