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Members of the majority group are told to listen to, and validate, the perspectives of people from historically marginalized or disadvantaged groups — even as t
by causality0 6y ago
Members of the majority group are told to listen to, and validate, the perspectives of people from historically marginalized or disadvantaged groups — even as they are instructed to submit their own feelings and perspectives to intense scrutiny.
A common effect I've observed is that diversity training often seems to trigger defensive behavior. People of the majority group perceive that the organization cares much more about the feelings of the minority group than their own, and so members of the minority group become dangerous. For example, you might be willing to tell Steve his new hairstyle looks stupid, but wouldn't say the same thing to Shanice.
The response to this change in perception is defensive disengagement. The majority begins restricting their interactions with the minority. They don't make idle conversation with them. They avoid joining projects with them. They don't become friends with them after-hours.
Now, the opposite certainly exists. I've been in companies that were a pure good ol' boys club that would say the most outrageously racist things standing five feet away from a coworker of that race. As far as my experiences have gone, though, the middle ground is dead. There're very few companies where you can just treat all your coworkers like people.
- axaxs 6y agoI can relate, somewhat. One particular training video we were required to watch, not on diversity but microagressions, left me with the takeaway "say nothing to anyone, ever."
- gdyuytgh 6y agoHa, this is like the corporate version of "don't talk to the police." I've been in awkward situations where a pretty female colleague was annoyed by my dry professional attitude despite her making obvious signs, so she approached me and said point blank that I should take her somewhere on a weekend. The awkward part was that I had to maneuver from that situation out, because you know, the risk profile of that weekend trip would be strongly not in my favor in the long run.
- paulryanrogers 6y agoWhile certainly a problem you may find little sympathy from the legions of less hansom, tall, and or muscular men. Most of them have to hustle quite a bit to get any attention from any potential love interest.
- brippalcharrid 6y agoI think the point is that if your career (and life) were to be unexpectedly destroyed months or years down the line as a result of this (even if you were acting both in the spirit and within the letter of company regulations at the time), you would be in a strictly worse position than if it had never happened.
- paulryanrogers 6y agoGood point. And my comment didn't add much but it's too late for me to delete it.
- AlexTWithBeard 6y agoActually... I've been recently through sexual harassment training which explicitly said that asking another employee out, going with them for a weekend and making compliments is not harassment, unless either (1) the recipient unequivocally said "no" or (2) there's some quid-pro-quo involved such a promotions or pay raises. So you've probably missed your chance to have a nice weekend.
- gnicholas 6y agoI think GP's concern is legit, especially if the colleague was a subordinate, or could become a subordinate in the future. Not only could the colleague bring a claim of harassment if things didn't go well, but other colleagues could as well — on the grounds that this female colleague received special treatment as a result of her relationship with GP.
- gdyuytgh 6y ago
- andreskytt 6y agoWhat seems to go with this sort of thing is the temporal uniformity. Events of all history are reflected in the current valuespace. Therefore, whatever you say to anybody can potentially go against the future set of values and thus cause you harm.
- SergeAx 6y agoSilence after direct question would be microagression too, wouldn't it?
- bhawks 6y agoI want to work on a diverse team and company. The training commonly in place today seem to hurt that goal and this is backed up by research. However any discussion about this is extremely difficult to have. To be honest it feels like no one cares about making a welcoming work environment.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 6y agoMany do, but they are afraid of getting cancelled.
- gdyuytgh 6y agoAs we see, even pointing out this obvious fact would get you Damo.. I meant cancelled.
- lawnchair_larry 6y agoActivists rarely care. They enjoy the power they can exert on others on the basis of their moral authority, and feel self-righteous about doing so. People who actually care about effective outcomes are generally not welcome. They get labeled a racist/sexist for trying to discuss solutions. The treatment of James Damore is a prime example.
- gdyuytgh 6y agoMentioning his name alone will get this comment flagged.
- sokoloff 6y agoInteresting you mention this. We just went through a round of D&I training and the bright spot in it for me was a short section with tips on how to have some of these tense/high-stakes interactions. https://www.linkedin.com/learning/communicating-about-culturally-sensitive-issues https://www.linkedin.com/learning/communicating-about-cultur...
- AlexTWithBeard 6y agoYour post makes me think about how great diversity training was in my place. It was mostly about - diversity is good - it increases a pool of workers and ideas to pick from - we all are minorities in something, so please be nice. We're in this boat together - everyone has unconscious bias. Including you. Beware - please make an effort to be inclusive: being the only black/white/green person in the team sucks - don't do anything illegal Kinda reasonable approach, I'd say, but I doubt they do it anymore.
- ccffpphh 6y agoSorry to kind of jump off of you here, but what do you mean by "diversity is good"? Diversity of what? If we have 5 people that all think the same but they're all different races, is that good? Is that better than or worse than 5 people of the same race with diversity of thought? From my point of view, I believe diversity of thought enables groups of people to consider new ideas and positions that wouldn't be considered, i.e. thinking outside of the box, but I don't understand why this is extrapolated to different races, gender identities, immigration statuses, sexualities, etc. I am not claiming you brought them up but they tend to be common "diversity" points the modern populace loves to clamor around. Why do any of those imply anything about how people will think? We've all seen some creative people that are of our own race, or that were also our own sexuality, etc. All of this is of course at the expense of speed, in that greater variance in thought/ideas leads to slower movement, which I think is important in business (a solo or very tight knit organization can move much faster).
- nickff 6y agoMany (but not all) diversity advocates are looking for evidence to back up their preference for racial, gender, and other forms of non-ideological diversity, so they make the (often true) assertion that people of different backgrounds bring different perspectives. This is ideology searching for evidence (often known as 'motivated reasoning').
- DoofusOfDeath 6y agoI can accept ideology seeking evidence, as long as everyone is clear about that. If it results in good evidence (either way) that holds up to critical analysis, all the better.
- summitsummit 6y ago> you might be willing to tell Steve his new hairstyle looks stupid, but wouldn't say the same thing to Shanice. anecdotally, I have been Shanice and see Steve get told his new hairstyle sucks and they all laugh together but not risk it with me. makes me feel like favoritism when its my coworker and boss, so it certainly has created a lot of tension within the team.
- groby_b 6y agoHere's your inclusive diversity training in a nutshell: How about not being mean to either Shanice or Steve? Nobody asked you about a fashion opinion, and everybody would be happier if you didn't say things that might be hurtful to another person. That's it. That's the whole thing. The request is "don't be an ass to anybody". One would think it's not a high bar to clear.
- throwawayblmers 6y agoYou must be fun at parties. "Come have a beer with us!" "My hydration levels are already at an acceptable level, stop harassing me."
- rayiner 6y agoSo this happened at Northwestern, my alma mater: https://freebeacon.com/campus/northwestern-law-administrators-confess-their-racism-in-online-diversity-session https://freebeacon.com/campus/northwestern-law-administrator.... During a Zoom meeting with hundreds of students, the interim dean and dozens of other faculty and administrators each declared they were "a racist" and "a gatekeeper of white supremacy." What struck me when I read this article was how uncomfortable I would personally be, as a non-white person, sitting in that meeting. Like, what am I supposed to do with that information? Is that how I want to begin my law school experience? My first year was a decade ago, before this stuff, but I'm having a hard time imagining how I would have developed the close relationships I did starting things off on this foot. Like, how do you go and talk about getting a recommendation from a professor after that? In the last year or so, I have also had people stop in the middle of a conversation to "defer to my lived experience." This happened yesterday in the middle of discussing bribery culture in Bangladesh. Literally, the conversation ended with the other person saying "you must be right because of your experience." I know the academic sources of these concepts and appreciate their value in the appropriate contexts. And I really do appreciate the need for diversity training in general, objective discussions about implicit bias, looking at recruiting pipelines to enhance diversity, etc. But does anyone actually want to be subjected to treatment like this in day-to-day settings? People of color want to live normal lives too, and fit in just like everyone else. To me, this comes across as hostile and alienating. (I showed this to my mom, explaining to her the context. She responded: “It is scary totally, to see people are writing it on the paper. Means There is no breaking point anymore. This America is not that same America when we came.”)
- causality0 6y agoNothing exists in a vacuum. For example. if you create a system that weights student university acceptance by race you create a student body full of asian kids who know they're probably smarter than their peers and black kids who know they probably scored academically lower than their peers. I can't imagine how intimidating and isolating that knowledge would be. I was no academic star in college but at least I knew I passed the same standards as everybody else.
- raxxorrax 6y agoI have a stronger opinion on this. I think "diversity training" to be very counter productive. I belong to a minority by ethnicity but I don't give a shit about it. I wuold just swallow crappy training like this, proponents just seem to live in a different reality and lack perspective and experience in my opinion so I would indeed disengage them. No real patience for people trying to make being oppressed a virtue, when people could have the ability to just leave that baggage behind. Not really interested to pander to mid-life or teenage crisis of some people that think they need to educate the peasants. These people are not an inch less dogmatic than some priests, so I don't see much room for discussion. I do think they are even a factor in rising right wing parties.
- rbecker 6y ago> A common effect I've observed is that diversity training often seems to trigger defensive behavior. > During a Zoom meeting with hundreds of students, the interim dean and dozens of other faculty and administrators each declared they were "a racist" and "a gatekeeper of white supremacy." Historically, accusing a whole ethnic group of being inherently guilty of some great evil (e.g. racism), has worked out less than great for that group, so it's hardly surprising they'd be defensive.