You know when first tasked with this assignment, I had no idea what I was gonna write, I had no idea what my question was gonna be. So I decided to take a page out of Anne Lamott’s page and procrastinate. I just sat there watching the latest episode of falcon and the winter soldier and in the episode I was watching (spoilers ahead) they were discussing how there was actually a black captain America before Steve Rodgers. But that black soldier instead of getting rewarded for fighting, he got experimented on and thrown in jail for years. This whole thing reminded me exactly of what happened in real life, of how black people weren’t allowed to be put on tv or how they wouldn’t get any recognition or medals for fighting a war. but since we started protesting and fighting for our rights, more and more people became more open and eventually diversity became more common. This led to my research question, how has diversity changed over the years and how has it impacted minorities. I expect to find specific examples of the past vs now and how people actually feel about seeing one of their own kind on tv, or in a book or in the army.
Often when talking about diversity, people usually think it’s about adding more blacks to shows and stories. But Diversity is a lot of things. one example of diversity are immigrants of different ethnic backgrounds and race going to different countries and making the community less segregated. when it comes to immigration diversity has changed over the years. according to the “POPUlATION REFERENCE BUREAU America’s Diversity and Growth: signposts for the 21st Century” https://www.prb.org/americasdiversityandgrowthsignpostsforthe21stcenturypdf503kb/ in the 20th century Americans were worried about how their population would develop if they let immigrants in and how it would affect the ethnic balance. The article also talks about how before immigration became more common, people had a shorter life expectancy. in the 21st century America had became more diverse, and population growth had increase and institutions had adapted new rules that would allow minorities to attend school. The purpose for the author writing this article was to show that immigration has actually helped communities and that diversity is not a bad thing. the author chose to write this article like he or she was a historian. they included no personal information about themself and chose to go straight to the facts. I think the article is very interesting, specifically the way he talks about diversity but it’s about immigration and I agree with his belief that immigration helps more than it hurts. the author is credible because the PRB is a non profit organization and it’s purpose is to just collect and supply data. there seems to be no ill intent. The author probably chose to talk about immigration because maybe they were immigrants themself or had family or friends who were immigrants. This is a good choice for the intended audience because it’s something new. usually you’ll find stuff on how diversity has changed over the years for mainly blacks but this author is talking about immigration, and immigration is also a big problem in this country.
When I was little, me and the other kids used to pretend to be characters from shows and movies. One day we were pretending to be super heroes and I remember saying to my friend, “I want to be Spider-man”. He replied saying “you can’t be spider-man, he’s not black”. Those words made me upset, not because he said I couldn’t be Spider-man because I was black but because there really weren’t any black heroes or popular black people that I knew. years later they did create a new spider-man who was black named Miles Morales, and there were other people like Static Shock and War Machine. Seeing people who looked like me, who talked like me, who lived like me really did make a difference for me. I thought being black was cool, I learned more about my culture by seeing more shows with black people. everybody hates Chris was a very relatable show. diversity not only had a positive impact on me but it also impacted other people. https://socialsciences.nature.com/posts/45551-diversity-and-inclusion-how-both-changed-my-life Author Juan Del Toro tells about his story and how he felt discriminated against because he was essentially the only Spanish speaking student in his professor’s class. His professor learned that Spanish was his native language and advised him to drop his class (which he did). When Juan met other people who looked like him and sounded like him he began back studying and this time succeeded. Juan realized that diversity and inclusion had a positive impact on him and changed his life because he felt more comfortable with people who looked like him and felt that his Spanish wasn’t handicapping him. Although me and Juan both experienced microagressions, I believe Juan had it worse because his teacher encouraged him to drop out because he didn’t want to deal with a student who’s first language is Spanish and that’s pretty disgusting honestly. Juan chose to write in first person, and tell a story about something that he experienced. Juan chose to tell this story to show the discrimination that people face but to also show, that you shouldn’t give up and you’re not alone. I think Juan is credible because firstly he gives us the name of his teachers and of the people who still help him to this day but not the name of the professor who wanted him to drop his classes. This shows me that he doesn’t want to highlight the negative but focus on the positive. He also leaves us with a little update that he is currently a post doctoral research fellow at university of Pittsburgh. He also has a dissertation on racial discrimination. This tells me that he’s serious about these kinds of stuff, and his story most likely motivated him to write that dissertation. I think it was a good choice for the intended audience because he’s trying to let minorities know that they are not alone and that there are people that look just like you who will help.
Earlier I mentioned that when talking about diversity we usually are talking about black people or race but diversity is more than that. it can be about different cultures or different religions. I talked about the impact of diversity and how it changed over the years but I didn’t talk about why we needed diversity. From what I learned diversity is needed because it helps us create a better understanding of each other, it helps put an end to stereotypes, it gives other people a chance to shine in the light and people grow more accepting of each other. Elizabeth A. Segal, Ph.D https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-empathy/201907/why-we-need-diversity uses examples of different things when it comes to diversity. she talks about why diversity is important when it comes to plants, she explains that if you plant the same type of tree in a park and it gets a disease, the rest will get a disease. But putting different varieties of trees will ensure that some will thrive and some can fight off pest. Elizabeth also talks about how people were so afraid of diversity, that they led to inbreeding which of course led to a higher mortality rate and genetic disorders. she gives us examples of how diversity can lead to better health in terms of the different types of foods we eat. She then uses an example of financial diversification how if we put all our money in 1 stock and that stock fails then we lose all our money. Elizabeth talks about the positives of workplace diversity about how it produces cognitive processing and the exchange of more information. Finally she talks about the diversity of culture. Having different cultures creates new ideas and questions and how it breaks us away from “groupthink”. Groupthink is when a group of well-intentioned people make irrational decisions spurred by the urge to conform. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/groupthink. My opinion on Elizabeth’s work is that I think Elizabeth should focus on just 1 type of diversity because I’m confused as to what audience she is trying to pull in. The type of writing style she does, it’s sort of like a blog, there’s a positive tone to everything she is saying. she has a certified Ph.D which makes me believe she knows what she’s talking about. The purpose of writing this was to just show that diversity is good. I think the author is credible because all of the thing’s she’s mentioned are literal facts. I believe the author chose this genre because she probably thought the blog style would attract older people or people who love to read blogs and interact with blogs. I don’t think this was a good choice for her intended audience because first off I don’t even know who she’s trying to reach out to, she goes from talking about plants, to food, to inbreeding, to work, to culture. and it’s in a blog style so it seems kind of random. I think her main message was to just show different examples of diversity and how in every circumstance, it’s always a good thing.
While looking for answers to answer my research question, how has diversity changed over the years and what impact did it have on minorities ? I found that even in the past century there have been significant changes, I learned that people feared that their communities would more ethnically diverse if they let immigrants in and they also were scared that the population would change, but when America started letting more immigrants in, there were positive changes such as the life expectancy increasing, more people were being born with ethnic backgrounds and laws that would stop minorities from entering institutions were changed. Then I read the story of a guy who was discriminated against because his native language was Spanish, and he dropped his class because his college professor encouraged him to. He then met other people that looked like him and started feeling more comfortable and started succeeding in school because of this increase in diversity. This taught me that diversity has a positive effect on minorities. I had the impacts and history of diversity and next I looked into why it was important. The woman named Elizabeth gave examples of not only why diversity is important but also of the different kinds of diversity. she mentions biodiversity which talks about how you have to plant different types of plants to ensure they thrive. she talks about financial diversity which explains that you should put your money in different stocks because it’s less risky, she mentions how workplace diversity helps cognitive thinking and how cultural diversity encourages new ideas and questions. The thing that surprised me was how there were so many different types of diversity. I didn’t think about non-human diversity at all. when I first created my question, I was only thinking about discrimination only against blacks and the impact diversity had on them but I realized diversity has an impact on everyone. I think what I learned is important because it opens my eyes to more areas of diversity, and I also learned that it’s not ridiculous to be happy because you see someone that looks like you. I think anyone should hear about this, minorities, people who are LGBTQ, anyone who has faced discrimination, anyone who has faced microagressions. Diversity gives people a chance to fit in and a chance to meet other people.
