# An American city that is 90% of a nonwhite race: Diverse or not? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 11, 2015, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524 "2015-08-11T04:23:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/21 "2015-08-11T17:46:04Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The irony being of course that this would cause people to be categorized as being in the same racial group who obviously are nothing of the sort. > > An African-American descended from Americans slaves going back to the early 18th century and, say, a Somali who just arrived ten years ago will both be classified as “black” despite the fact that they are genetically and culturally as different from one another as Taylor Swift and Sadahuru Oh are. Which just goes to show that “race” is a funny concept. On the one hand, one might think it should mean “what you consider yourself”, but it might be more accurate to say it’s “what other people consider your to be”. If people consider you to be black, you are going to be treated like a black person. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/22 "2015-08-11T18:06:53Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It’s what the US government uses on the [census form.](http://census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html) > > Seems like as good a reference document as any, and better than most. Except that, as you point out, it refers to races within the overall categories, not _as_ the overall categories. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/23 "2015-08-11T18:11:39Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > Except that, as you point out, it refers to races within the overall categories, not _as_ the overall categories. Well, yeah. The concept itself is flawed, so it’s not surprising that the data is going to be flawed. Is race about how you see yourself, or how people see you? Or some combination of that or something else? However, that’s the data the government collects, and it’s the most often cited. Ask someone if a city is diverse or not and 99 times out of 100 the answer will rely on the US census data. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/24 "2015-08-11T18:17:13Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Well, yeah. The concept itself is flawed, so it’s not surprising that the data is going to be flawed. Is race about how you see yourself, or how people see you? Or some combination of that or something else? > > However, that’s the data the government collects, and it’s the most often cited. Ask someone if a city is diverse or not and 99 times out of 100 the answer will rely on the US census data. I’m literally just questioning around **ITR Champion** ’s claim that “The racial categories that the American government uses were established artificially so they could create affirmative action.”, here. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/25 "2015-08-11T18:21:31Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > I’m literally just questioning around **ITR Champion** ’s claim that “The racial categories that the American government uses were established artificially so they could create affirmative action.”, here. Oh, OK. I think there might have been some subconscious “making the form give you the results you are looking for” involved, but I would not agree that there was some conspiracy to create a form that would “create affirmative action”. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/26 "2015-08-11T18:31:48Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Oh, OK. I think there might have been some subconscious “making the form give you the results you are looking for” involved, but I would not agree that there was some conspiracy to create a form that would “create affirmative action”. That plus the idea that these are racial categories that the American government artificially created themselves seems odd to me. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/27 "2015-08-11T18:36:37Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It’s what the US government uses on the [census form.](http://census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html) > > Seems like as good a reference document as any, and better than most. Not exactly. On the census form they don’t have a category for two or more races. Instead, they allow you to check more than one race box. (This is a fairly recent change.) ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/28 "2015-08-11T22:28:33Z")
You’re just not going to make people happy no matter what you do - when I was a Census worker I had respondents who insisted on putting down “human” as their race. (Well, yes, I’d assume that, as we don’t have a large population, or _any_ population of Wookies, Vulcans, Tectonese, or other off-world species and we don’t recognize any other Earth species as counting for Census purposes.) ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2015, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/29 "2015-08-12T14:35:49Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > For me, diversity means variety in ideas, philosophies, lifestyles, jobs, hobbies, and so forth. I think that a city can be extremely diverse, even if everybody is of the same ethnic group. A city can also have many ethnic groups and fail to be diverse. > > As for racial diversity, for the same reason that **boytyperanma** said. The racial categories that the American government uses were established artificially so they could create affirmative action. The concept of Hispanic as a race, for instance, has no basis in biology or history. Traditionally Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Peruvians, and dozens of other groups would have never even considered viewing themselves as a single race. > [@Velocity](#): > > So if a city is 100% white, but it’s a mix of German, Irish, Swedish, Dutch, etc., is it diverse? The US’s “diversity” categories exist only to further the government’s policy on affirmative action and have no relationship with any sort of scientifically rigorous model of diversity. It would actually be so awesome to walk into a job interview and be told, “Hey, I see that you are of Pennsylvania Dutch heritage! We already have way too many Cajuns, Jews, Irish Catholics, Pollacks, Hillbillies, and WASPs and could use someone like you to improve our diversity. What color company car did you want?” ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2015, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/30 "2015-08-12T14:49:17Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > The US’s “diversity” categories exist only to further the government’s policy on affirmative action… Could I ask you to provide some support for this? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2015, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/31 "2015-08-12T14:52:05Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > Not exactly. On the census form they don’t have a category for two or more races. Instead, they allow you to check more than one race box. > > (This is a fairly recent change.) Well, there’s a bit more to the recent changes than that. You can now fill in [whatever you want](http://www.census.gov/2010census/about/interactive-form.php) for race, provided it’s 20 characters or fewer. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I suspect I know what you’re getting at. Sometimes the word “diverse” is used to refer to nonwhite people. I’ve heard schools that were 95%+ African American students referred to as having a diverse population. > > IMO it’s a euphemism used by people who are scared to use words like black or African American, for fear of being called racist. It’s a little like “urban” or “inner-city” used as euphemisms for black, or like “ethnic hair products” used to mean “hair products for nonwhite people.” HBCUs often use that definition for themselves - i.e. in a “good way.” Of course, there are some HBCUs and particularly postgraduate HBCUs that are genuinely diverse. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2015, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/32 "2015-08-12T14:58:11Z")
Nate Silver tosses in the fact that the most diverse are often the most segregated: > **[The Most Diverse Cities Are Often The Most Segregated](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-most-diverse-cities-are-often-the-most-segregated/)** > > When I was a freshman at the University of Chicago in 1996, I heard the same thing again and again: Do not leave the boundaries of Hyde Park. Do not go north of… I agree that our measurements are questionable - Arab does not show up in the pick list, for example. Persian is considered White on the census. Living in a heavily Persian community, I laugh when people talk about the % of “white” kids at the local schools, when the % of Anglo is pretty low in reality. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2015, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/33 "2015-08-12T15:23:32Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > The US’s “diversity” categories exist only to further the government’s policy on affirmative action and have no relationship with any sort of scientifically rigorous model of diversity. It would actually be so awesome to walk into a job interview and be told, “Hey, I see that you are of Pennsylvania Dutch heritage! We already have way too many Cajuns, Jews, Irish Catholics, Pollacks, Hillbillies, and WASPs and could use someone like you to improve our diversity. What color company car did you want?” The “affirmative action” model IS based on historical discrimination patterns, though. For the past 50-75 years there hasn’t been a hell of a lot of discrimination against Poles and Irish, at least not relative to what some other groups have experienced. The purpose, as I understood it, was to level the playing field and take out some of the unfairness. Whether or not affirmative action has actually done that or not is a different question. The point being, while those categories may not have a scientific basis they weren’t simply pulled out of a bureaucratic rectum. There are historical and social reasons for their existence. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2015, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/34 "2015-08-12T17:20:24Z")
A city that is 90% Hispanic certainly is not diverse- but you can bet all media reports will describe the city as “vibrant.” In fact, it’s gotten so that I almost automatically interpret the adjective “vibrant” as meaning “Mexican.” ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2015, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/35 "2015-08-12T18:18:28Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > The “affirmative action” model IS based on historical discrimination patterns, though. For the past 50-75 years there hasn’t been a hell of a lot of discrimination against Poles and Irish, at least not relative to what some other groups have experienced. The purpose, as I understood it, was to level the playing field and take out some of the unfairness. > > Whether or not affirmative action has actually done that or not is a different question. > > The point being, while those categories may not have a scientific basis they weren’t simply pulled out of a bureaucratic rectum. There are historical and social reasons for their existence. Good point, but the purpose of supporting diversity is not simply to attempt to rectify historical discrimination patterns, but to actually encourage the formation of communities and organizations that contain people with differing perspectives. For example, it’s true that while systematic discrimination against Irish Catholics in the US has been pretty much dead since 1900, there could still be workplaces, schools, etc. that have, for some reason, been populated primarily by Swedish Lutherans and might actually function more efficiently and produce better results if they had an infusion of the cultural perspectives that an Irish Catholic or Ashkenazi Jew might bring. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2015, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/36 "2015-08-12T18:27:11Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > So if a city is 100% white, but it’s a mix of German, Irish, Swedish, Dutch, etc., is it diverse? It could be, just not with regard to race. Racial diversity isn’t the only form of diversity. An all-white city could be fairly diverse in terms of ethnicity, religion, language, etc. There are also other facets of diversity, like sexual orientation, that have little if anything to do with race or ethnicity. But if you’re talking about a city in the US where everyone is of Northern European descent then I suspect these people would largely share the same culture. This isn’t to say that white German-Americans and white Swedish-Americans are exactly the same, but claiming that a city is diverse because it’s home to these groups reminds me of that quote from _The Blues Brothers_ about the bar that has “both kinds of music: country AND western.” ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2015, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/37 "2015-08-12T18:30:18Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > A city that is 90% Hispanic certainly is not diverse- but you can bet all media reports will describe the city as “vibrant.” > > In fact, it’s gotten so that I almost automatically interpret the adjective “vibrant” as meaning “Mexican.” _Viva la ciudad vibrante!_ Do you have a cite to support that? ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2015, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/38 "2015-08-12T19:25:13Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > _Viva la ciudad vibrante!_ > > Do you have a cite to support that? No, and I’m not going to search for one. This is an observation. In my experience (take it for what it’s worth), reporters can’t seem to refrain from using the word “vibrant” whenever they’re describing a Mexican neighborhood. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2015, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/39 "2015-08-12T19:36:51Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > No, and I’m not going to search for one. This is an observation. In my experience (take it for what it’s worth), reporters can’t seem to refrain from using the word “vibrant” whenever they’re describing a Mexican neighborhood. It’s a euphemism for “noisy”. And, of course, there is a difference between a neighborhood and a city. At any rate, I think you’re over-analyzing this. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2015, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524/40 "2015-08-12T19:41:23Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It’s a euphemism for “noisy”. And, of course, there is a difference between a neighborhood and a city. At any rate, I think you’re over-analyzing this. On the contrary, “vibrant” tends to be held up as a positive thing, especially by pro-immigrationists. The idea always seems to be that white people are boring and old, and need more Mexicans around to perk up their neighborhoods. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-american-city-that-is-90-of-a-nonwhite-race-diverse-or-not/727524.md?page=3)