re: Diversity is our strength. True or False

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That's the problem--"diversity" can mean literally anything.

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Trey - you know what it means in 2019. Non-white, non-Christian, non-male, non-binary, non-hetero.

Tell the average university faculty, "Hey, you guys don't really have very many Christians or Republicans on the faculty here" and they'll tell you "frick off!" with the quickness.

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Making assumptions about a person based on superficial characteristics outside that person's control is prejudiced (not racist, mind you) and lazy

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When you assume on an individual level I would agree, but when you look at the voting patterns of various races and ethnic groups as well as gender/sex then some very strong disparate patterns emerge that undercut your argument.

It doesnt matter what you think about it or why it has occurred, African Americans vote (and therefore hold views) that are very diverse from rural and suburban whites.

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Making assumptions about a person based on superficial characteristics outside that person's control is prejudiced (not racist, mind you) and lazy.

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This was essential to survival in a state of nature.

You had to be able to make snap decisions based off of exclusively visual clues.

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When you assume on an individual level I would agree

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We are all individuals, ultimately.

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but when you look at the voting patterns of various races and ethnic groups as well as gender/sex then some very strong disparate patterns emerge that undercut your argument.

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Do we want to talk about groups now? From an academic standpoint, certainly we can talk about group patterns.

Here's one I like to throw out - Black folks in America have had a rough time. Going back to being on the losing side of whatever struggle on the continent of Africa, getting pulled into the slave trade as a commodity by white, brown and even other black folks, shipped across the ocean and set to work in generally unpleasant, outdoor, agricultural and manual occupations in a "less than free, less than human" situation. In other words, chattel slavery. But, they also had to suffer during Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights era and are now in what I consider to be the post-Civil Rights era (legal equality).

Along the way, in order to survive these challenges (I'll dispense with the Jimmy the Greek type stuff, which almost certainly has a kernel of truth, if only we consider pure natural selection forces it seems reasonable), black folks developed a wide range of survival skills which served them well over the years.

One of those is referenced by Jamie Foxx's character in the film Ray, where he describes and ultimately demonstrates for the viewers the technique of disarming white folks by appearing "country dumb."

Others include the somewhat related instincts to both stick together and not believe white folks' allegations about fellow black folks. And, to be completely fair, white folks have done/do the same thing.

As Trey will likely say, "I'm talm bout tribe."

Now, in my opinion, as an old white dude, black folks should try to rise above those instincts to move ahead (collectively). Those instincts no longer serve them as well as they did in the past.

Until and if the black vote starts to cleave, say, 70/30, they will be taken for granted by the left and ignored/written off by the right.

One of the most radical things Trump did was to explicitly compete for the black vote. "What do you have to lose?"

Indeed.