The Charade Of 'Diversity' - The Creep, The Barking Scarecrow, And The Man Who Polishes His Balls Are Not Welcome

The Creep was intimidating - not the usual sentiment aroused in the Sport & Health Club in a tony corner of Washington where the standard fare was lawyers, government bureaucrats, and journalists.  The Club was a safe haven where manners were expected, congeniality the meme, and a hearty male locker room camaraderie kept a bit high school towel-snapping, horsing around alive and well. 

The gym was a uniform, heterogeneous place - the demographics skewed old, but that depended on the time of day.  There was a mix of men and women, nobody obese, all working hard to stay in shape rather than bulk up, increase body build or aerobic capacity.  In short it was a genteel, comfortable place, a friendly, accommodating, quite pleasant place that fit quite nicely into busy routines, 

No one knew where The Creep came from or where he went, for he seemed to be at the gym at all hours.  He was a big man and although he never spoke, people were afraid.  There was something angry and unarranged about him, a barely restrained brutality, a brooding meanness. 

Rumors followed him - a work-release parolee from the federal prison in Hyattsville, a three-tour PTSD door gunner who slept in the boiler room, held up convenience stores for food and saw no one.  The treadmills next to his were left unoccupied, the space where he walked back and forth punching the air  cleared, and the barbell rack where he pumped enormous weights of iron were unused.  He never showered, never used the locker room, seemed to always be around the corner, in the next room, or before a mirror.

 

The Barking Scarecrow was anorexic, loud, and needy. She barked instructions about proper positioning on the adductor machine, the best posture for working abs, lats, and tris; the shortest route between Falls Church and Montgomery Village; how to test for doneness on a roast chicken; and the number of miles she has logged for the week.

It was hard to feel sorry for this barking, insufferable woman even when she was sitting on the bicep machine, positioned at the top of the stairs, disconsolately waiting for someone to talk to.  She strutted like a model on a catwalk, but with an exaggerated jock-walk that had not an ounce of feminine allure, sexuality, or even grace.

 Before The Man Who Polishes His Balls got into his gym clothes he could have been a K Street lawyer, accountant, or dentist.  Even with his clothes off he was no more misshapen than anyone else. His only curiosities were his badly bowed legs, thicket of body hair, and slightly humped stride.

It is when he finished showering that the vaudeville began, for then he begins drying his balls – not the casual, practiced, indifferent rub; but a deliberate stropping.  With a hand on each end of the towel, he begins to whack away at his crotch like a shoeshine boy. Changing direction and angle and bent over from the waist, he snaps the towel back and forth up and down his backside. 

'Death' had a horrible pursued look on her face as she ran the treadmill.  Ashen, gaunt, and haunted she ran for hours, incessantly, without pause, looking vacantly ahead, absent from all except from whomever is behind her, gaining on her. 

How is it that in such a uniformly enclave of Washington, in an expensive club with a swimming pool and private fitness lessons, there could be so many dubiously sane people?

Or does it just seem so because of the confines of the club?  Perhaps in any randomly selected group of 100 people there are as many who fall into the category. It is hard to tell, because once one eliminates the obviously deranged – the man who wears a multi-colored beanie with a plastic propeller shouting about the Second Coming; the woman who covers her head in tinfoil to deflect alien radio waves; the woman who dresses all in black, wears mascara, and does martial goose steps on Connecticut Avenue, careful to miss every other line in the sidewalk – everyone seems more or less normal.  

Somehow in the anonymous and yet personal, naked environment of the gym, those on the mental margins are more visible or at least harder to ignore.

'Diversity' and 'Inclusivity' are now familiar terms to express the progressive idea of universal belonging, compassion, and respect.  No one in this gracious society should feel unwelcome.  All are invited warmly into the big tent.  No matter what your race, gender, or ethnicity you will be greeted simply as a member of the human race, as notable and love-worthy as anyone else  

Yet the notion of inclusivity has its limits - it is an exclusive club.  The gayer you are, the blacker or more ethnically distinct you are, the more welcome; but all other comers are vetted at the door, bounced and blackballed.  Diversity is no more a universal concept than baking cookies.  It is subjective, biased and configured to reflect a political business.  It is not generous, tolerant, or welcoming. Its admissions policy is particular, restrictive, and rigorous.  

The deranged above all comers should have a place at the table, a folding chair in the big tent, a membership at the club.  If there were one distinctive, unique, and outstanding group which needed welcome, it would be this one.  And what more diverse within diversity than the mentally imbalanced?  There are the pinwheeled beanie radio heads, the Black Maria sidewalk crack jumpers, the demented, the unhinged, and the mentally chaotic.

If 'diversity' actually meant something more than a political nostrum, it would let these people in.  Liberal encouragers would learn their languages, decipher their babble, read their physical tics, barks, and shimmies. Affirmative action would acknowledge seeing things, imagining ghouls, twisting and turning around imaginary pillars and posts. 

As it is, 'diversity' is no more than a charade, a transparent scam.  Progressives have no more intention of encouraging a society of individualism in all its crazy warps and weaves than the man in the moon. They are the nation's cherry-pickers and gatekeepers at their own private, exclusive clubs. 

So either let the crazies in or forget the whole, bald, arrogant nonsense altogether.