How liberals disprove their own belief that diversity improves society

Someone sent me the .pdf version of the February issue of American Renaissance featuring the speech Jared Taylor was starting to deliver in a Halifax, Nova Scotia hotel when a mob of leftists violently forced him from the room. I’ve read most of it and it is a sparkling dissection of the lie that diversity enriches us. Taylor makes his point, not by attacking diversity itself, but by cataloguing official Canada’s total obsession with problems of racial discrimination and racial conflict, which, Taylor points out, are a direct result of Canada’s diversity. The effectiveness of his argument only makes me feel again what a tragedy it is that Taylor has welcomed serious anti-Semites within his circle and has refused to distance himself from them, forcing many former allies of Taylor to distance themselves from him.

Here is an excerpt from the speech. The Prof. Divine to whom Taylor refers is a black Canadian professor who was scheduled to hold a debate on race with Taylor at a university in Halifax and then withdrew from it, leaving Taylor to set up his own, one-man event which was disrupted by the leftists.

… Ladies and gentlemen, I believe Prof. Divine is a coward. I think he is afraid to face a serious opponent in a serious debate on the subject of what amounts to the state religion of Canada: the assertion that multiculturalism and racial diversity are great strengths for a country.

And I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, that an assertion—a belief—is all it is. How, exactly, is racial diversity a strength for Canada or any other country? Does it raise per capita GNP? Does it improve crop yields? Does it lower crime rates? Does it reduce green house gasses? Does it lower taxes?

No, it doesn’t do any of those things. I’m not sure I have ever heard its boosters say specifically what it does. I will tell you what racial diversity does: It results in conflict, tension, and hostility. At its worst, racial diversity can lead to race riots, racially-motivated murder and assault. At its best, when communities of different races try to live together they simply leave each other alone. The result is relatively peaceful voluntary segregation. Except for a few bohemians, people of different races do not often mingle naturally and happily.

Think honestly about your own lives. How racially diverse are your dinner parties, your ski outings, your church services, your backyard barbecues? If racial diversity were a strength, people would be drawn to it naturally. They would mix spontaneously with people unlike themselves. And yet, they do not. They do not because racial diversity is not a strength. It is a source of tension and conflict. People may submit to racial diversity in their public lives but turn their backs on it in their private lives.

Now, you probably think that every major Canadian institution from the federal government on down takes the view that racial diversity is a great strength for Canada. In fact, they all agree with me. They all assert most emphatically that racial diversity is not a source of strength but a source of conflict. The only difference is that instead of the word “conflict,” they use the word “racism.” Whatever “racism” may be, they all agree that it is a very bad thing, and that Canadian society is riddled with it.

Now, if there were no racial diversity in Canada, there could be no racial discrimination, could there? So please remember this: Whenever people complain about racism, bigotry, hatred, racial profiling, discrimination, they are not talking about the joys and benefits of racial diversity. They are admitting that it is a source of tension and suffering.

To repeat, your government and institutions agree with me, not with Prof. Divine. That is why every province and territory has two major bureaucracies that fight racism: a Human Rights Commission and a Human Rights Tribunal. Then there is the federal Human Rights Commission—200 people work for it full-time—the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, the National Anti-Racism Council of Canada, and dozens more city and local bureaucracies fighting racism. Every university has an office for fighting racism.

And that’s not enough. The Canadian UNESCO Commission wants to establish a Canadian Coalition of Municipalities Against Racism. Saint Paul University in Ottawa wants what it calls a National Justice Initiative Against Racism and Hate. In 2005, the federal government launched Canada’s Action Plan Against Racism, which was to spend $56 million over the next five years combating racism. You have Parliamentary Committees on Visible Minorities and Standing Committees on Multiculturalism. It’s hard to keep up with all the bureaucrats whose job it is to sniff out racism and eradicate it. None of this would be necessary were there no racial diversity in Canada.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 20, 2007 02:05 PM | Send