Captain Obvious
11-28-2016, 07:20 PM
What the hell is 'diversity training'?
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/11/28/503000392/after-election-diversity-trainers-face-a-new-version-of-us-versus-them
After the election, professional peacemakers may feel they have to work harder to tamp down heightened feelings of "us versus them" in the workplace.
Marcus Butt/Ikon Images/Getty Images
On election night, as it became clear that Donald Trump would be the country's next president, Dorcas Lind was feeling unsettled. With her children tucked in bed, Lind watched as the results trickled in and battleground states like Pennsylvania, Florida and North Carolina turned red on the TV map. She thought about work.
Maybe, she thought, this would be good for business. Or, maybe, it was time for a career change.
Lind is a diversity consultant in the health care industry. It's her job to go into companies and help them create inclusive environments for their employees.
For consultants like Lind, the election's polarizing nature, which especially divided the nation on issues of race, is two-fold. While it means some of their business will almost certainly boom, a new set of challenges emerges for the professional peacemakers. Now, they say, they have to work harder to tamp down heightened feelings of us versus them; they have to hear the concerns of people usually thought of as privileged; and they have to navigate a language minefield where the wrong word can ignite conflict.
Studying the maps of how people voted, Lind was disturbed by the stretch of red in her district, a New Jersey suburb, which she said had once been celebrated for its diversity. Like many others in the business, Lind equated a vote for Trump with a vote for intolerance.
"I thought that my whole career had blown up in front of me," said Lind, who has worked in the field for more than two decades and is founder and president of Diversity Health Communications. "I felt so absolutely overwhelmed with the depth of how much work had to be done. And on the other hand, I felt like I didn't even want to do the work. ... Given the results and how the map looked, I felt my work would be futile."
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/11/28/503000392/after-election-diversity-trainers-face-a-new-version-of-us-versus-them
After the election, professional peacemakers may feel they have to work harder to tamp down heightened feelings of "us versus them" in the workplace.
Marcus Butt/Ikon Images/Getty Images
On election night, as it became clear that Donald Trump would be the country's next president, Dorcas Lind was feeling unsettled. With her children tucked in bed, Lind watched as the results trickled in and battleground states like Pennsylvania, Florida and North Carolina turned red on the TV map. She thought about work.
Maybe, she thought, this would be good for business. Or, maybe, it was time for a career change.
Lind is a diversity consultant in the health care industry. It's her job to go into companies and help them create inclusive environments for their employees.
For consultants like Lind, the election's polarizing nature, which especially divided the nation on issues of race, is two-fold. While it means some of their business will almost certainly boom, a new set of challenges emerges for the professional peacemakers. Now, they say, they have to work harder to tamp down heightened feelings of us versus them; they have to hear the concerns of people usually thought of as privileged; and they have to navigate a language minefield where the wrong word can ignite conflict.
Studying the maps of how people voted, Lind was disturbed by the stretch of red in her district, a New Jersey suburb, which she said had once been celebrated for its diversity. Like many others in the business, Lind equated a vote for Trump with a vote for intolerance.
"I thought that my whole career had blown up in front of me," said Lind, who has worked in the field for more than two decades and is founder and president of Diversity Health Communications. "I felt so absolutely overwhelmed with the depth of how much work had to be done. And on the other hand, I felt like I didn't even want to do the work. ... Given the results and how the map looked, I felt my work would be futile."