It's Only A Racist Stereotype If It Comes From A White Person
Hans Bader blogs about "diversity training" at OpenMarket.org -- how it can backfire on the employer and lead to lawsuits, and how those doing the training can throw out racial stereotypes:
For example, Glenn Singleton, a wealthy "diversity" trainer, has claimed that "white talk" is "impersonal, intellectual, verbal" and "task-oriented," while "color commentary" is "emotional." If a white person said this, it would rightly be regarded as a ridiculous, racist stereotype that relegates black people to inferior status. (California Superintendent Jack O'Connell, a white liberal, was publicly embarrassed, and called racist, after he repeated a belief that Singleton shared with him that black people are loud. Singleton also embarrassed the Seattle Schools in a landmark Supreme Court case.)Major employers have paid out millions of dollars in discrimination claims because of diversity-training programs. One Fortune 500 company paid out tens of millions of dollars in response to a class-action racial discrimination suit by minority employees, which was fueled by remarks managers made after undergoing mandatory diversity training (they joked about jelly beans used in the training to represent minority employees. That, coupled with a poor quality recording in which a manager's reference to "Saint Nicholas" was misinterpreted as the N-word, created a furor).
Diversity training triggers workplace conflict and lawsuits, by compelling employees to talk about contentious racial or sexual issues, with resulting acrimony, and remarks that are misinterpreted or perceived as racist or sexist. For example, in Stender v. Lucky Stores (1992), statements made by managers during sensitivity training were held by a court to be evidence of discrimination. Some judges take a dim view of diversity training. In Fitzgerald v. Mountain States Tel & Tel. Co. (1995), where employee reactions to diversity training gave rise to a lawsuit, a federal appeals court noted that "diversity training sessions generate conflict and emotion" and that "diversity training is perhaps a tyranny of virtue."







I haven't had to do any diversity training. But what I'd like to see is some white male sue his company for defamation for mandatory diversity training. His company is telling him he is inherently racist, sexist, etc.
Jim P.I at April 28, 2012 7:57 AM
and yet who requires "Diversity Compliance Training" Ima guessing the govt. since they are the ones that require all the other stupid training I take...
SwissArmyD at April 28, 2012 4:46 PM
It's death to a company working for the Feds if there is anything which can be interpreted as racial and the company doesn't squash it. I'm having problems getting the right PCs for our department now, after a close call involving the previous coordinator; my boss showed everyone my extensive documentation to counter that idiot's claim of harassment on my part.
The harassment? I asked why we had not received any correspondence of any kind prior to delivery of the wrong PCs, why we did not get the PCs we ordered, and how we can get them. Wow.
Years ago we had someone tie a noose and drop it on the floor of an unoccupied building. It was not in anyone's office, nor could it be interpreted as being a threat directed at a particular person, but police were called and extensive interviews were held. I was on a 5-day-off period of shift work, and I sort of wish I was there.
I can't believe someone would taunt me with a reference to the hanging of my Irish ancestors by the British!
Radwaste at April 28, 2012 5:15 PM
Ugh, I took a class at the overly anti-white Lesley University in Cambridge MA, where they talked about the differences between "Eurocentric" "Afrocentric" and "Multicultural" education, the latter two being all warm fuzzies and the first being cold and rigid, and I was like, "Have any of you BEEN to Europe?" I refrained from mentioning clitoredectemies.
NicoleK at May 1, 2012 8:18 AM
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