Does your social circle consist mainly of people from your own race/ethnicity or do you seem to know someone from nearly every global village? I’m curious to know you think about diversity.
I’ve been hearing a lot that diversity is overrated. But how can something be overrated if most people don’t even seem to have a diverse social circle in the first place? Having just one or two token black friends and one token Asian friend who you call up every now and then does NOT necessarily make you diverse. Neither does being surrounded by a lot of minority (or majority, depending on how you look at it and what ethnicity you are) co-workers if you don’t actually interact with them outside of work.
In my social life, I seem to have a theme as to what kind of new friends I make that year. I think it’s because I meet people primarily through joining groups and common interests (such as volunteering). I also tend to change up my activities every year. For instance, I once joined a Caribbean student organization and that year most of my new friends were Jamaican or Trinidadian. Another year I got initiated into a service fraternity, which oddly had disproportionate number East Asian members (odd because I could count on two hands how many East Asians I’ve seen on campus before then). So that year all the new people I met were East Asians. I don’t know what it will be this year. But even I don’t consider my social circle to be diverse.
I wonder what kind of advantages and disadvantages someone can get by having a diverse social circle. The first thing that comes to mind is that I get exposed to different cultural views, different attitudes, and you get connected to different kinds of people more easily. As my Korean friend once told me: “If you know one Korean, you will eventually meet them all.” The disadvantages, hmm, well I’m not sure what those are yet.
So my questions to you are: Do you have a diverse social circle? Why or why not? What advantages does that give you? More importantly, what disadvantages come with it?
Do you think diversity is overrated?
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