Diversity in polyamory: why hasn't it worked?

Ravenscroft

Banned
{A new thread, rather than further derail discussion of Kevin Patterson's Love's Not Color Blind.}
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About fifteen years ago (on PMM), someone raised the flag:
The poly community needs to be more diverse!!
I've been a member of various deviant subcultures since maybe 1980, not least being Wicca & science fiction fandom. And in every one, there comes a point when some well-intentioned clueless white person floats the "radical" idea that their circle is made up almost entirely of people like themselves.

Usually, there's some spirited quacking, then interest slowly wanes, & eventually it starts all over again. Once in a while, though, the spark catches on with others, & various committees & discussions & town halls & working committees might appear.

And, again, after all the foofaraw, it all dies down & no widespread change remains.

I suspect that a common reason for that collapse is that, despite all the well-meaning activity, it remains fundamentally clueless, & people begin to realize that their lives aren't particularly diverse, so no wonder that their social groups reflect this.
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Dr Sheff has a blogpost about five things white people can do to make their poly communities more welcoming for people of color.

Recall the previous "well-intentioned clueless white person part." Okay, that's Sheff. She even manages to demote nonwhites -- in all their grand diversity -- right past the homogenized "people of color" but to POCs, & brags about presenting "How White People Can Be Allies to POC in AltSex Communities."

:rolleyes:

Anyway. So, what are Magickal Five Steps that whitefolk (especially those in the mythical "poly community") are supposed to learn?
  1. set your defensiveness aside
  2. listen
  3. educate yourself
  4. acknowledge white privilege
  5. lean (learn?) to tolerate racial discomfort
Um... okay, then, where's the radical part? Those are mostly things that are supposedly inherent to polyamory, right? & the rest are simply first-order extensions of those skills?
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But let's go back to the root assumption here, & the beginning of this post.

When the idea appeared on PMM, my response was pretty much
What are you proposing, luring them in with great marketing, or simply going out & kidnapping them?
I reiterate: most deviant subcultures are overwhelmingly white. And most of the people who are in them have astoundingly un-diverse lives.

It's highly unlikely that anyone reading this has a life with a balance of race & religion & ethnicity & language that reflects the national average, or even anything within spitting distance.

Most people, in fact, are surrounded by people approximately similar to themselves.

And few are willing (or able) to do ANYTHING significant that might change that.

As Sheff remains clueless, here are some of MY suggestions on how individuals could be more (blegh) welcoming. Mainly, they consist of letting go of "the usual" --
  • garage your vehicles & start taking the bus
  • change your religion, or at least your church
  • move to a diverse neighborhood
  • change your shopping habits
  • stop going to restaurants with a nondiverse clientele
  • travel back in time & attend diverse schools
  • tomorrow, put your kids in diverse schools
  • in general, stop hanging out with so many whitefolk
Even those who quack loudest about "the need for diversity" are unlikely to merely ATTEMPT ONE of those changes. I don't blame them: change is difficult. But I do want everyone to understand that calling for "our community" to make such changes IS NOT helpful, & really is nothing more than taking one's own guilty feelings about helplessness & foisting it off on others.
 
There are root assumptions that are fatally flawed.

As I mention in my critique of Sheff, there's the thought (likely erroneous yet unquestioned) that there are very few nonwhites in nonmonogamy. My black friends -- as in actual individuals, NOT the usual vague Sheffian claim to "brotherhood" or whatever -- have been more likely to identify as swingers or maybe open than as polyamorous. Generally, they are couplist, even though this can be incredibly flexible.

Simply put, they're not terribly interested in "joining the poly club," even though their practices pretty much exemplify polyamory.

Yet the question recurs, "how can we get them in the door?" I say the question itself is wrong.

The blacks I know were raised in close-knit church-going families, & the church community is (or at least was) a significant force in their lives. More than the whites I know, they harbor concerns about being disowned, which might be suppressed but are very real.

If (say) Jim & Kate were to attend a poly conference, they might be reluctant to be photographed, & they would probably decline opportunity to be interviewed by researchers like Sheff -- certainly NOT by journalists.

They would be invisible -- by choice.

Though I wish they felt less pressure to hide, I can't fault them for that choice.

(FWIW, some of my Jewish friends have expressed similar reluctance.)

Because there's so few nonwhites in research like Sheff's, the researchers somehow feel righteous in leaping to the claim that nonwhites are therefore being excluded. (Sheff has made similar claims on behalf of LGBTQ+, & all disabled people as well.)

From a previous thread:
Being inclusive is a VERY good thing

Because of that wide range, there's GONNA be misunderstandings & disagreements. And learning how to deal with that stuff & LISTEN to each other is nothing but GOOD.

By all means, the door should be left open, & if someone wants to join the melee & maybe kick butt to educate the unwashed, then I say WELCOME.

But the idea of luring people in who do not have a DESIRE, a NEED to walk through that door is ludicrous.
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I've read a few comments about Love's Not Color Blind. Though I'm uncertain whether they come from Patterson himself or someone at his publisher, they resonate with me. The main reason I now hope to read the book is that Patterson raises an issue that (IME) few want to address.

Firstly, Patterson makes clear that race MUST be considered; I would say much the same as well for gender, preference, ethnicity, religion, etc. These factors DO affect how a person is seen, AND how that person views the world & its inhabitants. There's no honesty in "pretending it away" through socalled "color blindness."

My Caucasian (including tribal & Jew & Hispanic) lovers have been genetically diverse. I'm allowed to admire & enjoy the differences. To "protect" my black friends from similar scrutiny is discriminatory, is saying they are somehow weak or fragile & must be protected.
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But there's another side to the problem: by wanting to "make it more diverse," we are at risk of fetishizing nonwhites, of making them some sort of exotic commodity in order to "spice up" our social lives, whether that's just a desire to look more liberal or to have wild sex.

Sheff et al have profited from this double-edged sword to hone their "more liberal than thou" credentials --
the authors state that if someone shows up to your play party who’s not Caucasian, you’re probably guilty of tokenism. The same would likely be trotted out if you’ve got friends who are homosexual, trans, or have a disability.
As Patterson promises to take on BOTH sides of this issue, I look forward to seeing how he handles it.
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The biggest problem I see, from both Patterson & Sheff, is that they make it sound so simple, so easy to simply "listen to people of color."

How can we listen to someone we don't already talk to?

If there are no black polyfolk with whom we currently associate, who can we ask in order to learn what we are possibly doing wrong?

Bringing in a speaker for a couple of days is unlikely to have any positive longterm effect, & I suspect it would mostly increase the self-satisfied cluelessness.
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I also hope to see Patterson address closely related issues that affect membership:
Nonwhites tend to have less education and lower incomes, and in partial result less social mobility and more vulnerability to pressure from their social circles to hew to some sort of “normalcy.” When we speak of “polyamory,” we likely ought to feel chagrin if we don’t take those facts into account.

Let's look at a facet of "the white experience" of polyamory. I am living in a region that's likely more politically liberal than that in which some unfortunate polyfolk find themselves living. I have very little worry about being disowned by my family (or seeing them punished for supporting me) or cut adrift by my church or being hounded from my job, & have had few such fears for 40+ years. Therefore, my experience of nonmonogamy is going to be MUCH different from that of someone who's a third-generation member of some evangelical megachurch whose members control the surrounding region (asemployers & politicians & old wealth).

I can get away with stuff that would get them run out of town on a rail, maybe literally. As much as we keep quacking about "community," the fact is that these ARE two distinct versions of polyamory.

Similarly, I can make a case that there is (or could be) such a thing as black polyamory, a distinct subset of polyamory, where those included aren't bound by pigmentation or even race, but by upbringing & socialization & the life experience brought by being of that race.
 
Ravenscroft wrote:
Firstly, Patterson makes clear that race MUST be considered; I would say much the same as well for gender, preference, ethnicity, religion, etc. These factors DO affect how a person is seen, AND how that person views the world & its inhabitants. There's no honesty in "pretending it away" through socalled "color blindness."

I do believe that color blindness is an admirable goal and perhaps may one day be achieved in large measure, even if not the current state of affairs. Our own young daughter thinks of skin color in the same way she thinks of hair color - a convenient way to describe someone's outward appearance. Of course I realize that as she grows older and is exposed to the ways of the world that she may be influenced to some degree by our cultural biases - but hopefully not too much.

My Caucasian (including tribal & Jew & Hispanic) lovers have been genetically diverse. I'm allowed to admire & enjoy the differences. To "protect" my black friends from similar scrutiny is discriminatory, is saying they are somehow weak or fragile & must be protected.

Absolutely - well said - as were your two prior posts in general - good input on the subject, at least imo. (And it's not exactly like I always agree with you...) Al
 
Our own young daughter thinks of skin color in the same way she thinks of hair color - a convenient way to describe someone's outward appearance. Of course I realize that as she grows older and is exposed to the ways of the world that she may be influenced to some degree by our cultural biases - but hopefully not too much.

I used to be like your daughter, and cringe now at some of the "but I don't see race" proclamations I made in discussions on the subject. Until we somehow end up in an actually post-racial society, all that "colour blindness" does is let you ignore the context. I can get away with being colour blind because I'm white and so am generally not disadvantaged by others' racial prejudices, but me refusing to "see" race doesn't mean that people having to deal with racism are any better off; it just means I get to not worry about them while patting myself on the back for being an ally. Ignoring the personal, social, and historical effects of systematic racism doesn't mean they don't exist.
 
Okay, I'm going to have a stab and it's not going to be graceful.

Poly is a movement of people that 1. want to feel faithful to their partners but not be limited in the scope of their love. And 2. a poly forum is a subset of these people that want to write about that.

So 1. There's a sociological literature about marriage in America. Perhaps the strongest predictor of propensity to marry is college education: college educated people like to marry each other, less educated people tend to be married less. In decades past, other people married too, but it's happening less often now than it did 30 years ago (I can cite a whole bunch of papers, if you want). There are strong social currents in which poly is a small eddy.

At the same time, and perhaps always, serial monogamy is an alternative that allows some openness to love. If you aren't ever going to marry, you can meet a lot of great people. And probably more easily than being poly. (Personally, I despise the idea of serial monogamy, but I don't judge people that have reached a different view).

It seems that the world is becoming more polarised between people that want long term committed relationships and those that don't.

And 2. My guess, without supporting evidence, is that college-educated people that are in long term relationships are (grossly) disproportionately represented in written verbal forums like this, too. I have no evidence, so disregard as you wish.

Hard to know how you can market a forum for verbal exposition of the experience of living in multiple committed relationships to people that aren't interested in extended verbalisation or aren't interested in committed relationships.

But. Maybe, OP, your question is about how to persuade some of the serial monogamists to be polyamorists? I don't know. I do it because the relationships I hold are what give my life meaning. I don't know why they do what they do. What do you think? And do you think that poly should be a universal doctrine, like marxist communism, or should it be more like surfing, where people that choose to do it love it and don't care that others aren't enjoying the break?

Sentinel
 
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I never knew that science fiction fandom was a "deviant subculture." :eek:
With all the Hollywood movies nowadays it's pretty mainstream now. It was and wasn't, depending which way you look at it.

On the one hand, the science fiction / fantasy fandom as I know it is full of teens (and people who used to be this kind of teen, myself included) who love to see themselves as some kind of a deviant subculture, much like goth and other ways to "be different" while still belonging in that age. It's an illusion.

On the other hand, you do get sometimes mild judgement (especially from older people) for being a science fiction fan. It's not 'real' after all. Apparently, you should read biographies instead, or yet better watch soap operas because they're not just an escape ;)
And literature, as presented in school, tended to not acknowledge fantasy&scifi as worthy genres and instead relabel the best works (such as calling 451°F a dystopia instead of sci-fi and Tolkien "artificial mythology", LOL).

So there is/was some exclusion going on, and a lot of self-exclusion, as the people identify themselves as being a member of a community that stands against the dull mainstream, and overall accepted SF as a part of their identity rather then just something they do/like.
The Big Bang theory mocks it perfectly. I find the characters are NOT overblown (although a little overage for this kind of behavior).

Having said that, the community is a savior for many who are not as socially integrated otherwise. Very welcoming. It doesn't matter you're somewhat weird - to a certain degree it's celebrated. It's not achievement-oriented, which is refreshing. And you drop out of the trouble you have otherwise. It doesn't matter who you are in you 'real life' as long as you have the same interests. All in all, yeah, it does attract a large number of people who are slightly off average personality-wise.
 
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My question is: Why do white people think we need to be more diverse? Why do we need to plot ways to draw in a non-white crowd that doesn't want to be there? Maybe your crowd doesn't have many minorities because the word minority indicates that there are less of that particular group.

However, white people are currently about 60% of the American population. At some point there will be equilibrium (hence the trumpanzees freaking out). As a white person I am a minority in South Florida. Maybe I'll look up a munch and see what the racial makeup is.

Though if it's true that there are less kinky or deviant non-white people, maybe it's just a cultural thing. Why are so many white people deviant? Could it be because our society didn't evolve from oppression?

Or is it just a numbers game? Are there any studies on percentages of deviant people in different racial groups?

As I mentioned in that other thread, there was a black women in a Seattle community who declared the group racist. It was strange because the group is largely there for members to create events. There was really only one monthly event run by the admins. The group was very liberal and racism was not tolerated. So how was it racist? She said she was uncomfortable around white people. When asked what we could do differently she said it was not her job to educate us, which is apparently a thing now as well. Of course the liberal kids just basically nodded and said "so true".

BTW, "color blind", to me, has always meant not judging a person based on skin color. I was a little shocked to see that some people think it means ignoring problems people face because of skin color.
 
The ignoring is usually an unintended side effect. You may, for example, deliberately create an algorithm that treats everyone in exactly the same manner with respect to race, but which uses some other data in its calculations which has the same effect. For example (from Are Algorithms Building the New Infrastructure of Racism?):
In the most literal sense, Berman’s defense was truthful: Amazon selects same-day delivery areas on the basis of cost and benefit factors, such as household income and delivery accessibility. But those factors are aggregated by ZIP code, meaning that they carry other influences that have shaped—and continue to shape—our cultural geography. Looking at the same-day service map, the correspondence to skin color is hard to miss.

Such maps call to mind men like Robert Moses, the master planner who, over decades, shaped much of the infrastructure of modern New York City and its surrounding suburbs. Infamously, he didn’t want poor people, in particular poor people of color, to use the new public parks and beaches he was building on Long Island. Though he had worked to pass a law forbidding public buses on highways, Moses knew the law could someday be repealed. So he built something far more lasting: scores of overpasses that were too low to let public buses pass, literally concretizing discrimination. The effect of these and dozens of similar decisions was profound and persistent. Decades later, bus laws have in fact been overturned, but the towns that line the highways remain as segregated as ever. “Legislation can always be changed,” Moses said. “It’s very hard to tear down a bridge once it’s up.”
Edit: When Pokemon Go first went live, I saw someone lamenting on Facebook that he could never play it because that would mean he - a large black man - would be wandering up and down residential streets or through playgrounds, and that "but there was a Jigglypuff down there" wouldn't be taken as an acceptable reason for his presence as he passed the same window for the third time. Similarly, due to the demographics of the Ingress players who submitted the points of interest which became pokestops and gyms, there were comparitively few points of in-game interest in poorer areas. I'm sure it wasn't Niantic's intention to create a game which required people to act in what is usually perceived to be a suspicious manner, and for the majority of their Ingress-playing early adopters that wasn't a problem (we white nerds generally aren't considered threatening), but when a new game using the same data went out into a wider world the problem was there waiting for it because nobody had thought to take it into account.
 
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The ignoring is usually an unintended side effect. You may, for example, deliberately create an algorithm that treats everyone in exactly the same manner with respect to race, but which uses some other data in its calculations which has the same effect. For example (from Are Algorithms Building the New Infrastructure of Racism?):

Edit: When Pokemon Go first went live, I saw someone lamenting on Facebook that he could never play it because that would mean he - a large black man - would be wandering up and down residential streets or through playgrounds, and that "but there was a Jigglypuff down there" wouldn't be taken as an acceptable reason for his presence as he passed the same window for the third time. Similarly, due to the demographics of the Ingress players who submitted the points of interest which became pokestops and gyms, there were comparitively few points of in-game interest in poorer areas. I'm sure it wasn't Niantic's intention to create a game which required people to act in what is usually perceived to be a suspicious manner, and for the majority of their Ingress-playing early adopters that wasn't a problem (we white nerds generally aren't considered threatening), but when a new game using the same data went out into a wider world the problem was there waiting for it because nobody had thought to take it into account.
Well now I know who to hate for all those low bridges in NYC. But that was then and this is now.

Did you look at the Amazon map? The only thing obvious there is that they are major metropolitan areas. The only one I would consider white might be Sacramento...maybe. Knowing Amazon's distribution network as well as I do I can say it is based on convenience to their distribition centers. There are whole swaths of totally white areas that do not have same day delivery. That is most likely due to low population. My area is not covered due to distance. Amazon is a business after all. That just looks like someone is looking for racism where it doesn't exist.

As for the Pokemon thing, isn't the problem there racism and not Pokemon? Or maybe the concept of a game that requires people to trespass? I seem to recall hearing complaints about that. There have also been complaints that the game is skewed toward urban players.

But all of this is irrelevant to how I treat people.
 
Amazon is a business after all. That just looks like someone is looking for racism where it doesn't exist.

But all of this is irrelevant to how I treat people.
Well... okay, maybe Sheff has a place after all. :eek:
  1. set defensiveness aside
  2. listen
  3. educate yourself
  4. acknowledge white privilege
  5. learn to tolerate racial discomfort

Here's an NPR article about classic redlining:
Interactive Redlining Map Zooms In On America's History Of Discrimination
Note that a common reason to downgrade a neighborhood was explicitly "infiltration of Negroes" who had a tendency to "spread," while areas rated higher that were "restricted" (banning blacks, Jews, Hispanics, etc.).

But I get the impression you're unaware of the ways in which self-learning software not only spots socioeconomic differences but in fact takes advantage of the divides. And maybe you don't know enough about Amazon.com --
Bloomberg.com (21 Apr 2016), Amazon Doesn’t Consider the Race of Its Customers. Should It?
Check the Boston map, where Roxbury -- right in the middle of the city -- is the only neighborhood excluded from same-day service.

No, I don't buy the "there aren't enough Prime members there" argument. Anyone who knows anything about Amazon realizes that the company has been a cash-suck since Day One, but set that aside. Let's say they have exactly ONE customer in the center of Roxbury, who has paid the $99 fee for Prime. Business-wise, it seems like it'd be foolish to NOT make that person a priority: if that one person orders few deliveries, it's easy to service; if that one person orders regularly, it's easy to justify making the trips. Moreover, one person getting one-day service is an excellent way to entice more people (friends, family, co-workers, neighbors) to sign up. So, the "business decision" rationalizations fall a bit flat.

One major city might be coincidence. But Bloomberg.com demonstrates not only six really big "accidents," but shows how the pattern extends out into the respective suburban areas.
In Atlanta, 96% of white residents live in areas with same-day delivery, compared to 41% of black residents
“There is so much systemic bias with respect to race. If you aren’t purposefully trying to identify it and correct it, this bias is likely to creep into your outcomes.”

It's not Amazon so much as the "all data is neutral" mindset. NYU Press recently released Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism; here's a good in-depth review, Don't Google It! How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. Not this is a new revelation: for example, two years ago was This Is Why Some People Think Google's Results Are "Racist".

Ad-placement software will steer black highschoolers toward lower-tier colleges & whites toward upper-tier, because of the trackers & cookies on their respective devices.
 
Well... okay, maybe Sheff has a place after all. :eek:
  1. set defensiveness aside
  2. listen
  3. educate yourself
  4. acknowledge white privilege
  5. learn to tolerate racial discomfort

Here's an NPR article about classic redlining:
Interactive Redlining Map Zooms In On America's History Of Discrimination
Note that a common reason to downgrade a neighborhood was explicitly "infiltration of Negroes" who had a tendency to "spread," while areas rated higher that were "restricted" (banning blacks, Jews, Hispanics, etc.).

But I get the impression you're unaware of the ways in which self-learning software not only spots socioeconomic differences but in fact takes advantage of the divides. And maybe you don't know enough about Amazon.com --
Bloomberg.com (21 Apr 2016), Amazon Doesn’t Consider the Race of Its Customers. Should It?
Check the Boston map, where Roxbury -- right in the middle of the city -- is the only neighborhood excluded from same-day service.

No, I don't buy the "there aren't enough Prime members there" argument. Anyone who knows anything about Amazon realizes that the company has been a cash-suck since Day One, but set that aside. Let's say they have exactly ONE customer in the center of Roxbury, who has paid the $99 fee for Prime. Business-wise, it seems like it'd be foolish to NOT make that person a priority: if that one person orders few deliveries, it's easy to service; if that one person orders regularly, it's easy to justify making the trips. Moreover, one person getting one-day service is an excellent way to entice more people (friends, family, co-workers, neighbors) to sign up. So, the "business decision" rationalizations fall a bit flat.

One major city might be coincidence. But Bloomberg.com demonstrates not only six really big "accidents," but shows how the pattern extends out into the respective suburban areas.



It's not Amazon so much as the "all data is neutral" mindset. NYU Press recently released Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism; here's a good in-depth review, Don't Google It! How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. Not this is a new revelation: for example, two years ago was This Is Why Some People Think Google's Results Are "Racist".

Ad-placement software will steer black highschoolers toward lower-tier colleges & whites toward upper-tier, because of the trackers & cookies on their respective devices.

The Bloomberg article just reinforced what I said. Of course there is not enough Prime members, but it's based on their algorithm. Their mistake was in only relying on that. Definitely poor management, but is it racism? Did someone at Amazon look at that map of Boston, notice the blank area smack in the middle, then say well that's alright because they are just black people? I suppose that is possible. Probably more likely is that some egghead came up with the algorithm and they just plugged the data in and went with it because people are way too reliant on computers to do their work for them.

If Amazon is racist then how does one explain the white zip codes that don't get serviced in areas where black and hispanic neighborhoods do? It's all in the numbers. So there are larger issues here than algorithms that exclude mostly poor people with very little disposable income.

Here in a place as diverse as South Florida neighborhoods are divided by income, not race. It wasn't always that way, but money talks. There are always going to be rich people and poor people. They are never going to live in the same neighborhood together. Is income equality even possible? I don't think so.

BTW, you are very cute when you are condescending. I'm aware of racism and white privilege, etc. My issue is with lumping everything under the racism banner. It's lazy.
 
Lets try this another way. If you build a shopping centre, you can't just build stairs at every entrance and then claim to be treating everyone the same because you don't see disability. The point isn't "Amazon are racist", the point is that not thinking "treat everyone the same" all the way through can have unintended outcomes.
 
There are so many dodges people take.

"I don't see discrimination, therefore there is no discrimination."

"I have not consciously chosen to actively participate in discrimination, therefore there is no discrimination."

"There are other potential explanations for what looks like discrimination, therefore there is no discrimination."
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A few days ago, I was thinking of getting in touch with Kate & asking for her input here.

That's when I realize how absurd it'd be to ask her to "tell me how black people feel about this."

I mean, :eek:. There I was, thinking about how to drag someone through the door.

But if someone DOES come in the door, what RIGHT do the current occupants have to quiz anyone?

Each of us belongs to all sorts of different categories & pigeonholes... but certainly that doesn't mean that ANY of us is in a proper place to speak on behalf of our cohorts.
 
The point isn't "Amazon are racist", the point is that not thinking "treat everyone the same" all the way through can have unintended outcomes.

I agree with this. The problem is people DO say "X is racist" when the unintended outcomes were based on other factors, like a faulty algorithm.

The reason I see this as a problem is because there are groups of people running around calling everything racist. Then, when someone is called out on on actual racism, they just sort of shrug it off because (in their mind) there are just a bunch of loonies running around calling everything racist. I suppose it depends on one's agenda. I actually had a SJW tell me that people who oppose his views are not welcome to be part of the conversation. My view is that, while intellectual conversations on topics between fellow liberals can be stimulating, the whole point is to get some changes. Walling ourselves off is not going to bring about any change.
 
Back to the topic...

I was looking at meetups in the area. There is a black poly group. No hispanic groups. I'm wondering if it could be a cultural thing.

Last night I went to a local bar. When I first started going there nearly 30 years ago it was mostly white. Now it is mixed. Aside from the occasional redneck, everybody is cool with that. However, the one point of contention is the music played on the jukebox. Most of the white people don't want to sit around listening to hip hop and dance music all night. Most of the POC don't want to sit around listening to country or metal all night. Then it becomes a comical battle of the bands, so to speak. Especially funny because there are apps for the jukebox so anybody can do a "play next" to disrupt someone's playlist.

So, using music as an example, there are several cultures. I would be equally unhappy in a group that was all about country music as I would be in a group that was all about rap. While I am okay listening to either of those genres sparingly, they are not my culture.

So when we are talking about diversity in a particular group we have to realize there are more factors than poly and skin color.
 
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