How Diversity Saves Us

I don't know everything. 

This doesn't surprise you, I'm sure, but it surprises me. It surprises me daily. I didn't win "Jeopardy!", but I did win "Ben Stein's Money," so I have a certificate that confirms my identity as an Officially Smart Person. So imagine my frustration when I discover that in fact, I do not know everything . . . 

. . . and that some of what I think I know is wrong. 

Scary, right? Embarrassing. Downright infuriating, sometimes. 

The easiest way to defend myself from those uncomfortable feelings is simply not to listen to anyone else, and to decline any new information that reveals or confirms my ignorance. 

See how crazy that sounds? But I do it every day, even when I know I'm doing it. We all do it. Nobody wants to be afraid or embarrassed or thwarted. But here's something I didn't figure out until much too late in life: People like to be asked. 

No, people love to be asked. There really aren't any stupid questions, because when you ask a question, people get to show you what they know that you don't. As it turns out, that's a lot. 

When someone makes a nasty comment about "diversity hiring," what they're saying is that they already know everything they need to know, and people with experiences and backgrounds different from theirs have no knowledge they could benefit from. Do you want to work with people like that? I don't. I don't want to be a person like that. 

Too many people in professional settings see colleagues as rivals, and the more differences they have from their colleagues, the worse the rivalry is — because if those differences are recognized and rewarded, they feel their own knowledge and skills are undervalued. 

As a Facebook meme I saw this weekend pointed out, it doesn't work that way. It's not pie. (Mmm, pie.) Value added is value added for everyone. Everybody benefits from broadening the range of skills, knowledge, experience, and points of view. Young people know things that middle-aged people don't. (I still haven't figured out how to make my smart TV play Amazon Prime.) People of different races, genders, sexual identities, educational backgrounds, etc. all approach challenges from different angles, and that helps everyone. 

If you're reading this, these are all things you probably already know, but I do have a point, and it's to thank Mitt Romney for showing up on Black Lives Matter Plaza yesterday. Mitt Romney is a white, 73-year-old multimillionaire who's been married to the same woman almost as long as I've been alive, and whose political views diverge from mine on almost everything. But he too recognizes the reality of systemic racism and the urgent need to reform our policing structures. He'll have ideas for solutions that might not occur to a lot of his traditional political opponents, and he loves this country just as much as we do. We can have healthy disagreements that generate better answers for everyone, as long as we listen. 

Mitt Romney showed up to listen yesterday, and I applaud that. He seems to understand that there are things he doesn't know, and he has resources most of us don't. Progress happens when we can recognize each other as allies.