Looking diverse vs Being diverse

The general approaches to diversity tend to be very superficial - they tend to focus on visible attributes like race, gender, religion etc.
Common tropes are: “We need more women!” 
“We need more black people people of colour”  These statements focus on how people look - their demographics;
but they neglect how people think - their psychographics. Demographics

Statistical data relating to the population and particular groups within it. Psychographics
The study and classification of people according to their attitudes, aspirations, and other psychological criteria, especially in market research. In this wonderful TED talk about geographical sub-groups that exist in various cities. These group are entirely interest & lifestyle based: Sports fans, Tech geeks, Justin Bieber fans, etc. and transcend other visible variables like race, gender, income, etc . The speaker goes on to say that “Race is a bad proxy for diversity”; for me this reads as “Race is a bad proxy for diversity”[Citation needed] but I feel there’s a broader sentiment we can grasp at.

For me, being diverse means having diversity of values and diversity of thought. Groups with demographic diversity i.e. groups where (visibly) different people come together - these look diverse. Groups with psychographic diversity i.e. groups where people from different backgrounds and consequently different mental models and value systems come together - these are diverse. Why do I love the latter case? Because it assumes peaceful co-existence, collaboration and mutual respect between people who think differently — amongst people who may not be able to fully understand each others viewpoints. Whats wrong with the former case? Nothing wrong, demographic diversity (in many cases) accompanies psychographic diversity  but is nonetheless just a proxy. People who look different but think alike will behave alike as evidenced by studies which show women are equally sexist towards females as men and propagate the same stereotypes.  So if we’re shooting for diversity, skip the proxy and go straight for the weird people who aren’t like you and try to understand them. There’s one crucial ingredient missing in the recipe for diversity. Even if you bring people who think differently together - they aren’t going to act like themselves if they don’t feel welcome in the new place; you need direct signals telling new members that they can be themselves with all their idiosyncrasies . In the absence of these direct signals the new member will modify their behaviour to conform to the patterns observed in the group or follow the behaviour of the dominant members of the group - in the both situations you end up in place where a group will look diverse without being diverse.

So how do we get people to be their true selves?
By being constantly nice, guiding them when in doubt, making them feel loved and all the usual stuff moms do. Psychologists and sociologists have fancier terms for this. Inclusion & Psychological Safety

“Diversity without inclusion is just a bunch of [different] people sitting in a room.” @MarcPhilly #WCUS

— Ashleigh Axios (@AshleighAxios)

December 2, 2016 Psychological safety is ‘‘a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for speaking up,’’ 
For more on psychological safety, you must read this article from the New York Times  which talks about Google’s quest to build the perfect team  I won’t belabour readers here about how to make people feel included and psychologically safe. The simplest principle to genuinely care for the people who you’re making a part of your group; going out of your way to make them feel loved.