I’m in Stamford, CT for the first day of one of my company’s many mandatory training sessions for their management talent. It is designed to teach us how to be cognizant of the sensitivities of a wide variety of people. That sounds like a worthless course in political correctness, but it really is a valiant attempt to help people understand the affect their actions and words can have on other people, and on their productivity as employees.
The course is based on the teachings of Novations Group (
www.novations.com). It’s not an easy subject. How do you teach someone to be sensitive? You can’t. All you can do is basically present everyone with a dizzying array of examples of the multitude of ways particular situations or comments can be interpreted, and, I believe, the likely result is that someone emerges from such an experience not feeling educated or enlightened, but completely bewildered and confused. This is how the first forays into political correctness created the misunderstandings and sheer animosity surrounding the subject over the past 20 years. Sensitivity isn’t something you can teach or legislate. It’s just something you develop by virtue of who you are and what experiences you have. Sometimes people can help sharpen your awareness by sharing with you or challenging you, but implementing corporate training on the subject is a slippery slope.
I think people, and especially people that manage others in the workplace, have a responsibility to think carefully about the affects of their words and actions. You may think (or maybe not even be aware) you are saying one thing, but what someone is hearing or feeling can be completely different, especially (but not only) if that person is of another gender, race, religion, age, nationality, or socioeconomic background than you.
But by the same token, given that human beings are so diverse, and that they have such a multitude of experiences that lead them to interpret events in different, individual ways, I believe that each of us should take responsibility for the way in which we manage this “incoming content”, so to speak. I am in no way making excuses for ignorant assholes, but one can recognize that there is a certain degree of choice in how we interpret stuff, and one cannot always dump the enormous, complicated can of worms that is how we feel onto the messenger.
This makes me sound like an apologist, but I have a good reason for taking a stand on this – I do it for my own sanity. If I didn’t think this way, I’d walk around being constantly upset and angry, and would probably have been committed by this point. This is because, by virtue of my ambiguous ethnicity, and possibly age and/or socioeconomic background, I am constantly on the receiving end of/privy to eye-poppingly offensive comments and actions. I have no idea why this happens, but I do know that people make a wide variety of assumptions about where I come from and where I’m at, so to speak, and so they seem to be comfortable making comments or doing things that they might otherwise refrain from making/doing if they suspected I wouldn’t be sympathetic to their position.
Put bluntly, in my presence, ever since I could understand spoken words, I’ve heard rich people diss poor people, white people diss black people, young people diss middle aged people, Americans diss foreigners, Hispanics diss Asians, gentiles diss Jews, heterosexuals diss gays, and viceversa (poor people diss rich people, black people diss white people, foreigners diss Americans, etc etc). Like, obviously, directly, to my face. It’s endless, and endlessly disturbing, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what the fuck I did in a previous life to deserve being caught in the middle like this.
The thing that is the most upsetting is that the weirdest, potentially-most-upsetting situations happen with people with whom I am close or whom I would otherwise expect, by virtue of their diverse backgrounds or intelligence or sensitivity/training/education, to FUCKING KNOW BETTER. But out they come, these ridiculous comments. And increasingly, we are trained to think, “Be careful of the ways in which you might offend someone.” Well, fuck that. They’ll never learn. I gotta be careful about the ways in which I interpret things. No one means what they say most of the time. If they did, I just wouldn’t be able to function.
So I’m going to share a few stories tomorrow in our session. I’ll start with one based on something that happened today in class.
We were discussing, as part of the regular course curriculum, the issue of “stereotypes”. Carolyn, our facilitator, had us (the students, about 25) walk about the room and document labels we’ve heard used in reference to certain groups, on gigantic white Post Its. There were a variety of groups listed at the top of each sheet of paper – Native Americans, White People, Hispanics, Smokers, Single Parents, Blondes, Women, Men, you name it. Afterwards, we discussed what we wrote, and how funny and ridiculous stereotypes are, and how they are created and perpetuated.
One of the participants pointed out that most people chose to concentrate on negative stereotypes rather than positive ones, and then this led to a debate about what a “positive” stereotype would be, and if the term “positive stereotype” might be an oxymoron entirely. We talked about how “Gay Men” are “well-groomed” and “sensitive”. We talked about how “Asians” are “smart”. And then I stood up and opened my big mouth.
I get creeped out when people call me “exotic”, and I said so.
Carolyn, our bright, smart, bubbly facilitator from San Diego was like, “Huh? I thought that was a compliment.”
And see, there you have it. She’s the fucking teacher, and she has no clue. To her, “exotic” is a compliment. It means “beautiful”.
To me, “exotic” is something you say about an object (like a hookah) or a wild animal (like a Siberian tiger).
I mean, put yourself in my place. Someone leers or widens their eyes at you, and coos, “you’re so exotic.” It’s usually a man, and there’re usually some opinions mixed in there about my sexual attractiveness, but I get this comment in a platonic context from women and gay men too.
So, although I say,
“Um, thanks!”
What I really want to say is,
“What the fuck?? I’m not a goddamned toucan. I’m not a zebra-skin area rug. Shit. I’m a woman from New Jersey, goddammit.”
But this is incomprehensible to most people. Possibly even to anyone who isn’t me. So what is anyone who looks at me and thinks, “She’s exotic, and I should say so,” to do? Speak up? Shut your mouth and walk away? Think of something else to say, probably something vague and bland (“uh, nice weather we’re having!”)?”
I dunno.
