What High School taught me about Diversity.

After the Obama Administration reworked American industry to promote “diversity” over merit, much of the Western world has followed suite and adopted his policy. It’s sort of a kind of mass mob acceptance of the latest fad that no one wants to be left out of.

You know, like “pet rocks”, “swallowing goldfish”, and “Deming Quality controls”.

It does pay well. LinkedIN advertises for “Diversity Directors” worth half a million dollars a year in salary.

Just about the same as all those “experts” for Y2K were paid, and those “experts” for “Global Cooling” back in the 1970’s. But really just how beneficial is it to the “bottom line”; the profitability of a given business? Is the hiring of a “diverse” selection of people better than hiring on merit?

If you believe all the hype, the answer is “yes”.

But somehow, I have this bad nagging feeling at the back of my head that says otherwise. Because “diversity” isn’t about wearing different clothes, or different skin tones, or believing different religious dogma. Diversity is a methodology that places no measurable criteria on the hiring requirements for a given position.

Diversity is a methodology that places no measurable criteria on the hiring requirements for a given position. 

Well, let’s look at this.

We will look at idea of “diversity” this from the point of view of what it was like in my High School years. For my High School was fully and intentionally diverse. And at that time, there were two techniques of grouping people. These techniques were by [1] merit, and [2] by random association. Or in other words; “diversity”. Thus we can compare diversity against merit as the criteria used in a selection process.

Now, the fact and truth is that "diversity" is just a code word for a scheme to provide an avenue to move African-Americans into positions of power all through American industry and institutions. 

That was why it was started, and the unspoken truth of why it exists.

High School

High School, and Elementary school for that matter, was always about equal doses of Diversity selection criteria, and criteria by merit.

Diversity selection was simply random groupings of children by arbitrary means. The most common way by the first letter of your last name. (I know this well, as that is how I always ended up sitting at the back of the classroom.) On rare occasions we would be organized by height, or some other arbitrary factor.

Which is, more or less, exactly the same thing as “diversity”. Which is the utilization of other characteristics aside from merit to rank and classify people.

Grading of students

However, when it came to grades, students were classified by merit. That being such that the best performing students obtained the highest grades. This was not only true in the class, but also in terms of the sports.

Cheerleaders were selected in their abilities to memorize and fit within the cheer-leading routines.

Athletes and football (and basketball) team tryouts determined who would become “letter-men”, and who would play what role in the games and sports that the High School would participate within. If you couldn’t perform, meet the requirements, or score, you would (more often than not) end up sitting on the bench most of the season.

Grouping of students

During class, sometimes the students would “form groups”.

More often than not, these groups were formed by random convenience. Members of each group would consist of some of the smarter kinds in the class and some of the stupidest. Some would have jocks and others would have princesses. Some would have nerds, and some would have metal heads. They would be just as diverse as you could possible imagine.

Now, in every single case, this is how it always worked out…

• One or two of the most popular kids would take over the group.
• The smartest nerds or high-performers would do the vast majority of the work.
• The rest of the group would “slide by”.

In groups, the tendency was for the group to share the credit for the work of a precious few. At no time would there be any exceptions.

Occasionally, you might have a group with a combination of the high-performers, the nerds, and the “smart kids”. Who, of course would always win the award for the best performing group.

There would also be groups, by the “luck of the draw” would end up with the lazy, low performing, and marginal students. These would end up never winning any awards or appreciation for what ever effort they put into the project they were assigned.

Formation of teams in sports

When I attended school, we had these events called “try outs”. There, a group of 50 or so kids would “try out” for a position on one of the many sports teams that the school had. You needed to “try out” and prove yourself valuable and worthy for the team. After all, there might only be some 20 slots available for you, and there were 50 people vying for those spots.

Member were selected by ability and skill. Those students with the best throwing arms ended up being Football quarterbacks. The fastest swimmers got to take lead roles in water sports, and the students that could hit the ball furthest got to play baseball.

The only people who wore seatbelts in the 1970s must’ve worked for  NHTSA. Manufacturers had been installing them in cars since 1968 when  they were ordered to by the federal government, and from that point  forward, car builders and policymakers tried everything to get people to  use them. First was just a gentle reminder on the dash. Then there was a  light on the dash. Then a light and a buzzer. Then a buzzer that  wouldn’t turn off, so you pulled the fuse, or you wrapped the seatbelt  behind you instead of just clicking it over your body the way the  manufacturer intended. 

It wouldn’t be until the 1980s until states encouraged seatbelt use. In  1993, that all started to change as California passed the nation’s first  seatbelt law that made not wearing one a primary violation, meaning you  could be stopped and ticketed just for not wearing one, rather than  having to be stopped for a more serious violation first. 

No one cared about the color of their skin, their family background, how smart they were, or whether their parents made enough or too little money. It was based on merit, and only those with merit in their respective fields could participate in the games.

I know. I was pretty terrible at sports. I couldn’t dribble for the life of me, and my ability to hit the baseball with a bat was hit or miss. Though, I was a pretty mean-little crab-soccer player. Yes, so instead of playing sports, I ended up working after school. First in the coal mines and then in the steel mills. Not to mention stock clerk and Gas station attendant.

It’s called life.

Those that could play ball well, got all the girls and had a lively time on the weekends. Those that couldn’t ended up working during our free time.

Modern contemporaneous examples

You can see examples in public and in industry on the effects of selecting membership by diversity as opposed to merit.

Here we have Detroit. It’s been a champion of diversity for decades now…

Shanghai, in contrast, has been hiring by merit for at least fifty years. You can see what happens when people are in positions of power through merit.

Baltimore, USA is another example of how diversity hires can affect the overall standard and quality of life in a given community. Here we see a typical Baltimore community that has been managed by diversity hires for a good two decades…

Here is Hangzhou Bay Bridge China’s Hangzhou Bay Trans-oceanic Bridge is one of the masterpieces of modern architecture. It is the longest sea-crossing bridge in the world – 36 kilometres – and comes with a price tag of 11.8 billion yuan (US$1.70 billion). It was designed and built by the best engineers and designers in China. Each one obtained their positions through merit.

Here is an American pedestrian overpass walkway in Florida designed and built by diversity hires. It was designed, and constructed by a group of mostly-female diversity hires. It collapsed on it’s very first day of use. This is in Florida, USA.

Conclusion

Just because a mob of people believe something, and it is well-promoted in the media, does not make it true. At one time, people believed tomatoes were poisonous, and that bathing caused sickness, and that Epstein killed himself. All of which were false.

Diversity hires will ALWAYS perform poorly when compared to hires based on merit.

If I ever need to have open-heart surgery, I want the best doctor available. I do not want to have surgery performed on me by a slacker who fell asleep during heart-surgery class.

Some cool links on diversity

• How Diversity Killed Rome
• Nikole Hannah-Jones Understands That Diversity Prevents Civilization
• How diversity is the cause of racism

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

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