Give us your hunkered turtles of diversity

Toronto, where new residents arrive every minute from all over the world, is professedly in love with "diversity". The city's motto is actually "Diversity our strength". This sounds like a lot like the United States' motto "E pluribus unum" (Out of many, one) or the City of Winnipeg's motto "Unum cum virtute multorum" (One with the strength of many), except that it's dumbed down into English and, more importantly, it leaves out any mention of a "one". In this town, it's basically E pluribus whatever...or, perhaps (at best) E pluribus ethnic restaurants.

In case you don't believe me, here's Toronto's recently devised device:

The various elements of the design are intended to symbolize our diversity in various respects, although (curiously) the old colonialist coat of arms that was junked in favour of this actually dared to depict diversity in human form, represented 50% by women in non-traditional roles (Britannia militaristically bearing her shield) and 50% by visible minorities (an impressive native Indian warrior). But for now we'll have to make do with the diversity of a beaver and a bear, drawn the same size to symbolize the modern Torontonian's unfamiliarity with animals other than racoons, pigeons and shih-tzus.

None of this is to say that diversity is unique to Canada. Despite our self-congratulatory liberality, in most things progressive -- from pollution control to affirmative action -- the Yanks are way out in front of us. Indeed, as long ago as 1993 I recall watching the great U.S. poet Maya Angelou deliver Bill Clinton's Inaugural Poem, which set a standard of diversifying that following generations would struggle to match:

The singing River and the wise Rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African, the Native American, the Sioux
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek,
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheik,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.

Naturally -- to come to the topical part of this -- there are spoilsports out there who are trying to ruin the whole wonderful vision. The article "Study paints bleak picture of ethnic diversity" in the Financial Times is worth reading in this regard -- though unfortunately the underlying paper does not appear to be available online yet. Here's what the FT identifies as its "core message":

The core message of the research was that, “in the presence of diversity, we hunker down”, he said. “We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us.”

Interestingly, the author is said to have delayed publication of this in order to come up with "proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity" since it would have been "irresponsible" to do otherwise. If that's true, it's interesting in itself.