The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality (review)

The title of Michaels's new book is rather misleading. The cover promises to address diversity, and for the most part there is some diversity addressed. What is more accurate is that the book addresses economics and the disparity between rich and poor. Including Native Americans seems like it should be part of the book, but surprisingly, as is the case across this land, the treatment is nominal. There are six chapters and a conclusion about the author. In these chapters Michaels addresses race, victims, riches, rewards, identity, and religion. The timing for the book is quite appropriate, since much of academia and politics currently centers on this topic.

The introduction (twenty pages) and the conclusion (thirteen pages) are essentially justification for the book. In the introduction Michaels explores situations that contribute to the main reasons and purpose of the book. The topic immediately refers to money and how diversity has been an issue at universities for much longer than we originally thought. The difference now is that diversity is defined by race, specifically, Asian Americans, Latinos, and African Americans (4). Native Americans are not on the radar yet for diversity but will appear later in the book. The disturbing question for Michaels is why we have focused on identity rather than class. His threefold purpose for writing the book is, first, to reveal how the notion of cultural diversity does not exist; second, to reveal how and why America loves race; and third, "to help alter the political terrain of contemporary American intellectual life" (7). Perhaps a fourth reason is the money he would make addressing the issue.

In chapter 1 Michaels asks the question, "Are there such things as races?" The answer is not surprising: no, there are not. While admitting to differences among humanity, Michaels prefers to see those differences in terms of class, not race. He does offer some problematic court decisions that refer to blood quantum as the measure of race, and that is truly problematic. The scale of humanity, he suggests, has blacks on the bottom of the scale and whites on the top. Jews and Native Americans are also near the bottom. His point is well taken, that a single drop of black blood changes the individual's sense of identity and the community's standard of identity. But while there may be more renowned cases with blacks concerning blood quantum, the issue is not limited to blacks, since Native Americans, Asians, and Latinos all have similar criteria for identification. Michaels predictably concludes the chapter with these words: "There are people with different colors of skin, different textures of hair, different heights and different weights, different kinds of abilities and different kinds of disabilities. But there are no people of different races" (48). He has based this conclusion on the lack of scientific evidence that confirms the existence of race. While the scientific community has accomplished much, it isn't very scientific to conclude there is no such thing as race. It is not possible to have researched every possible human facet to verify whether this statement is accurate. He asks why America is so fixed on the issue of race, as if the rest of the world is unconcerned.

In the second chapter, "Our Favorite Victims," Michaels ponders some very important ideas. He wonders why there is "a federally funded U.S. Holocaust Museum in the Mall in Washington, D.C.," and asks, "Is the holocaust part of American history?" (53). He then suggests that the Holocaust is the standard of victimization that authors use to show that the suffering of their own people is equal to or greater than that of the Jews in World War II Europe. His position—and due sarcasm—is well noted: "The preferred crimes of neoliberalism are always hate crimes; when our favorite victims are victims of prejudice, we are all neoliberals" (76). That "hate crimes" has become a category...