In this Sunday’s The New York Times Magazine there is a disturbing story which might affect your relationship with non-browns, or browns—depending on your ethnicity. Famed Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam’s latest study finds that “diversity seems to trigger not in-group/out-group division, but anomie or social isolation.” Basically, people living in racially diverse environments seclude themselves from society, have fewer close friends, and were more apt to agree that “television is my most important form of entertainment.” Isn’t it for everybody?
The study defies convention that diversity promotes tolerance and trust, and nobody knows why it seems to have effects of isolation and weakening of social bonds. But another Harvard study by social psychologist Wendy Berry Mendes seems to concur with Putnam’s findings. According to her study:

When research subjects play a cooperative game with someone of another race, they can show physiological signs of distress — reduced cardiac efficiency and arterial constriction, for example.

So, you better watch it next time you play Monopoly with someone from another ethnicity or you might be in danger of cardiac arrest. But no need to worry, Putnam feels confident that overtime we can surpass these challenges. The solution: inter-racial marriage.

Home Alone [New York Times]