Wouldn't it be nice if the diversity industry would take just one day off?

For instance, I did my once-a-week check of lablogs.com, and I found two posts about diversity.

The first concerns the medical school graduation at UCLA:

After the conferral of degrees and the administration of the Hippocratic Oath (which, of course, was adapted from the original to be more inclusive), the new doctors had a chance to project their diversity. One representative from each ethnic minority stood at the podium and said a few nice words in his or her native language. Swahili, German, French, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese Chinese...

...But the diversity rah-rah of the esteemed surgeon general just didn't resonate with me."

His complaint boils down not to the fact that the diversity industry might have major problems, but that his particular ethnic sub-group was not adequately represented. And, even if that were "addressed" by the diversity directorates of the land, one can imagine that there would then be the issue of, for instance, geographical representation. After having achieved a proportional number of Filipinos within the Asian-American And Pacific Islanders grouping, are too many of them from Manila and not enough from Mindanao? And, then there'd be the problem of...

The second diversity industry spotting is a bit more subtle.

A posting about the L.A. Public Library's "LA Kids Read Festival" includes the press release for the event:

Travel back to the Wild West and celebrate America's diversity at the Los Angeles Public Library's FREE L.A. Kids Read Festival on Saturday, June 7, 12 noon - 4 p.m., at the Central Library, 630 W. Fifth St., downtown Los Angeles.

Don't we celebrate America's diversity 24/7/365 around these parts? Or must even a press release about a book fair include a nod to our favorite secular god? Did the writer put that in there subconsciously, as a bit of a nervous tic?

I'm going to call the LAPL tomorrow, find out who wrote that press release, and find out.

UPDATE: Sometimes the Lonewacko gets things wrong. Like 180 degrees wrong. The author of the first link informs me:

Actually, I *was* complaining about the problems of the diversity industry, as these sentences indicate:

"It then occurred to me that this experience highlighted one of the contradictions of affirmative action....

"I raise this point because I object to the presupposition of the affirmative action policy at hand."

My point was *not* that I wanted to be adequately represented, but that the whole idea of ethnic representation was stupid to begin with. The med school graduation showed that no matter how much UC holds itself up as the paragon of diversity and bends over backwards for minorities, it still finds a way to look like a hypocrite.

Of course, I didn't want to ruin my friend's special occasion by using such words as "stupid"; I tried to maintain the solemnity of the ceremony, while criticizing its flaws.

BTW, I worked on the Prop 209 campaign and had such derogatory phrases as "white man's slaves" thrown at me, so please believe me when I say that, even as a minority, I find the diversity industry as despicable as you do.