Diversity, Assimilation and Civic Engagement

By Durwin Rice The Kansas City Post Diversity. Is it really dead in America? Pull up a chair. Screw political correctness and let's talk about a prickly subject. Bowling Alone author Robert Putnam now tells us that diversity is not paying out the societal dividends we all assumed it embodied. His researchers studied the effects of ethnic diversity in 41 U.S communities interviewing 30,000 participants and found out that diversity creates citizens who: 1) distrust their neighbors more; 2) withdraw from even their closest friends; 3) expect the worst from their community leaders; 4) volunteer less; 5) give less to charity; 6) work less on community projects; 7) register to vote less; 8) agitate for social reform more but with less faith that they can make a real difference; and 9) hunker down in front of their televisions more. Now, don't shoot the messenger here...but that does sound a bit like the status quo of the local blogosphere. Could it be that promoting cultural assimilation is just as important as promoting diversity? Of course immediately, the "But what about New York?" thought leaps into most of our heads. That vibrant-in-everyone's-mind-town is diversity and that, of course, proves the worth of diversity despite contrary facts. Or, is it just the "flip side" paradox of the Yin and Yang of diversity? Diversity may well cause societal malaise but at the same time it is challenging us to be more productive and innovative as suggested by The Boston Globe. At the minimum it is worth reading and talking about while you're trying to turn out thousands of volunteers (in what appears to be a dispirited community) to help you plant a million Tulips on Troost . But The Better Together Report points out that another plant species is a better metaphor for dealing with our diversity along with our assimilation and civic engagement issues: "The Saguaro. [pronounced sah-WAH-ro] is a cactus that grows in the Sonora desert in the Southwestern United States. There are rich parallels between the saguaro and social capital (or civic engagement). Saguaros were for some time undervalued by modern American society and often razed. Saguaros are bellwether indicators of the health of the ecosystem, and play the role of welcoming host for an environmentally-rich community: vines grow on its trunk; birds make nests in it; Native Americans have lived off its fruit and celebrate its blossoms in festivals; and animals use it for precious shade. And, like most social capital, saguaros grow slowly and are tough, long-term survivors."