Over the past couple of decades, these two words have been thrown around flippantly in order to invoke emotion or inspire action. In most cases, people who verbally support one of these ideas support the other just as much. Politicians, in particular, love to use words like equality and diversity to receive votes. Language wields such power and influence in today’s society that an understanding of words is essential.
Equality is defined as “the quality or state of having the same rights” and diversity is defined as “the state of having people who are different races or who have different cultures in a group or organization.”
The basis of this argument originates in the idea that there are biological characteristics that people have no control over, and those biological characteristics have no relation to a person’s ability to do a job. The principle of equality states that characteristics such as race, ethnicity or even gender should not be valid reasons to treat someone differently --whether that is for better or for worse. Consequently, the United States has an immense variety of groups of people, and equality has been and still continues to be a topic of discussion.
The problem arises when people begin to discuss equality and diversity in the same setting, because while both ideas attempt to promote minorities, they are actually opposing forces. What I mean by this is that a company that is seeking diversity is actually trying to balance its work force in a way that reflects various people groups, and if this same company desires to promote equality, then they are striving to give each person, regardless of those uncontrollable characteristics, an equal chance. But how can a company give each person an equal chance if they have already stated that they want a diverse company?
For this hypothetical example, I will use hair color in place of gender, race or ethnicity. If a company is employing no people with purple hair, 3 people with green hair, and 10 people with blue hair, then in order to achieve diversity, the company is going to hire someone with purple hair or maybe green hair. If the most qualified person that applies for the job happens to have purple or green hair, then both equality and diversity work together. However, if the most qualified person for the job has blue hair, the company has run into a dilemma. If they hire one of the people with purple or green hair, then they will become more diverse, but the company will not be hiring the person best for the company. In other words, they will have hired someone because of their hair color and not for their qualifications. On the other hand, if the company hires the person with blue hair, they risk becoming less diverse, and the company becomes afraid that it could receive a negative reputation for being “colorist,” discriminating based on hair color. This is the crossroads where diversity and equality conflict.
Now, I am not saying that diversity or equality are bad. I am not saying that some races, ethnic groups or genders are better in some areas. What I will say is that we need to be careful what we allow to sway our opinion. If a company, politician, preacher or any person, for that matter, wants to achieve equality through diversity or diversity through equality, then they are mistaken.
Equality and diversity are not achieved by creating new laws, passing additional regulation and implementing more rules. Currently, Title VII prohibits any form of discrimination, and if discrimination continues to exist, then it is not going to change because of a law written on a piece of paper. Refabricating the culture of this country is the only way to bring an end to discrimination, and that does not happen by requiring people to accept ideas they do not believe or forcing people to change their lifestyles altogether. It happens when people realize that despite disagreements, despite the mistakes made in the past and despite different ideas, feelings and beliefs, it is still possible to love each other and care for each other because we hold one thing in common: we are citizens of the United States of America.
