to be diverse, or to be bland

how-much-does-it-cost-you-in-wages-if-you-sound-black/

It's not obvious yet what this study will mean (because it's working study). But the analysis shown there basically confirms that balkanized diversity (diversity for the sake of diversity) isn't all that good. It apparently doesn't pay to speak in redneckese or ebonics. It's one thing to honor our own roots, but if it's going to cost 5-10% of our career earnings, that's a steep price to pay I should think. It would be just as easy to plaster a confederate flag on the wall at home or listen to "Fitte" on the way in to work while adopting a more normal manner of speech (usually in English without a southern drawl).

There was also a further study which teased the data available to generate IQ type scores for intelligence. Since there was (not surprisingly) a correlation between the IQ and education level of people in the study, it may simply be that one measure of intelligence is the level of conformity in obvious behavior (such as speech) that one has. It could also be that education and intellect are still as predictive (if not more so) as the quality of voice and dialect that are used. The study doesn't yet say if these were among factors that were corrected for during the regression analysis. Since stereotypically these are among voices that people consider associated with stupidity.. it isn't too terribly surprising to find some correlation with IQ (if we presume IQ to be at least distantly related to intelligence).

Of the more surprising things that were involved (certainly I'd never thought about it) was the advice given to Asian graduate students: change your first name to something Anglo-American before your first job. Since my own experience with Asian descended students has been that they already have Anglocized names, I'd think that someone already figured this out. What that could suggest is that we still have a considerable level of prejudice involved, which isn't all that pleasant to consider. It could be that that 5-10% is the cost of prejudicial thinking. In which case it is still a steep price to pay.

We still haven't yet worked out a necessary balance between cultural appreciation and its provision of intellectual diversity versus levels of conformity needed to smooth out differences or interrelations between people and cultures. But it does appear from studies like this that individuals or groups should not move too strongly in either extreme. Maintaining a strong group identity at the cost of economic advancement or conforming at the cost of some personal identity (which may have some measurable value).

Somewhere in between. As usual.