Seattle may be getting whiter, but racial diversity isn’t all we lack

Taken from The Jason Rantz Show.

If you didn’t think it was possible for Seattle to get even whiter, think again.

Gene Balk at The Seattle Times has written a piece about new census data that points out we’re getting even more white.

According to Balk: “In 2013, 67 percent of the city’s population was non-Hispanic white — that’s up from 65.2 percent the previous year. The uptick means Seattle is now whiter than it was back in 2010.”

The interesting thing to me is how everyone reacts to this story. Immediately, I think, ‘Oh my God Seattle’s getting whiter, that must be bad, that must be inherently worse than if it wasn’t white.’

Now, there’s absolutely zero doubt that there’s great value to ethnic diversity. It’s good to have religious diversity, gender and sexual orientation diversity. The more people you encounter from different backgrounds, from different perspectives, from different points of view I truly believe the more enriching your life is going to be.

You’re getting that perspective that you otherwise wouldn’t get because you’re only informed by your own background. The white guy doesn’t know what it’s like being black. The black guy doesn’t know what it’s like being a white woman. The transgender woman doesn’t know what it’s like being biologically born and feeling like you fit in the body you’ve been assigned. I find it interesting to talk to people of different backgrounds and learn different things. There’s value to that.

But the mere notion that there are more white people here is not necessarily a negative impact. It’s not necessarily a negative thing to have more white people here. I’m OK living in a place with all white people. I’m OK living in a place with all black people or all Asian people or all Jewish people or all gay people.

But there is one piece of diversity that I think is actually way more important than all of those things, something that we absolutely lack in this city: ideological diversity. We are not ideologically diverse in the city of Seattle.

How often do you run into someone that is a conservative? Not very often. There are like 17 of us.

You’re going to run into progressives. You’re going to run into liberal democrats. You’re going to run into socialists. You’re going to run into a bunch of people who basically come from the left. You’re never going to run into someone from the right.

The fact that you have such a progressive city council, and have such progressive rules in the city tends to scare conservative folks away. If you’re being honest about how this city treats conservatives, they’re shunned. Why would you want to live in a place that shuns you?

But ideological diversity is important to me. I would prefer ethnic diversity. I would prefer more religions. I want everything, but I really want more ideological diversity. I wish we would do more to increase that.

Taken from Monday’s edition of The Jason Rantz Show.

JS