Rhetorical Analysis of Walter Benn Michaels, "The Trouble with Diversity"

Diversity isn’t something to be ignored, but is that where our primary focus should lie? It is in our very nature to celebrate our differences; without it we lose our identity. As a society we literally dance in the streets to celebrate our individualities. However, Walter Benn Michaels points out a very interesting issue that is not only social but economical as well, in his book The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality. When we strip away our color, our heritage and begin to look at our wallets we become embarrassed, even shy about our how fat or thin it becomes. His political stance is intended for a general audience to: show present concepts of cultural diversity, to illustrate how Americans have come to love race, and to shift the focus from race to economic inequality. The introduction of The Trouble with Diversity is merely a glance at Michael’s agenda and becomes quite confusing to an average reader. He spends a fair amount of time discussing how we have become engulfed in our, as Michaels puts it, “love affair” with diversity that his primary goals are diluted within the text. When we break it down, his arguments become clearer. To fully understand Michaels objectives one must take into account his general audience. It becomes clear with his use of the first person narrative, “The argument, in its simplest form, will be that we love race—we love identity—because we don’t love class.” As Michaels points out the bulk of society is below the poverty line and when discussing economic inequality no one will listen more closely than those who are suffering the most. The upper class will also be able to identify with because as he emphasizes, “Survey after Survey has shown, Americans are very reluctant to identify themselves as belonging to the lower class and even more reluctant to identify themselves as belonging to the upper class.” As a society, we would rather associate ourselves as being middle class. In this