Opponent of Diversity Prompts Spirited Discussion

More than 150 students, faculty and staff members attended a forum Thursday at the College of William and Mary to hear and question an opponent of diversity and multicultural initiatives.

{snip}

His 40-minute speech, however, was followed by nearly an hour of spirited discussion with the crowd, with dozens of people raising their hands at each chance to ask a question.

During his prepared remarks, Taylor pointed to Denmark, Japan and China as examples of prosperous “homogenous” countries. Meanwhile, he said, companies spend an estimated $8 billion a year to train employees on diversity programs in the United States.

“If it were a wonderful thing,” he said of diversity, “they would seek it out.”

Taylor pointed to writings of historical figures to support his view, and he cited specific studies and some academic scholars who researched the costs of diversity initiatives and their economic yield. They also supported his view that increased diversity—specifically, racial diversity—was a weakness, he said.

Although he opposes forced integration, he said, he isn’t advocating forced segregation. Instead, people could associate freely, he said.

“Human beings are tribal and tend to feel most comfortable around people they know,” he said.

{snip}

Taylor’s remarks were frequently met with derisive laughter, while other people in the crowd simply shook their heads.

{snip}

If only writer, lecturer and grenade-thrower Jared Taylor would use his considerable smarts for good and not for evil.

By now, this self-described “race realist” from the Northern Virginia community of Oakton, has done his spiel at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, lecturing on the ills of diversity and multiculturalism.

From what I’ve read of the guy, no doubt he articulately presented his view of a biological pecking order (sorry, but those brainiac Asians get to peck on us Caucasians) and the joys of segregation.

By now, his critics are just as appalled as they knew they would be, and his supporters are feeling smug, in particular the students who invited him to speak.

And what have we learned?

Nothing we didn’t already know.

By that, I mean that people like Taylor preach to the choir and proselytize few. They roll in, start a food fight, then bolt with a giggle and some free publicity just as the cream pies start to fly.

If he were a knuckle-dragger like any other openly white supremacist, Taylor would be easy to dismiss.

But this is a guy with chops.

{snip}

Yet he prints stuff like “Multicultural Hell Comes to America,” “The Color of Death” (about “double standards on race”), “The Color of Crime” (arguing that blacks are more prone to criminal activity than whites) and “Can Blacks be Our Allies? They could—but won’t—act in our interests, too.”

This month, Taylor published the second part of his own essay called “Integration Has Failed.” I only read Part I, which purports to explore why forced integration in public schools hasn’t worked.

From what I gather, the answer boils down to, as Taylor writes: “Whites simply do not want to send their children to school with blacks.”

{snip}

It’s not just whites. “No combination of races,” Taylor writes, “appears to integrate comfortably.”

Some thoughtful people might ask, “If so, how come, and how do we fix it?” But Taylor apparently prefers to wave a white flag (what else?) and surrender to a world divided uneasily and permanently along color lines.

{snip}

My big quibble is that his student hosts didn’t dig up a professor on that big, historic campus to cross swords with the guy.

But I will challenge Taylor’s argument that, half a century out from the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, integration has failed.

Baloney. Integration hasn’t failed—we never gave integration a chance in the first place.

{snip}

With all his smarts and accomplishments, Taylor should be part of the solution. Instead, he panders to and attempts to elevate a portion of the population whose solutions to race problems tend, too often, to be final ones.

{snip}