How many does it take to be "diverse"?

[Benjamin Lukoff]

On Mon, 18 Feb 2008, James Harbeck wrote:

> >Amusing: "diverse" now basically means "colored," then.
>
> In the US, probably so. In Canada, "multiculturalism" refers to a
> really wide variety of cultures, including very white people from
> non-WASP cultures (e.g., my wife's parents, from the Baltics); a
> person up here could get away with being "diverse" without being
> "coloured". My sense (fostered by a half-decade in Boston and by the
> incredible amount of US TV and culture one gets up here) is that in
> the US "multiculturalism" is somewhat more chiaroscuro. Not that
> there aren't also, for example, Estonians in the US, just that the
> focus of "diversity" is somewhat more on the visible racial
> distinctions. This seems to be what you (Benjamin) are also saying.
> Or am I mistaken?

No, that is indeed what I am saying--essentially it looks like another
example of the euphemism treadmill.

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