Many people like to say that they value diversity, that they welcome and appreciate all opinions, they they are an open, accepting book. It’s the sort of thing we are supposed to say, and it sounds good, and makes us feel good to think we are indeed that way.
But to value diversity, to welcome it, is to engage with it. To try to find out more, to understand the person and their viewpoint. It's not enough to just repeat platitudes.
If people genuinely care about diversity in any form (which applies to multiple categories--gender, race, ideology just to name a few), then they have to make an active effort to educate themselves, to learn more, to ask questions, to be willing to revise and refine the way they think and interact in the face of realizing that the world isn't just limited to YOUR world, that other people have experiences you never thought about. Including people doesn't happen by magic, it doesn't happen overnight--it's a process that requires effort and action.
If you don't want to take part in that process, if you don't want to put in the effort, then fine, your choice, and I'd say, your loss. But if that's the case, be honest about it. To yourself and others. To say you value diversity if you won't even make an attempt to engage and understand is, in my view, a dishonest thing to do.
I see this sort of thing all over the internet, and in the physical world too, and I find it incredibly frustrating. Many have noted that I've not been around as much in the past month or so. There's a lot of reasons for that, some wonderful, some not so wonderful, and the preponderance of this kind of irritating crap is firmly on the side of the not so wonderful.
Disclaimer: I use "you" in the general sense, not to specifically target or point out anyone.
