Last month I was trying to work through some thoughts on diversity. Rather than make a strained link to science and religion, I decided to write a stand-alone essay. I argue that social conservatives should embrace diversity. It’s titled ‘Who speaks for the black Pentecosal?’ You can read it here.
From the first couple paragraphs:
Last October, BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith announced a vision to build a diverse editorial team. Smith wanted a workforce with enough “people of a particular group that no one person has to represent the supposed viewpoint of their group — whether ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, gender identity, socioeconomic background, or disability.” He explained in great detail why diversity matters, how editors could promote it, and where BuzzFeed stood on key metrics.
In a long Twitter exchange, conservative writers Michael Brendan Dougherty and Ross Douthat argued that Smith’s vision would be incomplete if he ignored Christians and conservatives. Despite the laudable intentions in his opening sentences, Smith’s vision unsurprisingly focused on race and gender. Douthat noted that Smith’s refusal to ask staffers’ their faith and politics restricted his “ability to see diversity in full”, and that a diversity strategy that avoids those issues was “inherently limited.”
I was struck by how predictable their responses were. Of course Douthat and Dougherty thought Smith had a cramped understanding of diversity. Conservatives have been making this type of argument for years. Here is Rod Dreher of The American Conservativealmost two years earlier…
Check it out and let me know what you think.
I couldn’t tell if you thought having religious and political diversity on the BuzzFeed team was good or not.