I appreciated an article in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine by Walter Benn Michaels, called Magazine > Essay: Diversity’s False Solace” href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/11/magazine/11ESSAY.html”>Diversity’s False Solace. Mr. Michaels (perhaps a little too gleefully albeit boldly) points out the hypocrisy of U.S. universities that show how diverse their student populations are. Mr. Michaels’ point is that their marketing is authentic but that it masks the fundamental class differences in America and American education today. Yes, he says, the racial and ethnic demographics are identified but where’s the beef if everyone attending a university is rich?
I found this to be mostly true at Brown, where I went to undergrad, and at most schools like it. I’m a fan of affirmative action; however, I do wonder what will happen to this country as it slides down a superbly polarized slope where the rich eat the poor for lunch. Who really speaks to and about class these days? There are already two very structured class tiers around health insurance, home ownership, car insurance, daycare, and political representation. Once higher education, jobs, and access to clean water are divided up, it will get really scary.
Here’s an excerpt from the last paragraph of the article:
This, if you’re on the right, is the gratifying thing about campus radicalism. When student and faculty activists struggle for cultural diversity, they are in large part battling over what skin color the rich kids should have. Diversity, like gout, is a rich people’s problem. And it is also a rich people’s solution. For as long as we’re committed to thinking of difference as something that should be respected, we don’t have to worry about it as something that should be eliminated. As long as we think that our best universities are fair if they are appropriately diverse, we don’t have to worry that most people can’t go to them, while others get to do so because they’ve had the good luck to be born into relatively wealthy families. In other words, as long as the left continues to worry about diversity, the right won’t have to worry about inequality.

I’m all for competition. I’m all for a little fun. I’m all for working hard to get a message across. But the news that Nader is now going to run for President is disturbing, grotesque even. I can only wonder if Karl Rove walked over to Mr. Nader’s place, got on his hands and knees, and begged him to please, please help Bush take the Presidency just one more time.

A well-written article in today’s New York Times detailed the growing probability of health insurance will become a luxury. I’ve known about the statistic for some time: 15.2% of the US does not have health care, 32% are Hispanic, most are 18 to 34 years of age, and they span the geographical spectrum. Now it appears that span is hitting the socio-economic spectrum, excluding the very wealthy, but perhaps not even.
The health of the United States and the health of its people should be equivalent, no? I only wonder where is the tipping point of this outrage: what will push the balance over, to begin re-regulation or re-distributive health services? Would Malcolm Gladwell say 30.4%?

I remember that, in college, the Young Republicans was a real force to be reckoned with. They were well-heeled, well-connected, and well, looked nicer than the rest of us. It’s interesting that Danny Goldberg, who I haven’t seen in the news in a while, has a good piece called Left Out in this month’s Utne. The Dems blame the kids because people always blame the kids and it’s an easy way out to register disrespect for the unregistered and youthful. I’m curious to see how Dean will really rally the young and wry — anyway, the most confusing thing to me right now, politically, is tomorrow’s proposition allowing nonpartisan elections. There should be three levers for this one.