DELDOT’s Diversity Training Snafu Gets the (Falling) Star Treatment from AmericaBlog
‘Bulo actually shares John Aravosis’ sense that DELDOT was trying to do the right thing, but it all just went horriblyhorribly wrong.
Perhaps some PR muckitymuck should have suggested that stringing together offensive stereotypes and then saying ‘don’t do this’ might lead to some embarrassing moments.
And perhaps Aravosis, who runs one of America’s best blogs, would be more understanding if he knew some of the people for whom the warnings were designed as well as some people in DELDOT do.
Still, his question deserves considered answers:
Having said all of that, I feel a bit bad for these folks. They were trying to do good. And I could honestly see someone being stupid enough to say a lot of these things for real. So the warnings are valid. But still. What do you think – does it go too far, even though it’s simply warning people what NOT to do?
So answer it.
Tags: Delaware, Workplace Ettiquette
I was hoping that this would not go national. Oh well.
Reading it now I see that there was no way that it would not go viral.
Fried chicken? C’mon.
When I read this earlier this week my first thought was that DelDot used actual offensive examples they’ve encountered at their workplace. Still… ouch!
I actually had a similar experience with diversity training when I was just entering grad school. All T.A.s had to take this training. We had to break into small groups and come up with the negative stereotypes for different groups. My group has “Jewish people.” The strange thing was I didn’t know any stereotypes until that session, so I’m not sure if it was the right thing to do. I don’t really think it’s a great idea to teach people the negative stereotypes but I guess the purpose was teach them so we could avoid hurting people’s feelings?
Diversity training is a tough thing and often done by organizations to build some credit for trying to establish a tolerant tone in the workplace. They do it because they get the rumblings of a potential problem that can turn to litigation. They hope the training and other actions can convince folks that they really tried to make the place more welcoming.
Bulo is right about this:
would be more understanding if he knew some of the people for whom the warnings were designed as well as some people in DELDOT do.
…although I don’t know that much about DelDOT, I do know that there are still plenty of people in this world who do not know that there are things you don’t want to say to co-workers if you want to keep up a functioning team. The bad part of this is that there is a decent subset of the do not know crowd who just don’t want to know and who will try to bluster their way through life trying to deride “Political Correctness”.
The bad part of this is that there is a decent subset of the do not know crowd who just don’t want to know and who will try to bluster their way through life trying to deride “Political Correctness”.
OK – let’s leave Hube out of this.
“I was hoping that this would not go national.”
http://www.belch.com/blog/2009/05/05/adventures-in-diversity-training/