Don’t Allow the Left to Own ‘Diversity’

In Diversity is 'a bunch of crap and un-American.' So says this N.J. Republican running for Congress, Jonathan D. Salant reports for the New Jersey Star Ledger:

The Republican candidate who won the nomination to succeed retiring New Jersey Rep. Frank LoBiondo described diversity as a "bunch of crap and un-American". . .

Lawyer Seth Grossman, who emerged victorious from a three-way primary June 5, made the comments during the just-concluded primary campaign. Grossman won the GOP nomination to take on state Sen. Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, for the seat LoBiondo is giving up after 24 years.

"The best way to bring diversity to the Republican Party is for Republicans to openly say that the whole idea of diversity is a bunch of crap and un-American," Grossman said at an April 21 Republican debate at the Centerton Country Club in Pittsgrove.

"Diversity has become is an excuse by Democrats -- communists and socialists basically -- to say that we're not all created equal, that if somebody is lesser qualified, they will get a job anyway or they'll get into college anyway because of the tribe that they're with, what group, what box they fit into," he said.

"I believe in America that each individual should be judged on nothing but his or her talent, character and hard work," he said. "I'm rejecting the whole premise of diversity as a virtue."

I posted these comments:

I sympathize with Grossman. But I think he’s making a grave mistake. Diversity is a valid concept, not “crap.” The Left has hijacked the term in order to advance a highbrow collectivist agenda based on Marxist theory of group conflict.

Note that meaningful human diversity of uniquely individual attributes is brushed off by the Left as irrelevant. Yet in a free society it is these individual attributes—such as intelligence, ability, ambition, moral character, values, goals, experience, personal circumstances, temperament, etc.—that allows each individual to flourish as much as those attributes will carry him on whatever path he chooses. If the Left really valued diversity, they’d be crusaders for the economic and political freedom that allows individual human diversity to flourish. But this sense of meaningful diversity belongs to individualism, the core of Americanism.

Individual diversity clashes with the Left’s collectivism, so they smother individual diversity under a tribal agenda. Yes, the Left is socialist/communist oriented. It’s collectivist concept of diversity is un-American. The Left has defined diversity around a racial and gender narrative for a reason. It’s goes deeper than racism. A society that values individual diversity will never go for socialism. A society that values the collective over the individual as the standard of moral value is primed for socialist authoritarianism in one form or another. So far, they’re winning.

That’s why we shouldn’t allow the Left to define diversity in collectivist terms. Rather than brush off diversity as crap, we who believe in Americanism need to recapture the term. Diversity as applied to content of individual character, each with a mind is her own apart from any group characteristics, is what America is about.

Related Reading:

SEC’s Boardroom ‘Diversity’ Rule Is Racist, Unnatural, and Politically Motivated

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

DelBarton Student’s 'Diversity' Initiative, Though Well-Meaning, is Based on Counter-Productive Premises

The Founding Fathers, Not ‘Diversity,’ is the Solution to ‘Our Racialized Society’

Starbucks/USA Today’s Racist “Race Together” Campaign