On Saturday, two days before the national celebration of Martin Luther King Jr., Knoxville state Rep. Roger Kane opined that just because the Tennessee General Assembly is mostly white and male, that does not mean it’s not diverse.
Sigh. Here we go. Again.
“Women have actually gone down and minorities have gone up,” Kane said, talking about UTK enrollment. “Well, that’s just trading spaces. It’s really not creating diversity.”
Right. Women and minorities have absolutely nothing at all to do with diversity, no. It’s all about the white guys.
“If you look at this panel, that’s in front of you, we look rather homogeneous. But we’re incredibly diverse! We really are,” Kane said of the 12-person panel that consisted of 10 white men, one white woman (Sen. Becky Duncan Massey), and one African-American man (Rep. Rick Staples).
Insert a slight, nervous laugh here. Kane continues on in his diversity definition.
“You see me as a white, middle-aged man. But my mother’s Jewish, my father’s Catholic, and I’m a Baptist. Does that not make diversity?” Kane asked.
Not really. It means you have a mixed religion background.
“I grew up in Houston, probably one of the most diverse towns you will ever see,” Kane said, accurately, mentioning the city’s large Chinese, Vietnamese, gay and black populations. “And that’s the school I went to. Does that not add to my diversity? But you see me as a white, middle-aged man, that’s all you see. But we’re so much more than that!”
People see a white, middle aged man because that’s what is there. Living in a high diversity town and going to a high diversity school doesn’t change the fact that you’re a white man. Diversity is not about personality or character traits.
Kane continued digging his hole, saying that UTK’s diversity office — which the Legislature defunded last session — doesn’t really show the true diversity on campus, because a lesbian Filipina only defined herself as that and not also as “a woman, she’s college-educated, she’s funny, she has black hair — those are all diversity things.”
“She had forgotten all of those things because in her strive to be diverse, she had honed in on two things, and that’s it,” Kane ended bitterly.
Oh for…yeah, no. Being a woman, a lesbian, and Filipino all matter when it comes to diversity. Once again, this is not about personality or character traits. I’m pretty sure you don’t get to count hair colour as a “diversity thing”.
These are the conservative white men who are in charge of education all over.
Via Nashville Scene.