The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality | 
 enlarge | Author: Walter Benn Michaels
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Category: Book
List Price: $23.00
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Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 583746
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.8 x 0.9
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.5120973
Publication Date: October 3, 2006
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Condition: Brand New, NO publisher marks, NO bargain stickers
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Product Description
A brilliant assault on our obsession with every difference except the one that really matters—the difference between rich and poor If there’s one thing Americans agree on, it’s the value of diversity. Our corporations vie for slots in the Diversity Top 50, our universities brag about minority recruiting, and every month is Somebody’s History Month. But in this provocative new book, Walter Benn Michaels argues that our enthusiastic celebration of “difference” masks our neglect of America’s vast and growing economic divide. Affirmative action in schools has not made them more open, it’s just guaranteed that the rich kids come in the appropriate colors. Diversity training in the workplace has not raised anybody’s salary (except maybe the diversity trainers’) but it has guaranteed that when your job is outsourced, your culture will be treated with respect.
With lacerating prose and exhilarating wit, Michaels takes on the many manifestations of our devotion to diversity, from companies apologizing for slavery, to a college president explaining why there aren’t more women math professors, to the codes of conduct in the new “humane corporations.” Looking at the books we read, the TV shows we watch, and the lawsuits we bring, Michaels shows that diversity has become everyone’s sacred cow precisely because it offers a false vision of social justice, one that conveniently costs us nothing. The Trouble with Diversity urges us to start thinking about real justice, about equality instead of diversity. Attacking both the right and the left, it will be the most controversial political book of the year.
Book Description
If there’s one thing Americans agree on, it’s the value of diversity. Our corporations vie for slots in the Diversity Top 50, our universities brag about minority recruiting, and every month is Somebody’s History Month. But in this provocative new book, Walter Benn Michaels argues that our enthusiastic celebration of “difference” masks our neglect of America’s vast and growing economic divide. Affirmative action in schools has not made them more open, it’s just guaranteed that the rich kids come in the appropriate colors. Diversity training in the workplace has not raised anybody’s salary (except maybe the diversity trainers’) but it has guaranteed that when your job is outsourced, your culture will be treated with respect.
With lacerating prose and exhilarating wit, Michaels takes on the many manifestations of our devotion to diversity, from companies apologizing for slavery, to a college president explaining why there aren’t more women math professors, to the codes of conduct in the new “humane corporations.” Looking at the books we read, the TV shows we watch, and the lawsuits we bring, Michaels shows that diversity has become everyone’s sacred cow precisely because it offers a false vision of social justice, one that conveniently costs us nothing. The Trouble with Diversity urges us to start thinking about real justice, about equality instead of diversity. Attacking both the right and the left, it will be the most controversial political book of the year.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Draws sharp distinctions November 29, 2006
Gregory Marton
20 out of 25 found this review helpful
This book is aimed at drawing distinctions between subjective matters of identity and objective matters of income and beliefs. Each identity is as good as any other, but being poor is worse than being rich. Michaels accuses the left of having lost its focus on objective equality, to the point of glorifying poverty.
Treating poverty as a matter of identity is, according to Michaels, a pernicious strategy for willfully ignoring the problem that increasingly many people are increasingly poor, and have less and less opportunity to move out of poverty. Moreover, by fighting battles of identity -- WalMart and Wall Street women each making some percent less than the men -- we may ignore the fact that all the WalMart workers make a hundredth of what the Wall Street workers make. He does not argue against fighting injustices of identity so much as argue for prioritizing and looking at the problems in perspective.
The book draws sharp distinctions between the kinds of arguments that make sense for identities and those that make sense for wealth and ideology. It is a call to action in addressing "equality of opportunity" for everyone (the American Dream), hand in hand with reducing economic disparity.
This is an important social commentary, clearly and engagingly written, and exposing one of the great hidden weaknesses of politics in the United States. You may or may not be convinced, but reading it will broaden your view and sharpen your perspective.
A Brilliant and neccesary challenge October 30, 2006
Seth J. Frantzman (Jerusalem, Israel)
13 out of 19 found this review helpful
For many years the world has worshipped at the alter of diversity. This view has literally taken over the world, not only in the west, but extending itself to places such as Israel and India, in short any country that wants to ape the West. The idea is simple. Diversity is king. To make up for supposed years of not having diversity, which means a small class of the same ethnic and religious group ran most countries in the world up to the present time(for instance Anglo-Saxon whites in the U.S, Rich Sunni Arabs in Iraq), society must discriminate in favor of those who were discriminated against. This means that all institutions from TV shows, to the workplace to the University must have an 'equal' representation of society.
But thats not what happened. The legacy of Dr. King in America was not diversity. It was racism. Instead of abolished racism and using color blind tests to recruit, which would ensure diversity inside meritocracy, people were recruited for their skin color, ensuring the legacy of racial hate. Thus in American universities there are mainly two types of people, wealthy blacks and wealthy whites. Asians and poor whites get the boot so that the college can brag about diversity. There is no mention of diversity of opinion.
Thus in the sad obsession with race, and in the name of confronting racial wrongs, the picture is worth reality, so that a picture that appears diverse, is called diverse. This book tries to show the fallacy here. Those who are truly discriminated against in business, in college and everywhere else are the poor. Thus it is not just skin color that is a deteriminant of diversity but class as well. The wealthy have something in common with eachother everywhere regardless of color or religion, and for this reason recruting wealthy Africans does not truly fulfill diversity, in fact it is the opposite. True diversity is making sure to represent society, and society is primarily middle class and poor, so its time the major institutions reflected that and not just the fake color, which is only skin deep, that they do today. A passionate call to action.
Seth J. Frantzman
I wouldn't agree with his solutions, but he gets the statement of the problem exactly right October 10, 2008
Todd Stockslager (Raleigh, NC)
Short and cogent argument that the current "neoliberal" emphasis on diversity (of race, culture, language, or religion) devalues economic equality and real political progress. "Celebrating diversity . . .is now our way of accepting inequality."
Michaels doesn't spend much time talking about his suggested solutions to the problems, but based on what he reveals, I would strongly disagree with most of his solutions anyway. He has, however, framed the arguments exactly right, and with a slyly sarcastic wit belying his income ($175k) and occupation ("tenured radical" English professor at expensive private university).
The Problem of Legalizing Diversity January 8, 2007
John Matlock (Winnemucca, NV)
5 out of 16 found this review helpful
Using acerbic wit to discuss the problems that have resulted from social engineering through the laws, Professor Michaels proposes the thesis that the problems with American society are largely based on class/economic grounds rather than what we viewed as the traditional problems like race.
One of the points he laments is the great disparity in income from the top to the bottom of the scale. Yet, in my mind the last chapter 'Conclusion: About the Author,' states that he just might miss several points. For instance his income from teaching at the University of Illinois is $175,000 a year. And in good American (and probably the rest of the world) fashion, he wants more. He admits that one of his motives for writing this book was the cash.
Does he deserve all this. I think so. I see the people in New Orleans saying, 'I've been here (in a shelter in Houston) for four days, somebody should have found me a place to live by now.' Professor Michaels would have found himself a place. The Mexican worker, in this country illegally, would have found himself a place. Professor Michaels has the ability to write the book, the ability to convince a publisher to publish it. These are valuable skills, and he deserves what he gets. Let's face it, the uneducated hamburger flipper is worth just about what he gets.
 I buy the argument; you should buy the book. October 31, 2006
Joseph M. Powers (South Bend, IN USA)
21 out of 27 found this review helpful
Prof. Michaels most persuasive point is that our society has neglected the laudable goal of striving for socio-economic diversity in our institutions in favor of emphasizing other classes of diversity. He relies on strong rhetorical skills to make this, and most of his points. He does not focus on the detailed statistics that would be necessary to convince many professional social scientists, but the prospective audience for this extended op-ed piece is more the general reader, who may be provoked into finding their own numbers to butress their arguments. The writing style is necessarily polemical, and it is likely that all readers will find some things with which to disagree. However, in contrast to other critics of modern implementations of diversity, the present author likely otherwise shares many views with advocates of diversity. Even those who take issue with Michaels' conclusions will find his ideas worth considering. His closest intellectual bedfellow is Thomas Franks, to whom considerable reference is made, along with a host of other timely sources (who may be dated in a few years!). I found the short book easily digestible in two hour-long evening readings.
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