This Week in Diversity Class

[APMountianMan]

The company that I work for is big on Diversity. That's Diversity with a capital D. All employees have to receive Diversity training within the first year of employment, and then receive an annual review every year thereafter. The reason for this is understandable. With growing culture diversity of the workforce, to continue growth in productivity, the workforce must learn how to form a cultural environment that is supportive of varying social constructs.

It is not only the company that I work for that has recognized the need for an acceptance of a paradigm of diversity. I will accept the fact that these policies are primarily financially driven and not a matter of social conscience. I can accept that. But what is interesting to me is that many think that big business is the socially divisive force in America. I beg to differ.

Big business is moved by dollars. A change in demographics means a change in behavior. The truth is that big business is more socially attuned than the US Government. Why? Because big business operates in a free market; their profits depend on consumer opinion and they win or lose the election everyday.

Politicians are elected on snapshots. Time your shots correctly and the majority of the public will be asleep when you make a wrong turn. But the evidence is in. It is not big business that is against gay marriage and teaching the public to resist Diversity; it is the US Government.

This week’s lesson: Jacob D. Robida.

Robida went into a gay bar in Massachusetts and gunned down and slashed his way into the headlines:

After Thursday's hatchet-and-gun attack at Puzzles Lounge in New Bedford, Mass., which injured three people, police said the 18-year-old fled in a green Pontiac and picked up Jennifer Rena Bailey, at her Charleston, W. Va., home.

This is not a person that has been moved by Diversity training! So what moved Robida? I am sad to say Nazism. Oh, no, I don't mean the intolerant Nazism of the 1940's, but Nazism as it is presented today.

When a nation forbids Diversity, when it gives a wink and a nod to violent crimes against any of its citizens, it is practicing Nazism.

My thoughts from the classroom this week are these: the war against gay marriage reinforces the beliefs of people like Robida. It gives them an excuse to hate those that are different from them. It builds a wall of hatred and cultural anti-diversity. If America is to move towards its founding principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then this wall must be torn down.

These are my thoughts from the classroom of life. What are yours?

:cool:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060205/ap_on_re_us/gay_bar_shooting

[ambi53mm]

These are my thoughts from the classroom of life. What are yours?

In the days of my youth, I was both more naive …and more optimistic about those walls being torn down..Today I’m less optimistic. I believe those walls are so embedded in our psyche that as hard as we try and desire to be different than what we are it takes more effort than what most people are willing to exert.
How do you solve the problem created when one person’s pursuit of happiness infringes on another’s happiness. Just to use the one example you’ve given. By allowing gay marriages, you make one group of people happy..but at the same time you’ve made those opposed; accept a world that they have to live in that allows something they are so adamantly opposed to.
The classroom of life teaches some valuable lessons. It’s the lessons it doesn’t teach that has created the world we live in. Our focus has always been to look at the differences rather than the similarities. We live in a world that pays lip service to tolerance on the surface. If it’s politically correct in the moment we may even brag about how civilized we’ve become in this regard. I don’t give myself that much credit. I know what lurks deep within and it’s not pretty.
People like Robida snap and do what many fantasize about doing. It would be hard to realistically imagine that there’s not one gay person that would love to right a wrong against those that have persecuted him and made his life intolerable at one point or another. We see it everyday..people loosing control…people hating people.
The solution involves a task so great that I’ve given up hope of ever seeing in my lifetime..or my childrens or my children’s children. How do we teach ourselves to Love?…How do we teach a world to Love?

Ambi :2cents: :soapbox:

[APMountianMan]

Hi ambi,

Though I understand your point, I have say that gay marriage is not the issue here. Why does my happiness, or yours, depend on another group being unhappy? Or phrased another way: Why does denying happiness to one of society's members increase another member of society's pleasure?

Diversity means understanding and acceptance of culture values that may not be your own. It is asking that while I have a right to be offended, is it right to be offended?

To say that gay marriage is about the sanctity of marriage is to hide behind intolerance. After all, if one were really concerned about the sanctity of marriage wouldn't there be an outcry for the abolishment of divorce?

The fight against gay marriage is a fight to uphold intolerance; the same kind of intolerance that led to black men being lynched for loving or marrying white women. The same arguments are used now as were used when Virginia versus Loving made its way to the Supreme Court.

While we will never know why Jacob D. Robida attacked the patrons of the Massachusetts gay bar, one social factor remains at play: intolerance.


These are my thoughts from the classroom of life. What are yours?

:cool:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11146480/

[usedbear1950]

Firstly I wish to thank APMountainMan for initiating such interesting and provocative threads. For me this portion of the website is to thought as the chat room is to fellowship.
Below you will find the lyrics to an appropriate song from the Broadway Musical “South Pacific”. The producers tried to convince Rodgers & Hammerstein to cut this song from the production but they rightfully resisted. Please read the lyrics.
It is my opinion, based on my age and experiences, that you can not legislate tolerance. Notice I did not use the work acceptance. Acceptance is as personal a process as love or religion. The forced diversity training is a form of legislation that as APMountainMan states is based on the fear of litigation. Just as the civil rights laws were based on fear of losing a seat in congress with the emergence of significant numbers of black voters going to the poles.
Are we naturally prejudiced or are we taught? Is it the old question of nature v. nurture or something else? We are a fearful species of animal when we allow our base animal instincts to take control. Can we co-exist with others whose beliefs are diametrically opposed to our own? When these beliefs do not directly impose themselves on our own existence do we have the right to squash their existence? What criteria must we apply in this decision?
If I am a straight married man does the existence of gay married couples affect my marriage? If I am a Christian do Jews, Muslims or Buddhists affect my observance of my faith? For me the answer is imposition. When you impose your beliefs on me I struggle against the constraints. But these are not the only issues that cause problems. Religion and political races are the bully pulpits used to rile the people. Money in the form of jobs, real estate and food are woven into the reasons we are incited to forcefully oppose other people’s life choices. We need someone to blame for the “…heart-ache and the thousand shocks that the flesh is heir to…”, so they (yes the they we speak of whose names shall not be pronounced) conjure up images of despair and point to a group of people who are the supposed cause of our discomfort.
The answer is to read, think and most of all discuss. Acceptance is a dream, détente is the best we can hope for.
*********************************************
You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught
from “South Pacific”
music by Richard Rodgers
lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein


You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear
You’ve got to be taught
From year to year
It’s got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught

You’ve got to be taught
To be afraid
Of people whose eyes
Are oddly made
And people whose skin
Is a different shade
You’ve got to be carefully taught

You’ve got to be taught
Before it’s too late
Before you are 6 or 7 or 8
To hate all the people
Your relatives hate
You’ve got to be carefully taught
:soapbox:

[moonlitwish]

The reasons people insist on being intolerant amaze me. Do the fanatics who oppose all of the minorities not understand that their intolerance breeds violence such as that exemplified by Robida? And that if there is violence anywhere, it in turn compromises their own safety, for wherever that violence is, someone else is learning violence as an acceptable way of acting. I don't need to be accepted. I just want to be left alone. How I live my life has never affected any of the conservatives that deem it an abomination. For example, gay marriage, if deemed legal will not harm the sanctity of het. marriage. It doesn't affect the heteros one bit. They don't have to attend any gay marriages, just like they don't have to eat chocolate ice cream if they don't like it. If I decided to marry a woman(provided I wasn't married already) the only thing that would change in the relationship is the legal benefits of a spouse. MARRIAGE is a legal contract, not a spiritual/religious one. That is a whole other matter, and those opposed to gay marriage don't seem to understand that point. Yes, in the US clergy are able to bind ppl into this contract, at the same time they enter into a spiritual one, but that doesn't change the legality part. For centuries gays have been entering into spiritual/religious commitment contracts. Do ppl not realize this? If anything, the revenues generated by the purchase of marriage licenses would boster the economy. That in turn actually helps the hets....whether they like it or not. Ok enuf of my ramblings...am I alone in my opinions or do others agree?

[Nikki Vandom]

I remember a song aswell.I can't remember who sings it.It was from the time my oldest brother was drafted to the Vietnam war.The chorus comes to mind:"I'd like to change the world,but I don't know what to do,so I leave it up to you...". I love threads like this.I don't consider myself to be the sharpest knife in the drawer.I often feel overwhelmed at the immensity of these issues.It is comforting to know there are people like you all-thinkers-out there I can stand with,who believe as I do.I do think the internet will be a major influence in desiminating our message and influencing the intolerant forces at work in peoples hearts.Peace&Love,N.V. :yinyang: :flag2:

[red_riding_hood_27]

My opinion has been in the past against Gay marriages and same sex couples. I was taught it was wrong to desire the same sex. I grew up that I should not judge because that is between them and God. I just did not want to see it on the streets. What do you do when you are taught this from infancy. However, not all people take it extreme. If they are christians then you should not judge else they be judge likewise. The young man that went on a rampage had other issues then just with gays. To be lost in that world he had to be vunerable to propaganda. To have hate that consuming.

What it boils down is most people are uncomfortable with it, like me. I am having to readjust my thinking and views. Do I still have the same beliefs as I did 4 months ago. Yes and NO. Like me it will take the nation time to readjust its thinking. To accept things that you cannot control. I might never understand it but I will respect you.

Angela

[Flounder1967]

Diveristy training should be called Common sense training.

It can some up training in just a couple of statments.

"Just notice that not everybody isn't the same as you."
and
"If you can't say it load in front of your boss, then it's problely wrong to say at all"

I have worked with a couple of compaines, and have had the priviage with working with all kinds of Engineers from around the world. I work contract in the engineering field, and this always happends. There will be a party, or some type of celeration, in which food will be served. I have worked with engineers that are Muslim, and Hindu, Jewish, or vegiterain. Well there is types of foods that certain people can't or won't eat. The bosses or HR persons usally put on these events and never take the time to see if the there are any food restrictions and order some type of pork product, or no vegiterain meals. It never fails.

I first time it happen it hit me like a 2x4 right between the eyes. I shared and office with a guy from India (Hindu) and we were friends. He was a young guy, married and had a under 1 year old son. It was a company family outing and we were having pinic at an amusment park. His family sat down with me and my furture wife (Mrs.F). We all got in line to eat buffet style. There was 1 vegital (porks and beans) and Pulled Pork Sandwiches. I took plenty of food for my self and notice that he and his wife had no food on ther plates. I thought that was funny and we we all sat down I ask him if he felt o.k. He said Yes he was fine, but all the food contained some type of pork. I felt bad and when his son started to cry beacue hes was hungry. I felt even worse.

That's when I learned diversity training.

But this just doesn't end with the right food. I works for color of skin, regilion, sexual preferances, or anything else. Just remember not everbody is like you. This just doesn't work for the office, but in everyday life.

This is like my asshole. It's mine.

:flag3:

I will say this also. The poeple who complain the most about other poeple are the ones that need it the most.

[Driver 8]

I've heard a lot of people say diversity training is useless because you can't order people to change the way they feel. Funny how the people who say that are usually straight white men ...

A college dean once told me that you can't always change people's minds, but you CAN tell them that certain behavior isn't tolerated by a community, and that if you engage in that behavior, there WILL be consequences. To me, that's the important part: ensuring that, in your company at least, you value treating people fairly.

[yaknowthatguy]

Big business is moved by dollars. A change in demographics means a change in behavior. The truth is that big business is more socially attuned than the US Government. Why? Because big business operates in a free market; their profits depend on consumer opinion and they win or lose the election everyday.



I would agree with this, but in a counterpoint - I believe that diversity training is also brought about to instruct what is not tolerated by the company....and to provide it a legal basis to terminate employees that offend the policy, as well as a legal defense against suit from others once that employee's terminated.

We've got diversity posters up all around where I work, but the reality is that in many ways it's not a diverse culture at all, and many of the people who work in the region are quite red-around-the-neck. Could I safely be out in this environment? Physically yes, nothing would happen to my person - but my career would be ended there, and it is my dream job; I'm willing to play the game, but only to a point. I readily respond to anti-whomever comments.

While the vision of diversity is great, and I wish it were wholeheartedly true, the reality is that some places it's a facade, a veneer on top of life; in my case brought about by the legal and HR departments.

For all his problems, Rodney King had a true statement of wisdom - "can't we all just get along?"

[APMountianMan]

I would agree with this, but in a counterpoint - I believe that diversity training is also brought about to instruct what is not tolerated by the company....and to provide it a legal basis to terminate employees that offend the policy, as well as a legal defense against suit from others once that employee's terminated.

We've got diversity posters up all around where I work, but the reality is that in many ways it's not a diverse culture at all, and many of the people who work in the region are quite red-around-the-neck. Could I safely be out in this environment? Physically yes, nothing would happen to my person - but my career would be ended there, and it is my dream job; I'm willing to play the game, but only to a point. I readily respond to anti-whomever comments.

While the vision of diversity is great, and I wish it were wholeheartedly true, the reality is that some places it's a facade, a veneer on top of life; in my case brought about by the legal and HR departments.

For all his problems, Rodney King had a true statement of wisdom - "can't we all just get along?"

This is what I am getting at: how can a company think that having a diversity program is legal protection when the government wants to legally exclude certain individuals from the protection of law?

In Colorado, for example, there is no right to work. This means that you can be fired for being queer. It doesn't matter if you are the most competent professional for the position; you can be fired even if the only reason is that you are queer. Where does diversity fit into that scene? Where is the government to protect the right to be different, as long as you are competent?

I do not say that queer folk should be allowed to work even if they are incompetent. But I do say being queer is not a reason to be fired! And I say that diversity training, in this climate, takes more company balls than one may think, and that the companies that do so deserve our support. After all, in truth, they are fighting Big Brother, and could end up as much on the outside looking in as many of us feel.


:cool:

[Diddybidaddy]

When a nation forbids Diversity, when it gives a wink and a nod to violent crimes against any of its citizens, it is practicing Nazism.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060205/ap_on_re_us/gay_bar_shooting

AP: Technically speaking, I don't know if this is actually Nazism. I'm not so sure these are the tenets of National Socialism. But as for the rest of your post I agree with it. Canadians still have gay marriage unless our newly elected asshole prime minister Stephen Harper -- who can barely speak French tries to kill the legislation.

[Diddybidaddy]

How do you solve the problem created when one person’s pursuit of happiness infringes on another’s happiness. Just to use the one example you’ve given. By allowing gay marriages, you make one group of people happy..but at the same time you’ve made those opposed; accept a world that they have to live in that allows something they are so adamantly opposed to.

Sorry, ambi I have to disagree with you and agree with AP man. You see, giving someone gay marriage yes, does make one group happy, but technically you are not harming or hurting the str8 people who are opposed to gay marriage. You aren't harming or hurting them at all. You aren't taking anything from them, unless.....you believe that marriage BELONGS only to str8 people. That they have the monopoly. If you give the good old black man the right to sit down on the bus are you taking away the right of the white man to sit down? No. You are taking away the exclusive privilege of the whites and whites only to sit down. You are simply making the playing field even. Str8's get the privilege of marriage, now gays -- at least in my country-- do too. Now, if you believe that that right to marry should uniquely belong to str8 people only, at some small level, there is the subtle unstated belief that at some level, str8's are superior to gays. See my above argument on black people sitting on a bus. Now I could be flippant and say: Well if str8's don't want gays to marry, then str8 people shouldn't marry gay people! :bigrin:
Rethink this one ambi, I regret you may have to face a bit of internalized homophobia. It may not be your fault, it may be what society has taught you.

[APMountianMan]

AP: Technically speaking, I don't know if this is actually Nazism. I'm not so sure these are the tenets of National Socialism. But as for the rest of your post I agree with it. Canadians still have gay marriage unless our newly elected asshole prime minister Stephen Harper -- who can barely speak French tries to kill the legislation.

Diddybidaddy,

When I speak of Nazism in the context of this piece, I am not speaking of National Socialism. I am speaking of those tenets of Nazism that idealize racism and bigotry within the context of national pride. I am speaking of Nazism in its mutated, present, form.

Even if I were to concede that we are not speaking about actual Nazism, it would make little difference in my statement. The reason is that Jacob D. Robida believed he was acting on the tenets of Nazism. He believed that he was protecting his nation by committing these crimes. And his country has given him tacit approval to believe as he did.

Small things matter, especially in a culture (for more on this read "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell.) My point is that the government is sending a signal that gays and lesbians are not equal citizens in this nation - the United States. That is a powerful message. It may seem to some a small matter but it leads to big crime.

It is hypocritical for the government in one hand to mandate that companies be more inclusive and then with the other to exclude some of its citizens from the rights of the majority. But worst than being hypocritical, it invites the kind of violence we in Jacob D. Robida.

:cool: