Key Points
One of the most ubiquitous and seemingly inspirational term in the American society is none other than diversity, whose true meaning is difficult to be elucidate. The authors of this article conduct exhaustive interviews in four metropolitan localities for understanding the widespread conceptions held about diversity. Despite a majority of Americans responding in a positive manner initially, the interviews disclosed that their actual considerations are emergent and quite conflicting. The study shed light upon the strains existing amidst the conceptions and convoluted certainties of the various discrepancies of the social life, along with also highlighting the challenge of maintaining a balance between group-based obligations and conventional values held by individuals. Most of the respondents defined diversity in an abstract form and in common terminology, although most of their tangible allusions and personal experiences encompassing communication with people of other race.
Even the most eloquent and civically engaged respondents had a hard time discussing about inequality in specific relation to diversity. Supported by the critical theory, the authors place the finding of the current study in relation to the myriad privileges, most of them unseen, as well as the normative suppositions of being a White in the conventional American culture. The findings and inferences of this study have been further used to expand the various theories of related to the connection of racism and colorblindness of contemporary times.
Reactions
There were also a few respondents who had a very hard time discussing about diversity and this points to critical multiculturalism being letting down and ignored by the people of the conventional American culture and this completely true. The numerous pressures as well as indistinctness that were identified in the study seem less as disconnects in the discourse than as the true power through which the diversity discourse is inconsistently structured and replicated in the American culture and society today.
While the language of diversity builds dissimilarity as a typical form, it also renounces and rejects the detrimental impacts that it has upon the lives of those people who are so built. Race, while is all-pervasive yet invisible. Race in today’s American society and is seen to be having a deep cultural self-deception which is quite difficult to be recognized and dealt with.
The truth is that diversity discourse, which is alternatively called as diversity devoid of oppression, works in a manner that aims to alter the focus beyond an overt repudiation of race and racial discrimination towards a grandiloquence that aims to admit and even revere the differences existing between various races. In the same breath, diversity discourse also unites, complicates, and conceals the profound socio-structural origins and outcomes of diversity.
Implications
One industry that is a pertinent example of the way in which cultural diversity is dealt with is the contemporary sports industry. Professional teams compete with players from various parts of the world, hailing from various cultural backgrounds, at a professional level globally. Though the sports industry is often referred to as an example of effective diversity management, even this industry has its own issues in terms of diversity. Played and viewed by people from a number of ethnic backgrounds, sports has an informative and entertaining effect on people’s minds, which eventually makes it an ideal stream for intercultural discourse and communal integration.
Certainly, whenever a discussion about integration with the help of sports arises, there is widespread acknowledgement of the constructive aide that it port makes towards social integration, especially with respect to cultural minorities and migrant nationals. This harmony and unanimity has been emphasized by several opinion polls across the European continent and with specific references to political and established discourse. “Regular participation in sport is thought, for example, to help young people of immigrant origin to develop key skills and to integrate better into society. It is important, however, not to take things at face value.”
Managing cultural diversity has its roots in the legacy of the American culture as well as in globalization and it is one of the most important priorities of the global order today and not just the United States. In a nutshell, diversity is more about the mere coexistence of different ethnic groups and emigrant citizens in a particular state or a country as it predominantly calls for an increased acceptance and ingenuousness which is beyond simple intolerance. Diversity, essentially, is a practice or norm that calls for some form of action resulting out of the experience of people and this practice is not being implemented are put to action in the American society today and that calls for some immediate attention.
References
Chelladurai, A. J. (1999). Managing Cultural Diversity in Sport Organizations: A Theoretical Perspective. Journal of Sports Management, 13, 280-297.
Cometti, W. G. (2010). Sports facing the test of Cultural Diversity. Europe: Council of Europe.
Hartmann, J. M. (2007). Diversity in Everyday Discourse: The Cultural Ambiguities and Consequences of ''Happy Talk''. American Sociological Review, 72, 895-914.
McKay, P. A. (2007). Racial differences in employee retention: Are diversity climate perceptions the key? Personnel Psychology, 60, 35-62.
