"Identity" Is Not All That Matters
Race and sex should not be the filters of how we see the world.
Identity politics is no new concept even to the casual observer. It is a force that has been a huge factor in both political and cultural affairs. When Joe Biden ran for office, for example, he promised that, if there was a vacancy during his term, he would appoint the first black woman to the Supreme Court. Sure enough, when Justice Stephen Breyer retired (after a hard pressure campaign from leftist organizations like Demand Justice), President Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson, a black woman, to the Supreme Court. This was hailed as an act long overdue.
"For too long our government, our courts haven't looked like America," Biden remarked. Now that a black woman sits on the Court, true representation finally exists in this arena of the judicial branch line. So say the diversity mongers.
In 2020, the Oscars announced rule changes that required nominees for Best Picture to reach certain quotas of how many minority groups were to be represented in the cast and crew. These standards were put in place to achieve a more “equitable representation on and off screen in order to better reflect the diversity of the movie-going audience.” Again, this is the same logic that President Biden applied to the Supreme Court: We need casts and crews in the film industry to look more like America.
Most recently, there was the plagiarizing scandal involving the former president of Harvard, Claudine Gay. When Gay was chosen to pick up the mantle of leading this prestige university, she was lauded for being the first black woman to run the college. When she was caught plagiarizing, her defenders rushed to bite back at anyone who even suggested that she was hired in the first place because of her race and sex.
All of this obsession with diversity and identity is overblown. Why exactly did the next Supreme Court Justice have to be a black woman? Why must a film meet diversity quotas to qualify for Best Picture? Why did it have to be such a big deal that Harvard got a black female to be its president? None of this makes sense.
“Diversity is our strength!” the identity crowds like to shout. How? Are we actually stronger because there happens to be more people who aren’t white or straight in a room? What is the correlation? Nothing really. Yes, there are certain areas like in politics where picking someone because of their diversity status can make sense to appeal to broader coalitions, but this is just not so with the majority of institutions and circumstances. A Supreme Court Justice ought to be picked on whether he can interpret the law correctly and handle the responsibilities, a film ought to be awarded Best Picture at the Oscars because it was, well, the best picture, and the president of Harvard ought to be chosen if he can effectively administrate, is an accomplished scholar, and also not a plagiarist!
Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with diversity, but the diversity calls all tend to miss the mark terribly. Diversity should not be about what color your skin is or whether you’re male or female. (In addition, diversity these days is also laser-focused on whether you are part of the LGBTQ alphabet soup, but that’s a discussion for another day.) Diversity should be about ideas, perspectives, and talents. Those are characteristics that matter. You can’t genuinely contribute anything to an institution because of your race or ethnicity (again, there are exceptions to this), but you can contribute something very significant if you can bring ideas to the table that are different and can help solve problems.
So, this pile of identity politics ought to be swept to where it belongs — the dustbin of history. These diversity projects are not helping. All they do is increase division and even end up elevating individuals who are not worth elevating when their immutable characteristics become more important than their talents and abilities. It is time to do away with this wrong way of thinking. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it’s going away any time soon.