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[donstefano]

couple of points:
1) Scandinavian Political Studies is not an American journal, but that doesn't mean it is obscure as someone here suggests. It is a respected journal, coming from an area of the world at the top of the political science discipline
2) Putnam's punchlines and media stories are obviously less nuanced than his articles. Yet the policy makers he is influencing only listen to the simple part of the story. And yes, I do have problems with some of his arguments on social capital.
3) people tend to forget that membership of an extreme right political group is also social capital...
4) this is his speech for the Johan Skytte prize (expalining the unusual format of the paper)- I don't think he would have presented preliminary or untested material there. Just have a look at the list of previous prize winners.
5) couldn't an obvious explanation for the findings be that an influx of 'others' in a well-integrated community has an effect on the integration of that community? Like it or not, but colour remains one of the most important markers of distinction, so I'm not surprised to see the link with trusting neighbours.

[upanova]

I think the article might better be titled the Downside of Political Correctness.
No one should object to hiring a qualified candidate of any race for any job. The problems come when candidates are hired only because they would add 'diversity' to the department. Academic qualifications should be the most important consideration. I'm in favor of eliminating all 'race' questions on applications. Unfortunately, unless names are withheld, it's not possible to eliminate the sexual factor.

[petedondriac]

Going back to the original topic, there is a strong tendency among humans to categorize ourselves as "us" and "them", and, given that unlike other organisms we obtain most of our information visually, we tend to do it via social cues. This tendency is difficult to overcome, unfortunately, even when these visual cues no longer mean much. One way to overcome it is by being surrounded, particulalry when growing up, by a wide diversity of people, and ethnicity (or colour) will cease to be the factor that separates us (people will likely find other methods to separate "us" from "them" but hopefully these catagorizations will be more ephemeral and not pre-determined at birth).

Anyway, what I am trying to say is that it probably takes a generation of children growing up among differnt people to truly accept them as individuals, rather than as members of a pre-defined group. Looking at neighbourhoods that have been diverse for more than one generation might tell a different story, in which neighbours are just neighbours are trusted or distrusted independently of their colour or ethnicity. On the other  hand the story might be even worse, if patterns of intolerance, distrust and hatred and passed on down generations. I hope for the former.

Another topic that came up.. should faculty be representative of the studetn population? The argument is that students need role models similar to themselves. I think that is adressing the problem by reinforcing it. Students should learn to view professors independently of their ethnicity (or colour... or religion), and find role models in people of all stripes. even if hiring were completley unbiased, there would be a lag time of perhaps several decades before a sample of the student becomes faculty.

Having said that, however, I must admit, sometimes it jsut does not look good, when the faculty is vastly differnt form the student population or the population at large, and one must wonder if there are hiring biases.

[acrimone]

Going back to the original topic, there is a strong tendency among humans to categorize ourselves as "us" and "them", and, given that unlike other organisms we obtain most of our information visually, we tend to do it via social cues. This tendency is difficult to overcome, unfortunately, even when these visual cues no longer mean much. One way to overcome it is by being surrounded, particulalry when growing up, by a wide diversity of people, and ethnicity (or colour) will cease to be the factor that separates us (people will likely find other methods to separate "us" from "them" but hopefully these catagorizations will be more ephemeral and not pre-determined at birth).

"Them" and "us" is as categorically real as "you" and "me".  There really is a "them", and there really is an "us".  In fact, there's LOTS of "thems" and lots of "uses". 

The problem isn't making distinctions or having categories.  The problem is when people use those categories to make judgements beyond the qualifying criteria.