As
a framing for a debate, “diversity” is a disaster. I'd like to go
back to calling prejudice and exclusion by their real names, and
abandoning the “accentuate the positive” crap pop-psych.
Why?
Because “diversity” is a fluffy term that lets the debate get
framed by whoever is speaking.
After
Linus Torvald's – whose work I admire, and whose personality is
such that I wouldn't buy a beer to put out his hair if it was on fire
– pratful keynote at Australia's Linux conference went all over the
world, he “explained” himself to all who might listen. I link to Ars
because the organ I work for, The Register, wasn't listening at the
time.
Which
is fine by me, because Linus' self-explanation looks at the problem
from the wrong end:
"There's
a lot of talk about gender and sexual preferences and race, but we're
different in so many other ways, too” is how he tried to flick off
the question of diversity.
There
are two problems here: Linus' attitude, and the reduction of
prejudice, exclusion and abuse to a question of “diversity”.
The
two are conflated, because it's so easy to accept a particular
framing of a question – or to exploit it, if you're cynical enough
– and not question the framing.
My
simple two-part answer to Linus and the whole world that uses weasel
words:
“Diversity”
defines only who you include.
“Prejudice”
defines who you exclude.
I
consider this an important distinction. There's no point in arguing
“we're diverse because we include W and X”, if you're still
prepared to accept that your community will exclude “Y and Z”.
There's
no point in saying “we have
a diverse community” if that “diverse” community will still
pile on women, gays, Aborigines, or anyone else your “community”
designates as an outsider.
And
pleading “diversity” as an excuse to let yourself and those
around you practice exclusion is exactly why I reject the “diversity”
framing.
It's
not about diversity, it's about not being a dick.
