In what has become the most popular area of DiversityInc.com, Luke Visconti offers readers the opportunity to confidentially ask questions regarding diversity. Luke is one of two business partners who own and run DiversityInc. He directs all editorial and circulation functions.
Question:
Why doesn't the NBA look like America?
Answer:
Channeling the creative energy of a group of people into narrow categories will tend to enhance their performance in those specific areas.
Given the rampant under-funding of public schools that serve black and brown students, our country funnels entire groups of people—who can only be distinguished by race—into narrow channels of productivity.
It demonstrates a waste of potential. Just as the worst NBA team could completely dominate the best basketball team of 1957 (which, due to overt discrimination, was either completely or practically all white), it is logical to assume that representative corporate top-management representation would completely trounce all white top-managed companies.
I think most white people will have to think about that for a little while, because it's still not acceptable in our society to think of black people as being intellectually equal.
Here's another interesting way to look at the same phenomenon: In our country, it's commonly held to be true that Asians are intelligent. A Chinese friend of mine pointed out that, if we emptied out Yale, Harvard and Princeton and sent those students to China, the Chinese people there would think Americans were pretty smart.
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