Inclusion And Diversity Quotes

People are opting out of vital conversations about diversity and inclusivity because they fear looking wrong, saying something wrong, or being wrong. Choosing our own comfort over hard conversations is the epitome of privilege, and it corrodes trust and moves us away from meaningful and lasting change.

Create inclusion - with simple mindfulness that others might have a different reality from your own.

More people’s lives have been shaped by violence than we like to think. And more people’s lives have been shaped by silence than we think.

Nepal is my home, a land of many wonders, but the greatest of them all is its unparalleled diversity and rich heritage.

We should indeed keep calm in the face of difference, and live our lives in a state of inclusion and wonder at the diversity of humanity.

There's no beauty without difference and diversity. Love unconditionally.

To save our democracy, Americans need to restore the basic norms that once protected it. But we must do more than that. We must extend those norms through the whole of a diverse society. We must make them truly inclusive. America's democratic norms, at their core, have always been sound. But for much of our history, they were accompanied - indeed, sustained - by racial exclusion. Now those norms must be made to work in an age of racial equality and unprecedented ethnic diversity. Few societies in history have managed to be both multiracial and genuinely democratic. That is our challenge. It is also our opportunity. If we meet it, America will truly be exceptional.

We will all profit from a more diverse, inclusive society, understanding, accommodating, even celebrating our differences, while pulling together for the common good.

This is how whiteness reasserts itself: through a white feminist movement that aligns itself with diversity and inclusion to get white women through the door but then slams it shut in brown and black women’s faces.

To this day I believe we are here on earth to live, grow, and do what we can to make this world a better place for all people to enjoy freedom.

Urging an organization to be inclusive is not an attack. It's progress.

If your voice didn’t hold any power, people wouldn’t work so hard to make you feel so small.

Progressives seem to believe that if they say the words “diversity, inclusion, and equity” often enough, all problems will be solved.

The human heart is too grand to be wasted in the gutter of cultural exclusivity.

Diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance.

Diversity is being invited to the dance. Inclusion is being asked to Dance. Equity is allowing you to choose the Music.

Knowledge is the foundation for understanding; understanding the catalyst for peace.

Having a diverse set of employees is good for business — it enables the business to better serve customers, better solve problems, and better innovate.

Diversity happens, Inclusion is a choice.

Imagine a young Isaac Newton time-travelling from 1670s England to teach Harvard undergrads in 2017. After the time-jump, Newton still has an obsessive, paranoid personality, with Asperger’s syndrome, a bad stutter, unstable moods, and episodes of psychotic mania and depression. But now he’s subject to Harvard’s speech codes that prohibit any “disrespect for the dignity of others”; any violations will get him in trouble with Harvard’s Inquisition (the ‘Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion’). Newton also wants to publish Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, to explain the laws of motion governing the universe. But his literary agent explains that he can’t get a decent book deal until Newton builds his ‘author platform’ to include at least 20k Twitter followers – without provoking any backlash for airing his eccentric views on ancient Greek alchemy, Biblical cryptography, fiat currency, Jewish mysticism, or how to predict the exact date of the Apocalypse. Newton wouldn’t last long as a ‘public intellectual’ in modern American culture. Sooner or later, he would say ‘offensive’ things that get reported to Harvard and that get picked up by mainstream media as moral-outrage clickbait. His eccentric, ornery awkwardness would lead to swift expulsion from academia, social media, and publishing. Result? On the upside, he’d drive some traffic through Huffpost, Buzzfeed, and Jezebel, and people would have a fresh controversy to virtue-signal about on Facebook. On the downside, we wouldn’t have Newton’s Laws of Motion.

If you build a wall to separate people, there will be those who find a way around the wall, or over it, or under it, or through it. We humans are not meant to be contained, and neither are our thoughts.

The diversity of voices, issues, approaches, and processes required to make feminism work as an inclusive social movement is precisely the kind of knotty, unruly insurrection that just can't be smoothed into a neat brand.

diversity doesn't look like anyone. it looks like everyone.

Meeting high standards on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is simply good business.

The Ideological Conformity of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Progressives seem to believe that if they say the words “diversity, inclusion, and equity” often enough, all problems will be solved. But of course only certain types of diversity, inclusion, and equity matter. Diversity based on race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity are foundational sacraments in the Cult of Diversity. On the other hand, intellectual and political diversity are heretical ideas that need to be expunged.

As a community, we should seek to create an environment that is inclusive of varying perspectives. Flat out, it makes us stronger. Diversity of thoughts and experiences opens us up to new ideas or to approaching old ideas in new ways.

a workplace can look as diverse as the United Nations, but if the employees are not truly respected, not truly valued, not truly involved, and not truly treated with dignity, what you have is a great photo opportunity, not real inclusion.

But reconciliation is not about white feelings. It’s about diverting power and attention to the oppressed, toward the powerless. It’s not enough to dabble at diversity and inclusion while leaving the existing authority structure in place. Reconciliation demands more.

You can't build a wall round a village. The sun and the wind will always find their way in.

Believing in diversity and inclusion does not mean we are building diverse and inclusive organizations.

In a world stolen by whites, anything non-white is inferior.

We exist through intersections, but our conversations about diversity regularly push us to pick one identity for ourselves at the expense of others.

In order to feel the beauty of a culture in your heart, first you must be empty of all assumptions.

Computers are binary, not people. All people are non-binary, for life is non-binary.

Where men shape technology, they shape it to the exclusion of women, especially Black women.

Love is the supreme religion, love is the supreme law, love is the supreme science.

We are but each other's keeper.

When all combine without condescension, we shall witness God's face.

Being inclusive means to appreciate differences and enjoy the diverse viewpoints.

Inclusivity has to be seen as a benefit to the community. The lack of diversity has to be seen as a detriment to that community.

Cultural integration doesn't happen by you boasting about your culture, it happens by you coming forward enthusiastically to learn about another culture.

It is insufficient to only tell your children that racism and racists are bad. It is insufficient to simply explain “We love people of all colors.” It is lazy and near damaging to proclaim a love for all people but never make the leap of actually reaching out to people of color or adding tangible diversity to your life. In a world filled with empty rhetoric, our children don’t need to hear words from us without action. They need to see us embody the beliefs we claim to hold dear.

Because as Europe and the United States become more diverse, it creates an anxiety, a racial anxiety, that is reflected in declining support for public space, public institutions, public infrastructure, and public education.

But reconciliation is not about white feelings. It's about diverting power and attention to the oppressed, toward the powerless. It's not enough to dabble at diversity and inclusion while leaving the existing authority structure in place. Reconciliation demands more.

If diversity and inclusion initiatives are approached as a form of charity, it will result in some people benefiting at the expense of others. Instead, diversity and inclusion should be approached as a way to expand capacity and as a hedge against risk. If you look at nature, that’s what diversity does… expand capacity and hedge against risk.

Inclusiveness tries to eliminate the social effects of important human differences. When pursued seriously, this effort very quickly becomes tyrannical.

Learning another language diminishes prejudice towards those who are different

Ask what love would want

When your heart is labeled, The world stays hypnotized in darkness. The moment you rip them to pieces, Tides of light awaken all synapses.

Culture should be a path, not a prison.

The seed of cultural harmony lies not in the culture you are born in but in the recognition of the sweetness of other cultures.

You cannot understand someone whose life experience is only ever portrayed to you through movies.

A language is a freeway to a culture.

The greatest meditation is revolution for assimilation.

Celebrate liberty, not imprisonment - celebrate diversity, not discrimination - celebrate differences, not differentiation - celebrate cultural variation, not cultural profiling.

Step across the color of hate into the rainbow of love, and you shall find life, liberty and happiness.

Civilization is when we sit together, with different faces and different forms, yet one sentience.

My dear nazis old and new, while there is time change your view. If I get my hands on you, no savior will do nothing for you.

Unselfishness or selflessness is not the absence of the self, it is the absence of an exclusive self, and the presence of an inclusive self - the presence of an expansive self.

Diversity is the mix. Inclusion is how work the mix

If we are not intentionally conscious in our communications, we are likely to cause unintentional harm.

Love is but oneness in practice.

Look from the gutter, all you see is one culture. Look from the sky, and you'll see a world full of color.

Love isn't made of a single color, love is a vivacious rainbow, spanning across and beyond the deepest and farthest horizons of the individual mind's ridiculously limited window of perception.

When solving problems in business, having a diversity of perspectives ultimately yields better and more implementable solutions. And companies that are better able to solve problems are better positioned to succeed in the marketplace. So DEI is really about a business’ ability to thrive in the marketplace — it’s not about acts of charity and it’s really not even about social justice.

It is a painful irony that people who are promoting the make-believe equality of "inclusion" and "diversity" in schools are attacking charter schools that are producing the real equality of educational achievement.

As humans, we all have subjective, ingrained beliefs that inform our decision-making, even if we aren’t aware of them. The problem is that the one-sided media we consume can end up confirming our perspectives rather than challenging them.

Sonnet of Festivals Christmas isn't about the decorations, It's about compassion. Hanukkah isn't about the sufganiyot, It's about amalgamation. Ramadan isn't about the feast, It's about affection. Diwali isn't about the lights, It's about ascension. Our world is filled with festivals, But what do they really mean? Celebrating them with cultural exclusivity, Makes us not human but savage fiend. Every festival belongs to all of humanity, For happiness has no religious identity.

Storytelling can be the most potent way to celebrate progress, inspire change, and bring about a more diverse world. If stories shape our perceptions, then perhaps the stories we never hear shape our biases through the lack of awareness they enable.

The recent history of Russia, featuring failed socialism followed by colossal thievery and mafia rule, shows what happens upon the collapse of a sustained and determined effort to eradicate a basic social principle founded on natural human tendencies.

Across the board, identity politics endorse the concept that people are essentially tribal, and our differences are irreconcilable, which of course makes diversity and inclusion impossible. This is the toxic dead-end of identity politics; it’s a trap.

The late Dr. Larry Hurtado, historian of early Christianity, in his wildly celebrated book Destroyer of the Gods, told the story of how a tiny Jewish sect of Jesus followers overcame the bastion of paganism and won over the Roman Empire in only a few centuries. His thesis was that it wasn’t the church’s relevance or relatability to the culture but its difference and distinctness that made it compelling to so many. The church was marked by five distinctive features, all of which made it stand out against the backdrop of the empire: The church was multiracial and multiethnic, with a high value for diversity, equity, and inclusion. The church was spread across socioeconomic lines as well, and there was a high value for caring for the poor; those with extra were expected to share with those with less. It was staunch in its active resistance to infanticide and abortion. It was resolute in its vision of marriage and sexuality as between one man and one woman for life. It was nonviolent, both on a personal level and a political level.

Sometimes moving forward requires looking backward. Institutions also need to hold themselves accountable and increase their awareness of how government agencies, systems, and leaders have enacted harm toward marginalized populations in the near and distant past.

As business people today, it's important to realize that from one perspective, we live in a global society. As executives and entrepreneurs and employees, we should embrace and cherish both diversity and unity. We should embrace the diversity of language from Spanish to English to Mandarin to Japanese... We should embrace the diversity of race and ethnicity.... We should embrace the diversity of philosophy and religion... Embracing the diversity opens up more business opportunities and it also allows you to cultivate more meaningful connections.

Moving from childhood to adulthood - that's not growing up. Moving from selfishness to selflessness - that's growing up. Moving from I to We - that's growing up. Moving from my culture, my country, my religion, to our cultures, our countries, our religions - that's growing up.

That individual philosophical concepts are not anything capricious or autonomously evolving, but grow up in connection and relationship with each other; that, however suddenly and arbitrarily they seem to appear in the history of thought, they nevertheless belong just as much to a system as all the members of the fauna of a continent - is betrayed in the end also by the fact that the most diverse philosophers keep filling in a definite fundamental scheme of possible philosophies. Under an invisible spell, they always revolve once more in the same orbit; however independent of each other they may feel themselves with their critical or systematic wills, something within them leads them, something impels them in a definite order, one after the other - to wit, the innate systematic structure and relationship of their concepts. Their thinking is, in fact, far less a discovery than a recognition, a remembering, a return and a homecoming to a remote, primordial, and inclusive household of the soul, out of which those concepts grew originally: philosophizing is to this extent a kind of atavism of the highest order.

The conundrum of the twenty-first (century) is that with the best intentions of color blindness, and laws passed in this spirit, we still carry instincts and reactions inherited from our environments and embedded in our being below the level of conscious decision. There is a color line in our heads, and while we could see its effects we couldn’t name it until now. But john powell is also steeped in a new science of “implicit bias,” which gives us a way, finally, even to address this head on. It reveals a challenge that is human in nature, though it can be supported and hastened by policies to create new experiences, which over time create new instincts and lay chemical and physical pathways. This is a helpfully unromantic way to think about what we mean when we aspire, longingly, to a lasting change of heart. And john powell and others are bringing training methodologies based on the new science to city governments and police forces and schools. What we’re finding now in the last 30 years is that much of the work, in terms of our cognitive and emotional response to the world, happens at the unconscious level.

Hollywood had revealed itself in countless ways as one of the most hypocritical capitalist enclaves in the world, with a preening surface attitude advocating progressivism, equality, inclusivity and diversity—except not when it came down to inclusivity and diversity of political thought and opinion and language.

It's funny that being human means so many things, man made divisions counter our judgements towards being wary of the "other", this is worrying because the thing that unites us is being human that is what we all are and without lament but with joy we should embrace everybody we would then live in utopia of diversity.

Inclusiveness is part of the liberal bubble, a gross overextension of a line of development assumed capable of going on forever. Bubbles burst, the dreams of youth dissipate, pride goes before destruction, and the world seems very different the morning after. Shock that the bubble burst is followed immediately by amazement that it lasted as long and went as far as it did.

Unfortunately, many give lip service to the concepts of diversity and inclusion but confuse the two and fail to implement them effectively. These are two different but related ideas. Diversity is the recognition that we are unique in our combination of physical attributes and our life experiences. Each of these differences matters because they help provide unique perspectives for problem-solving. Diverse perspectives, versus a homogeneous group, will bring forward a broader range of potential solutions and more “out of the box” thinking. Inclusion is proactively bringing a diverse population together—whether a community or business organization—and enabling these differences to coalesce in a positive way. Making a diverse group feel welcome and valued is the essence of inclusion.

Authentic diverse storytelling in films, books, television is when a story is cast with the intended ethnicity of the characters and is written by the intended ethnicity. When you cast Black or Asian actors into a role written for another, and the book is written by another, then that isn't authentic. That's re-imagining. Vice versa. Authentic storytelling is when you cast Korean American actors in a film written by Korean Americans or Chinese Americans in a film/book written by Chinese Americans so the entire story from concept to release is authentic. Not when you take a book written by a Caucasian, directed by a Caucasian but cast by African American or Asian American actors into originally-written Caucasian character roles just because that is trending. THAT is not authentic but white-washing.

Hence arises the belief that traditional culture, which is always based on particular connections, identities, and meanings, is intrinsically oppressive; that “essentialism,” the belief that things have a particular nature and significance, is ignorance and bigotry; and that “discrimination”, treating one connection as more fitting than another for any non-technological reason, is irrational and wrong.

It's not hard. No one but an SJW has ever used more than one of the following words in a sentence: “problematic”, “offensive”, “inclusive”, “triggered” “trigger warning”, “privilege”, “platforming”, “silencing”, “equitable”, “welcoming”, “safe space”, “code of conduct”, “cisgender”, “diversity”, “vibrant”. No one but an SJW makes quasi-religious fetishes of Equality, Diversity, Tolerance, and Progress.

If your own cultural identity is more important to you than unification of the world, then the world will remain segregated for the rest of time, but if you can truly, actually, genuinely aim towards the unification of the world even at the cost of your own identity, then not only we'll create a world of peace and assimilation, but also, in that world there will be place for all identities, with none of them being superior or inferior to any of them.

He wanted to teach the children that all bodies are beautiful. Among the pupils at Tomoe were some who had polio, like Yasuaki-chan, or were very small, or otherwise handicapped, and he felt if they bared their bodies and played together it would rid them feelings of shame and help to prevent them from developing an inferiority complex. As it turned out, while the handicapped children were shy at first, get soon began to enjoy themselves, and finally they got over their shyness completely.

We can restore our hopw in a world that transcends race by building communities where self-esteem comes not from feeling superior to any group but from one's relationship to the land, to the people, to the place wherever that may be. When we create beloved community, environments that are anti-racist and inclusive, it need not matter whether those spaces are diverse. What matters is that should difference enter the world of beloved community it can find a place of welcome, a place to belong.

Find The Human (The Sonnet) Find the human in you, and, You'll find the human in everybody. The way things are inside, So they are externally. World is reflection of the self, Outside is reflection of inside. Blind heart maketh the world blind, Kind heart maketh the world kind. We cover our eyes with our hands, And weep as children for it is too dark. We let biases take over our behavior, Then we shout why the world is so unjust. Without heart all fancy exterior is delusion, Only truth in the world is the one internal.

In a nation still stuck in an old Jim Crow mind-set - which equates racism with white bigotry and views racial diversity as proof the problem has been solved- a racially diverse police department invites questions like: "How can you say the Oakland Police Department's drug raids are racist? There's a black police chief, and most of the officers involved in the drug raids are black." If the caste dimensions of mass incarceration were better understood and the limitations of cosmetic diversity were better appreciated, the existence of black police chiefs and black police officers would be no more encouraging today than the presence of black slave drivers and black plantation owners hundreds of years ago. When meaningful change fails to materialize following the achievement of superficial diversity, those who remain locked out can become extremely discouraged and demoralized, resulting in cynicism and resignation. Perhaps more concerning, though, is the fact that inclusion of people of color in power structures, particularly at the top, can paralyze reform efforts.

identity politics endorse the concept that people are essentially tribal, and our differences are irreconcilable, which of course makes diversity and inclusion impossible. This is the toxic dead-end of identity politics; it’s a trap. But even so I didn’t reject people because they believed in this, or wanted to align themselves with a particular candidate. They were free to do as they wanted, and as a friend I supported them. I might not have agreed with them but I wasn’t about to unfriend anyone because of what his politics happened to be.

When an organization confuses diversity or inclusion with reconciliation, it often shows up in an obsession with numbers. How many Black people are in the photo? Has the 20 percent quota been met, so that we can call ourselves multicultural? Does our publication have enough stories written by people of color? Are there enough people of color on the TV show? But without people of color in key positions, influencing topics of conversation, content, direction, and vision, whatever diversity is included is still essentially white—it just adds people of color like sprinkles on top. The cake is still vanilla.

When an organization confuses diversity or inclusion with reconciliation, it often shows up in an obsession with numbers. How many Black people are in the photo? Has the 20 percent quota been met, so that we can call ourselves multicultural? Does our publication have enough stories written by people of color? Are there enough people of color on the TV show? But without people of color in key positions, influencing topics of conversation, content, direction, and vision, whatever diversity is included is still essentially white - it just adds people of color like sprinkles on top. The cake is still vanilla.

As a species, we have wasted a lot of our time on this planet holding on to the purely discriminatory and non-variant versions of our exclusively personal realities. Great many ages have passed this way – and it made us lose a lot – our sisters, our brothers, our loved ones – all because, while some of us were trying to hold on to our own “pure” “personal” world, others were doing the same. And all through history it has only led to death and destruction. And after all this, if we still can’t whole-heartedly embrace the beauty and the magnificence of diversity, then I am sad to say that we don’t deserve to call ourselves human.

From the perspective of inclusive fitness, unfamiliar others are potential free-riders and, out of a concern that they will be exploited by others, people reduce considerably their altruistic attitudes and behavior in a general way in more diverse communities. This loss of trust is a symptom of a breakdown in social cohesion and is surely a forerunner of the sort of ethnic conflict that is always likely to break out if allowed to do so. This is undoubtedly the reason why multicultural nation-states are forever promoting tolerance and ever more punitive sanctions for the expression of ethnic hostility, even going so far to as to discourage the expression of opinion about the reality of ethnic and racial differences. Currently these measures are directed at the host population when they express reservations about the wisdom of mass immigration, but this will surely change as it becomes ever more obvious that it is the presence of competing ethnic groups that is creating the tension and not the expressed reservations of the majority population. The real danger for modern democracies is that in their zeal to promote multicultural societies, they will be forced to resort to the means that have characterized all empires attempting to maintain their hegemony over disparate peoples.

Love is Not A Christian Thing (The Sonnet) Love thy neighbor is not a christian thing, Love stuck in barriers stays love no more. Shalom, ahava, simcha are not jewish concepts, Peace, love and joy constitute life's core. There's no christianity, there's only love, There's no buddhism, there's only compassion, There's no naskarism, there's only humanity, There's no humanism, there's only assimilation. Faith that raises walls within the mind, Is faith of the prehistoric savages. Faith has a place in civilized society, Only if it helps break assumptions and barriers. Let us come together across faith and culture. Let us be companions in each other's adventure.

This campaign was a reaction against what many saw as an increasingly deranged and rabid resistance, which held that if you’re not “woke” to how hateful and dangerous Donald Trump is, then you and his supporters should be subjected to an ever-widening social and professional fatwa. If you’d been cast out by your relatives, dropped by friends or lost jobs because you even tolerated this man, here were further indications that the Left was nowhere near as inclusive and diverse as long proclaimed. In the summer of 2018 they had turned into haters, helped by an inordinate amount of encouragement from the mainstream media, and now came across as anti-common-sense, anti-rational and anti-American.

If government had declined to build racially separate public housing in cities where segregation hadn’t previously taken root, and instead had scattered integrated developments throughout the community, those cities might have developed in a less racially toxic fashion, with fewer desperate ghettos and more diverse suburbs. If the federal government had not urged suburbs to adopt exclusionary zoning laws, white flight would have been minimized because there would have been fewer racially exclusive suburbs to which frightened homeowners could flee. If the government had told developers that they could have FHA guarantees only if the homes they built were open to all, integrated working-class suburbs would likely have matured with both African Americans and whites sharing the benefits. If state courts had not blessed private discrimination by ordering the eviction of African American homeowners in neighborhoods where association rules and restrictive covenants barred their residence, middle-class African Americans would have been able gradually to integrate previously white communities as they developed the financial means to do so. If churches, universities, and hospitals had faced loss of tax-exempt status for their promotion of restrictive covenants, they most likely would have refrained from such activity. If police had arrested, rather than encouraged, leaders of mob violence when African Americans moved into previously white neighborhoods, racial transitions would have been smoother. If state real estate commissions had denied licenses to brokers who claimed an “ethical” obligation to impose segregation, those brokers might have guided the evolution of interracial neighborhoods. If school boards had not placed schools and drawn attendance boundaries to ensure the separation of black and white pupils, families might not have had to relocate to have access to education for their children. If federal and state highway planners had not used urban interstates to demolish African American neighborhoods and force their residents deeper into urban ghettos, black impoverishment would have lessened, and some displaced families might have accumulated the resources to improve their housing and its location. If government had given African Americans the same labor-market rights that other citizens enjoyed, African American working-class families would not have been trapped in lower-income minority communities, from lack of funds to live elsewhere. If the federal government had not exploited the racial boundaries it had created in metropolitan areas, by spending billions on tax breaks for single-family suburban homeowners, while failing to spend adequate funds on transportation networks that could bring African Americans to job opportunities, the inequality on which segregation feeds would have diminished. If federal programs were not, even to this day, reinforcing racial isolation by disproportionately directing low-income African Americans who receive housing assistance into the segregated neighborhoods that government had previously established, we might see many more inclusive communities. Undoing the effects of de jure segregation will be incomparably difficult. To make a start, we will first have to contemplate what we have collectively done and, on behalf of our government, accept responsibility.

We, everyday citizens who are increasingly befuddled about what has happened to society and how it happened so quickly, regularly hear demands to “decolonize” everything from academic curricula to hairstyles to mathematics. We hear laments about cultural appropriation at the same time we hear complaints about the lack of representation of certain identity groups in the arts. We hear that only white people can be racist and that they always are so, by default. Politicians, actors, and artists pride themselves on being intersectional. Companies flaunt their respect for “diversity,” while making it clear that they are only interested in a superficial diversity of identity (not of opinions). Organizations and activist groups of all kinds announce that they are inclusive, but only of people who agree with them. American engineers have been fired from corporations like Google for saying that gender differences exist,43 and British comedians have been sacked by the BBC for repeating jokes that could be construed as racist by Americans.

The credit for Erté's rediscovery must be given to French writer Jacques Damase, who met the artist when preparing a book on the Parisian music-hall. It was not merely his active presence which astounded Damase, but the fact that neatly stored away were thousands of perfectly preserved drawings representing a life's work. The immediate result was an exhibition at Galerie Motte in 1965, organised with Jacques Perrin, who the following year held another exhibition at his own gallery in Paris. Through the Motte exhibition, Erté was brought to the attention of galleria Milano, which in 1965 included some of his work in a pioneering exhibition of Art Déco. The most prominent event in this sequence was was Erté inclusion in the important exhibition Les Années 25 held at Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, in 1966, which put an historical and artistic seal on Art Déco and the diverse artistic activities of the 'twenties. It is fair to say, however, that complete international reappraisal only came about after Grosvenor gallery in London became his world agents. Jacques Damase had suggested an exhibition of Erté's work to this London gallery, to which, at that time, I was acting as an art consultant. As a result we were able to prepare his first ever London exhibition in 1967. The remarkable success it achieved was presaged by a smaller exhibition in New York a few months earlier. It had planned to follow the London show with a similar collection in new York, based on work by Erté done for America. The new York premises were available earlier than planned and it was decided to go ahead none the less.

It should be clear by now that whatever Americans say about diversity, it is not a strength. If it were a strength, Americans would practice it spontaneously. It would not require “diversity management” or anti-discrimination laws. Nor would it require constant reminders of how wonderful it is. It takes no exhortations for us to appreciate things that are truly desirable: indoor plumbing, vacations, modern medicine, friendship, or cheaper gasoline. [W]hen they are free to do so, most people avoid diversity. The scientific evidence suggests why: Human beings appear to have deeply-rooted tribal instincts. They seem to prefer to live in homogeneous communities rather than endure the tension and conflict that arise from differences. If the goal of building a diverse society conflicts with some aspect of our nature, it will be very difficult to achieve. As Horace wrote in the Epistles, “Though you drive Nature out with a pitchfork, she will ever find her way back.” Some intellectuals and bohemians profess to enjoy diversity, but they appear to be a minority. Why do we insist that diversity is a strength when it is not? In the 1950s and 1960s, when segregation was being dismantled, many people believed full integration would be achieved within a generation. At that time, there were few Hispanics or Asians but with a population of blacks and whites, the United States could be described as “diverse.” It seemed vastly more forward-looking to think of this as an advantage to be cultivated rather than a weakness to be endured. Our country also seemed to be embarking on a morally superior course. Human history is the history of warfare—between nations, tribes, and religions —and many Americans believed that reconciliation between blacks and whites would lead to a new era of inclusiveness for all peoples of the world. After the immigration reforms of 1965 opened the United States to large numbers of non- Europeans, our country became more diverse than anyone in the 1950s would have imagined. Diversity often led to conflict, but it would have been a repudiation of the civil rights movement to conclude that diversity was a weakness. Americans are proud of their country and do not like to think it may have made a serious mistake. As examples of ethnic and racial tension continued to accumulate, and as the civil rights vision of effortless integration faded, there were strong ideological and even patriotic reasons to downplay or deny what was happening, or at least to hope that exhortations to “celebrate diversity” would turn what was proving to be a problem into an advantage. To criticize diversity raises the intolerable possibility that the United States has been acting on mistaken assumptions for half a century. To talk glowingly about diversity therefore became a form of cheerleading for America. It even became common to say that diversity was our greatest strength—something that would have astonished any American from the colonial era through the 1950s. There is so much emotional capital invested in the civil-rights-era goals of racial equality and harmony that virtually any critique of its assumptions is intolerable. To point out the obvious— that diversity brings conflict—is to question sacred assumptions about the ultimate insignificance of race. Nations are at their most sensitive and irrational where they are weakest. It is precisely because it is so easy to point out the weaknesses of diversity that any attempt to do so must be countered, not by specifying diversity’s strengths—which no one can do—but with accusations of racism.