How do you define diversity?

There are all sorts of diversity. Opinion, heritage, lifestyle, politics, religion, all play a part in diversifying communities.
I would say the least diverse community I can think of is Stepford.
That said, I have lived in small, rural towns, and metropolitan areas. With a smaller community there tends to be less diversity, or at least, less obvious.

Diversity to me means multicultural. This means a multifarious combination of cultures, races, and ethnic origins. It is okay if one, two, or three are dominant (where I live, in Memphis, that would mean white, black, and Hispanic)—but there would also be Koreans, Indians, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, etc etc. There would be Christians, Jews, and various Asian religions represented.

I am pretty much describing my fourteen-year experience working in an Afterschool Activities program in a large church in midtown Memphis. Some of the kids were from traditional families, others were from single parent or even Lesbian couples. There were all income levels, including some EXTREMELY wealthy families and some on State aid. We even had several kids from rural Tennessee and Mississippi.

True diversity takes on the characteristics of a homogenous community because they become one in purpose again.

Diversity means a lot of different things.

I’m in America, USA. There is nothing but diversity here.

For me, it’s all about diversity. Even things that are the same could be different in some way. I seem to me that you’re particularly looking for ethnicity diversity.

I live in Indonesia. I thought my country have very diverse ethnicity but I never thought that we would have over 300 ethnic groups here until I research more about it so you can imagine how diverse my country can be.

I don’t think biological appearance can be used to accurately judge one’s ethnicity so it won’t matter whether or not they try to look different. It’s all in the gene and even that could tell you that you’re not purely descended from one ethnicity group. All in all, it even if a country is composed of only one ethnic group they are still diverse since there’s more than just ethnicity about them, their other demographic differences alone already provided much diversity.

@Unofficial_Member The diversity you speak of in your country, was that from people immigrating to Indonesia? Or, did the cultural and ethnic differences develop for other reasons?

Is it apparent that the people you meet are ethnically different? It doesn’t have to be skin color or physical features, but are there other things that make you think of them as “different?” I get the feeling you don’t care if they’re ethnically different, I’m not trying to imply you judge or won’t interact with certain groups.

I wasn’t thinking only ethnic diversity, for the Q I was completely open to however someone chooses to define diversity.

^^ It’s a mixture of both. Historically, immigrant ethnic groups (which are still the minorities nowadays) that came to our country have stayed here for long and as the result became fully integrated and part of local’s ethnic groups. Even without that, our indigenous ethnic groups alone are already very diverse on their own. It’s a multicultural country and each ethnic group develop differently for different reasons so it won’t them justice to generalize their origin and development.

Where I live, it’s apparent (but not always accurate), due to the fact that there are mainly two colors for most people here. Lighter, white, olive color skin colors usually associated with minority ethnics (except the Indians and Papuans). The majority of local indigenous ethnics here have darker, brown skin color. I am talking about single-racial ethnics with natural skin color without any modification (be it natural or artificial).

For me, as long as something is different it already is a diversity and contribute to diversity itself, in a nutshell.

^^Isn’t Indonesia made up
of islands? Ugh, my geography is awful in that part of the world. I would guess that would help that there are many cultural differences, since on each island they would develop their own cultural norms. Especially, many years ago when travel and communication was more difficult. I’m thinking of the Philippines where there are so many different dialects.

I’ve met very few people from Indonesia, but my experience has always been very positive. Very polite, and they seem very happy, always smiling.

The kid’s dad is 1/8th Indonesian.

Speaking of diversity, I read a story in a Reader’s Digest Condensed book about a childless, white, Jewish couple unable to conceive. It was sent in the early to mid 1900s. They adopted a little black girl (actually, they weren’t allowed to adopt but they were appointed her legal guardians) and from there the child grew up with one foot in the Jewish world, and thanks to their efforts, the other foot in African American culture. The concept was interesting, but I’m still conflicted on whether or not I liked the story. Parts of it were quite interesting, though.

If a black couple adopted a white child, would it be seen as so important that the child become familiar with the white culture?

Yes, in fact, it is one of the countries with the most islands.

I am not surprised, many foreigners have said that already. What we should know is that being good to tourists is one of top rule for any hospitality management so even I sometimes second guess the purity of their warmness. There are also stories about foreigners (especially white people) getting robbed here due to their trusting disposition and lack of knowledge. My vehicle was once robbed by local people that approached me with warm smiles and chatty attitude. I wouldn’t judge people based on their nation. There are bad and good people in every nation and you just happened to bump in to the good ones.

@Unofficial_Member I agree there are good people everywhere. I can happily say I’ve had very good experiences meeting people from all over the world.

There are different dimensions to diversity, you have race, gender, religion, sexual preference, education, income, etc. A diverse society will have a broad mix of people with a healthy variety across all of those dimensions. E.g. if all of the white people in a community are straight, well-educated, above the median income and Christian—even if there are lots of people of other races in that population—I would say they still have work to do with regards to diversity.

We’re still using “lifestyle” and “preference”? Didn’t we already address this in a separate Q?

Can you believe those words apply to other aspects than sex or gender?
For instance, I used the word lifestyle. I meant it in the broad aspects of its definition. There are people who want to live spending all their money and acquiring credit debt so they can have luxuries on a middle income, others are thrifty and keep savings.
Lifestyle, some people like camping, sailing, rock climbing. Other people are more about movies, opera, museums.
Get over your issues with words. Not my fault you believe every word can have only one definition, and are nearly all words are derogatory.

However, there are sexual lifestyles. Some are gay, some are voyers, some are swingers. Get the fuck over it.
If someone said I live a hetero lifestyle, I would not get up in arms about it. They would be wrong, since I have been inactive a couple of decades, but it used to apply.

If someone uses certain words to be intentionally mean, then that is wrong. Nobody has done that on this thread, so get over yourself.
My gawd, you are not the center of the universe. It is no issue for anybody but you, so, who has the problem really?

@gorillapaws Good point that diversity can have an extremely broad definition. Your answer really got me thinking. I personally, prior to your answer, would never have considered sexual preference something I would take into account as part of diversity. I just don’t think about sexual orientation at all as a thing. I know I’m not explaining it well. I just mean I don’t see it as different. Sure gay people have a culture that many of them fit into, I guess that would be similar to ethnicity even, but I just never thought of that in terms of diversity. My sister is bisexual and if she lived next door to me I wouldn’t have considered that contributing to the diversity here, but I guess you definitely can argue it does.

I hadn’t thought of income or education level either, which basically are the components of socio-economics, but I agree that too can be part of the definition of diversity.

Would you go as far to say that cities that have people from all over the country are diverse? That even the different regions of our own country can be considered culturally different and therefore another factor in diversity?

Diversity includes animals, too. Just go to a local zoo and see the diversity.

Oh absolutely, @JLeslie.
I grew up on a farm. The diversity in that area was for the most part less obvious than in many other areas, the most obvious being the Amish. However, even amongst the Amish there is diversity. Some are more willing to do business with others than a few. Some choose to leave the lifestyle (no reference to sex or gender here) to live in the modern world.

I saw an Amish girl once, probably late teens, totally blew my mind. I was so accustomed to seeing their horse drawn buggies, their black and white clothes, their stair step kids. Riding in the car with my mom one day, I see an Amish girl with bright red hair, down loose, and long, lavender dress. I thought she was the most beautiful girl I ever saw.
Anyway, people where I spent my childhood live very differently, as a whole, than most any city person I ever met.
For one thing, on a farm, weather, time of year control lives more than with city people. The foods eaten, clothes worn, even fun activities are heavily chosen according to weather.

Here is a different kind of community, Fluther. Look at the diversity here. Even on politics, most jellies being democrats, still diverse in food choices, political candidates, movies, books.
Whatever group you put together because of what they have in common, there will be diversity of other areas.

I think I am blind to some aspects of diversity. I really like what @yellowdog wrote:

True diversity takes on the characteristics of a homogenous community because they become one in purpose again.

That captures what I’ve saud before that the more diverse the less conflict, and the less though given to the diversity to begin with.

In my mind I think of diversity in regards to national origin and race more than anything, I guess I would throw in religion also. The other things mentioned on the Q just weren’t in my head.

“Diversity” at the finer detail such as neighborhood is very hard because like demographics tend to stratify and group. This is not alway a “problem” as it is usually an outcome of individual behavior in an otherwise diverse population on the whole. The USA is incredibly diverse, one if the most I can think of.