Someone (maybe you) attending the meeting at your place of servitude should have distributed the "Bullshit Bingo" cards (there are various games for various kinds of 'sensitivity' and 'diversity' "training").

Someone should also have offered the white person who thinks that their whiteness is harmful to others a cyanide pill and advised them to "do the right thing".

I thought that this kind of nonsense was quarantined in institutions of "higher learning". Sadly, it appears that the disease has followed graduates out into their places of employment. (I gather that you work at a NGO or a non-profit. Most capitalists, a cursed lot, wouldn't waste company time on this crap.).

It’s not anything one can isolate as active or conscious discrimination - rather it’s the little things that add up: the flash of body language, sideways glance or facial expression that we hardly realise we’re even doing, that we may suddenly be conscious of and chastise ourselves for, then dismiss as too small to be noticed. These little interactions are felt more than consciously noticed, but they all inform our shared conceptual systems, in particular the affective response we have to our conceptual identity: the value and significance we attribute to who we are. — Possibility

This is an interesting point, and there was an incident in the meeting where one minority person had to wait a bit to be able to have their say, so another minority called out the white people for that as a point of hypocrisy. But my interpretation was that it was because he was on the other side of the room. And there was a white woman who had to wait as well, but for some reason that didn't count.

So then all the white people started immediately pointing out whenever a minority had something to say right way. Which prompted a third minority person to say that the whole thing was silly, and to realize that minorities have a conditioned response to interpreting things that way.

Who knows the truth of that. There was a separate meeting where the female manager got angry because the males on the phone didn't let her interrupt them, but they did let another male interrupt. So was that sexism, did they not hear her (his voice was deeper and a bit louder), were they not ready to be interrupted? Who the fuck knows. My problem is the automatic assumption of sexism or racism in these situations where you really don't know someone's intention.

Another thing that bothers me with this is so what if strangers glance at you sideways or move a little out of the way? It's not entirely unique to minorities. I've had women cross the street when they saw me. Maybe it was because I was male. Maybe it was because they needed to be on the other side. Who knows. Should it be something to get upset about? Certainly random strangers have given me weird or grumpy looks or turned away when I tried to say hi on occasion. Again who knows why. Does it matter?

There's a clear difference between someone spitting on you and calling you a racist, sexist, homophobic word, and someone moving out of their way or looking at you wrong. It's just a fact of life that not everyone is going to be pleased to see you, for whatever reason, which could be many. So should we be that sensitive about everything?

I could be missing out on the bigger picture, if all the little things daily add up to a clear pattern that I don't experience. But part of me is like what the fuck can you really expect of people?

Most capitalists, a cursed lot, wouldn't waste company time on this crap. — Bitter Crank

A quintessential bitter crank comment. Love it.

So any meeting where the assumption is one party should not exist is a ridiculous meeting. Or where one party is considered damaging to life, per se. — Coben

That is correct, but it was only one person, they're not upper management. And the two diversity trainers didn't say that. What they said is we all have our own lived experiences, and if you don't have the lived experience of whatever marginalized group, then you don't know what that's like to be that group.

People are weak to require a mask on the truth!

Your workplace is imperfect, and your boss's mind is imperfect.

I actually think this is brilliant what you wrote here. I disagree in one core way, but nevertheless let me start with what I agree with. First, I like the implicit philosophy of language issue raised. It reminds me immediately of Reddy's Conduit Metaphor:
http://www.reddyworks.com/the-conduit-metaphor/original-conduit-metaphor-article
The idea being that we conceive of language as containing information. We put ideas in language, send the language like a container for language to the other person and they unpack it (hence conduit). That this model underlies a lot of our metaphors and hence assumptions about language and at best this is limiting, at worst misleading.

You are suggesting that the workers take the idea about white people as eliciting truth or information rather than containing, and move forward in a charitable outlook, using this experience as part of their own growth.

Lovely.

And since they are forced to participate, most likely, I think this is a good suggestion.

My disagreement comes in for a couple of reasons: 1) the idea that white people per se do harm, iow by existing they do harm, is coming from employers. The employers have power over those employees and already are enacting something that parallels what minorities go through. It would be one thing if in an early part of a confrontation or dialogue with a black person, say, this idea came up. Here the white person has the option to leave and can also take the statement as expressive, as eliciting, much more easily. Well, this guy is talking to me, so let's see where there goes. The context can have an implicit, there is more going on here, and since I am talking to you, having a discussion, I likely also have other ideas - such as that this need not be permanent. Workplaces passing memes is both a situation of power imbalance and a context where things are to be taken literally. IOW they function along the lines of what Reddy is saying is a limited view of communication. It would be confused to take them as eliciting experiences. And what they are doing is wrong, even if they have good intentions, if they have them. A lot of people confuse guilt with good intentions. 2) a couple of reactions can take place at once. One reaction can be to the meme as it is presented and as presented by a not fully competent place of employment. The other reaction can be a making the best of it and following what you are suggesting. IOW the person can both react extremely negatively to what an employer is doing AND also participate in the mandatory dialogue considering the information as a useful trigger. It's not either or, but kudos to you for coming up with a way to, I think, add in an extra way to learn from the experience.

I think the contexts of these ideas are very important. See my post at the end of page 1 and then the one just before your post to see some of my thinking on this.

I was once in a position where I was at a workshop as part of staff development. There was a workshop leader who was teaching us about the symptoms and experience of those who had undergone sexual abuse as children. She was a radical feminist (as were many on the faculty, that is my peers, and said she was going to use gender specific pronouns. Perps would be referred to as he, victims as she. She knew as a professional in the field that either of those pronouns could well not be the case, and in fact my personal experience was the precise opposite, my own childhood experience. I knew there was one more person in the room who the presented form was not correct for. I came very close to confronting her because, of course, she kept asking people what they were feeling (lol). But I think I rightly sussed out that there really was only so deep emotional feedback would be welcomed - I confirmed this later when I spoke to her and my supervisor privately.

If attendance was optional, she can go ahead and decide to run her workshops however she likes and it was clear there was a political bent to her approach, and yes, I am aware that males are much more likely to be perpetrators and females are more likely to be the victims. But since we had to attend these meetings, and really it is not their business what we have personally experienced - iow I chose to explain the problem by referring to my own case rather than simply in the abstract - she needed to respect our possible situations and use non-gender specific language.

I went one to take what I could from the workshop and set aside the rest. But I also found working at the institution impossible in the long run, partly around issues like this, and despite my considering myself pretty damn feminist and not just 'for a guy'. And heck, I even consider that more or less ok. The amount of professional places of work where women get treated as second class citizens vastly outweighs the opposite. I don't really begrudge them having the few exceptions they have. I don't think it's ideal, but things do not even out all of a sudden everywhere at once.

But it was never a real dialogue with me. It looked like a real dialogue, but it wasn't.

(and just to add to the problems, the faculty and the workshop leader interpreted politically active 'problem' students as showing signs of having been abused. Hence their objections to this or that policy or staff person started being classed as symptoms. This I attacked openly in the meetings. But that's a tangent. Imagine a workshop designed to help teachers deal with students who are sexually abused ending up making the faculty treat valid political positions as symptoms! And even if they were right, in some cases, I couldn't see how being nice and condescending (inside) helped the students. A rational discussion of their complaints, reform demands and suggestions seems vastly better than secretly seeing them as sick. ah, well.)

But anyway, despite the bulk of my reaction being on my disagreement, I thought you made an excellent point in a clear way.

*edit - just found out the situation was not as polarized as I understood it to be from the OP. But I think the issue was still worth diving into under my misunderstanding of the specific case.

Oh, well that's not a problem then. I stand by my reaction to the position, but I get now that it doesn't apply to the situation you were in as a whole.

The two presenters spoke of causing harm during the workshop. Someone mentioned how we need to be careful not to create a safe space for the oppressors. The goal of the presenters in doing these workshops is to demolish white supremacy, the patriarchy and any other social structures that create inequality. By "white supremacy", they mean whiteness. — Marchesk

Does supremacy = majority? Were they aware that there are simply more whites than blacks and that it would be logical that more whites would be in positions of power than blacks? There is simply a larger pool of potential workers that are white and trying to hire an equal number of blacks would be difficult and misrepresenting the local population. What exactly are they advocating? Genocide?

I wonder if China and African countries hold these types of meetings in their workplaces. Americans are so stupid.

One person spoke to all the white people, explaining how it's difficult to acknowledge that their existence as a white person was harmful to others, — Marchesk

Guaranteed that no one who is part of a diversity training program said this

Guaranteed that no one who is part of a diversity training program said this — Maw

I didn't say they were, did I now? I said one person in the room said it. A white employee. A lot of contentious things were said by different employees. The two diversity trainers were just stating what the focus of the worksop would be and their experience as trainers, and then were open to questions, and that's when things got interesting.

Does supremacy = majority? — Harry Hindu

Pretty much that was laid out in the intro, and majority means any group that has power over other groups. So you could be in the majority in some cases, and the minority for others. The stated goal is to move toward an equal society with no groups in power.

But our focus is to be race.

That's not what majority means; nor supremacy.

That's not what majority means; nor supremacy. — Qwex

To be more precise, the explanation was that majority populations for things like race, gender and orientation have had the power to oppress the other groups, and setup society to benefit the majority more so than others. However, the majority tends to not recognize how things continue to be that way, so it can be uncomfortable for the majority to confront the accounts of lived experience of discrimination form the groups not in power.

Although majority more applies to race than it does patriarchy, since roughly same number of men and women. However, for a trans person ...

My problem is the automatic assumption of sexism or racism in these situations where you really don't know someone's intention. — Marchesk

This ‘permission to be offended’ situation is damaging to unleash onto a work environment. It sounds like they were trying to do too many things at once, and their approach seemed to demonstrate fear on the part of the facilitators more than anything. It’s sounds like an opportunity to create a more inclusive work environment has gone begging here.

On the other hand, this reminds me of those ‘marriage counselling’ sessions you see in movies, where the counsellor has clearly decided who’s the victim and who’s the villain, and effectively facilitates a full-scale, one-sided attack. It’s a scene portrayed specifically from the POV of the villainised hero/heroine, to engage the viewer’s sympathy and support. People tend to see only their own pain, loss and humiliation, particularly in emotionally-charged situations that are facilitated by deliberately disconnected, impartial parties. Your frustration is valid, but I tend to take a one-sided account of such an emotionally-charged situation with a pinch of salt. I’d be interested to hear how minority participants felt about the sessions, particularly if they corroborate your evaluation of certain discussions.

Another thing that bothers me with this is so what if strangers glance at you sideways or move a little out of the way? It's not entirely unique to minorities. I've had women cross the street when they saw me. Maybe it was because I was male. Maybe it was because they needed to be on the other side. Who knows. Should it be something to get upset about? Certainly random strangers have given me weird or grumpy looks or turned away when I tried to say hi on occasion. Again who knows why. Does it matter? — Marchesk

I think the fact that you don’t have a clear prediction of motivation for their response to you is at least part of the difference. When it happened, you clearly noticed - it was unusual enough to warrant your attention. Can you imagine if it wasn’t so unusual? If it was such a commonplace occurrence that it no longer deserved your conscious attention? And if you’d worked out the most likely reason common to all of these occurrences - even if it was simply the fact people think you look hideous (hypothetically speaking)? Then should it be something to get upset about? Would you get upset anyway?

What about if your workplace gave you permission to be offended by it? Would it matter then if all, most or even ANY of those occurrences happened at work? To be honest, probably not. Something that has been niggling away at your subconscious, quietly frustrating your efforts to feel like you matter, building tiny, insignificant experiences on top of each other - that something is suddenly validated as ‘worth being offended at’ by those in your life who appear to have the most power - your employer. Does that matter? How do you think you would you read your ‘majority’ coworkers’ frustration at this news?

There's a clear difference between someone spitting on you and calling you a racist, sexist, homophobic word, and someone moving out of their way or looking at you wrong. It's just a fact of life that not everyone is going to be pleased to see you, for whatever reason, which could be many. So should we be that sensitive about everything? — Marchesk

If someone being spat on or called racist words was occurring in your workplace, that would warrant a different response by management than a diversity workshop, don’t you think?

I could be missing out on the bigger picture, if all the little things daily add up to a clear pattern that I don't experience. But part of me is like what the fuck can you really expect of people? — Marchesk

It sucks that you felt villainised. It’s a crap feeling, but it’s one that some people experience every time they walk out the door. Be thankful that you can post your frustration here and almost guarantee sympathy and support - that your experience won’t be trivialised as being overly sensitive about something that isn’t that big of a deal.

It sucks that you felt villainised. It’s a crap feeling, but it’s one that some people experience every time they walk out the door. Be thankful that you can post your frustration here and almost guarantee sympathy and support - that your experience won’t be trivialised as being overly sensitive about something that isn’t that big of a deal. — Possibility

I'm questioning where the line is between clear discrimination, and inferred discrimination because of all the little things. As I said, one minority person in the meeting did say regarding the being ignored incident that people with those experiences are conditioned to interpret things that way, and the white response to immediately try and recognize them after that was the wrong way to go about this whole thing. Probably for several reasons, one being that the white people are acting too anxious not to appear racist, which doesn't accomplish anything.

But I'm mostly annoyed with the white people who spoke up during that meeting. This was the only minority statement (the one about the person being ignored being hypocritical on the white people's part). But I think perhaps this person was annoyed with the meeting in general, and just was expressing their frustration, and were using that as an example.

This ‘permission to be offended’ situation is damaging to unleash onto a work environment. It sounds like they were trying to do too many things at once, and their approach seemed to demonstrate fear on the part of the facilitators more than anything. It’s sounds like an opportunity to create a more inclusive work environment has gone begging here. — Possibility

Yeah, I don't think they were quite prepared for the employee response. But maybe next time.

Heck, I used to know a Navy seal that told stories of picking fights with those "jarheads" (Marines). — ZhouBoTong

A different kettle of fish.

Don't think that that counts as racism. Fairly common in the military. They all have nicknames for one another. Terms of endearment. Trust me on that. Those guys are bands of brothers. Brothers in arms. That's bestowing impressive amounts of trust upon another human being.

This makes me think of, "violence can stop violence, but violence can never create lasting peace". This seems absolutely true and seems the same type of statement that you are making (do you agree or is it different for some reason?). — ZhouBoTong

A bit more nuanced in some ways, perhaps... Very similar to what followed, as copied below...

However, does this really teach us to never stop violence with violence? Notice it does not, as immediate violence must often be met with immediate violence for short term well-being. — ZhouBoTong

In certain situations this holds good. I would agree.

One will not consider long term well-being when they do not even have it in the short term.

The above seems somehow amiss. As if all well-being is thought of in both long and sort term, as if there is always a difference between the two. As if one cannot think of long term stability while in times of strife.

I will not go as far as saying "we should use racism to combat racism"...but since I have not seen any great examples as to how to end racism, I am not immediately offended by the attempt. — ZhouBoTong

Ending racism is the goal. We can use racism without being racist. We can use racism without succumbing to the same types of irrational thinking. We can use racism without being guilty of devaluing an entire group of people based upon the color of their skin alone. Being racist is judging an entire group of people based upon the racial category in a very specific way; the devaluation of the group and all individuals within it simply because they are part of the group.

We can use racism to show it's failings and unnecessary harm and long term damage that ensues from it... all the while... not being racist.

Like Mandela, and alluding to what you mentioned earlier regarding using violence to stop violence...

I too find that there are situations and circumstances where violence is necessary. I do not find that it is necessary to end racism by being racist or by further perpetuating that sort of thought and belief about others and/or the subsequent following resultant racist behaviour...

Violence is not necessary here and now...

We are all directly and indirectly influenced by virtue of being born into a society. We all adopt our first ideology and/or basic world-view. This is true of everyone. Everyone deserves a certain modicum of respect and value simply because they are human, and we are all interdependent social creatures by our very nature. We all live in a community where each of us can have some degree of affect/effect upon others within that community, whatever it's scope.

One who does not genuinely care about another's life, well-being, happiness, and/or general livelihood cannot be granted tremendous power over that person, for they cannot be trusted to act on their behalf by keeping their best interest in mind.

(I gather that you work at a NGO or a non-profit. Most capitalists, a cursed lot, wouldn't waste company time on this crap.).

You'd be surprised. Woke capitalism is good money.

Capitalism's boundless talent to take anything and use it for marketing.

Guaranteed that no one who is part of a diversity training program said this
— Maw

I didn't say they were, did I now? I said one person in the room said it. A white employee. — Marchesk

I also came away with the same impression as Maw and that was the source of my suspicion earlier. I’m glad to hear that wasn’t the official message of the meeting but just someone’s interpretation of it, and thank you for clarifying that.

Unfortunately “majority” does seem to be used in sociology to mean something other than its literal meaning, such as when women are considered a minority group despite the fact that there are slightly more women than men. I prefer “advantaged” and “disadvantaged” instead, but nobody writing professionally cares what I think.

Nice eye.

Straight majorities and masculine majorities exist.

One person spoke to all the white people, explaining how it's difficult to acknowledge that their existence as a white person was harmful to others, but this was an important issue to deal with. — Marchesk

this is simply untrue, and by coincidence is racist, it would be like pulling aside a group of black people and telling them that their existence, as black people was naturally harmful to white people. For something to be racist it does not have to be doe against a minority, just against a person based only on their skin color, racism can affect white people and sexism can affect men. And even beside that point a white person is not naturally racist and only causes harm to black people by accident, coincidence or a mere mistake, assuming that this person is not racist.

I also came away with the same impression as Maw and that was the source of my suspicion earlier — Pfhorrest

I probably phrased it in a more provocative way that sounded like that.

Anyway, I'm not sold on everything the actual diversity trainers said, but they were certainly respectful, and said we all have our own lived experiences, we need to be aware that people have different ones.

this is simply untrue, and by coincidence is racist, — sarah young

I don't agree with her obviously, but to be charitable, maybe she meant that the racial category of being white is founded on racism, and those implicit biases of that categorization influence people in society to think in biased ways. therefore all the subtle discrimination another poster brought up, that white people aren't even aware of doing. So she, identifying as a white person, embodies those racist assumptions.

Of course it's society that created and maintained the racial categories, and we're all just born into it, so it's not like you can just call yourself ex-white or pinkish and have anyone else accept that. I think that's what the criticism of whiteness is about, not the amount of pigmentation in your skin, or what continent your ancestors came from.

Perhaps the speaker is an antinatalist, to whom all existence is harmful, being full of harm, and thinking that white people are less inclined than others to acknowledge this, felt called upon to point out that a person's failure to admit the ubiquity of suffering itself is harmful to those who do.

I don't agree with her obviously, but to be charitable, maybe she meant that the racial category of being white is founded on racism, and those implicit biases of that categorization influence people in society to think in biased ways. therefore all the subtle discrimination another poster brought up, that white people aren't even aware of doing. So she, identifying as a white person, embodies those racist assumptions — Marchesk

Well that would be grouping someone by the color of their skin and telling them they are bad for something they didn't do and have no effect over, so it's pretty racist.

I'm questioning where the line is between clear discrimination, and inferred discrimination because of all the little things. As I said, one minority person in the meeting did say regarding the being ignored incident that people with those experiences are conditioned to interpret things that way, and the white response to immediately try and recognize them after that was the wrong way to go about this whole thing. Probably for several reasons, one being that the white people are acting too anxious not to appear racist, which doesn't accomplish anything. — Marchesk

We don’t like the implication that we’re being ‘racist’ - as I said, it sounds like the concept of ‘racism’ as we collectively understand it was not being addressed in the workshop, but rather an attempt to understand the subjective experience of minorities. I think there’s something about the experience of humiliation and guilt that we’re unwilling to openly express it, too - particularly in a litigious society, or in a workplace where admitting to ‘feeling bad about it’ could compromise one’s strategic political position within the company. To ‘be seen’ as NOT doing what is implied as ‘bad’ seems like a natural response, given the circumstances. I think the most difficult thing about doing this in the workplace is that, even though the managers are not facilitating it, the fact that they’re present doesn’t eliminate the work politics - I think perhaps that’s more what was going on here than a general response to this kind of intervention.

But I'm mostly annoyed with the white people who spoke up during that meeting. This was the only minority statement (the one about the person being ignored being hypocritical on the white people's part). But I think perhaps this person was annoyed with the meeting in general, and just was expressing their frustration, and were using that as an example. — Marchesk

I don’t know - I think as ‘white people’ that expressing this feeling of humility is important. I see humility as simply a recognition that where we are is not where we believe we could be. It’s part of life, like pain and loss, and more of a sign that we’re making progress than you might think. Experiences like pain, loss and humiliation are shared experiences of human beings - regardless of whether we’re rich or poor, black or white, minority or majority, we ALL have these experiences. What gets our attention is seeing these experiences in the lives of people we’ve been led to believe DON’T suffer like we do: celebrities, the rich and powerful, the majority, etc. The sense of schadenfraude this realisation elicits is just mis-conceptualised - it’s actually compassion: ‘suffering with’. It’s quite normal to feel a sense of ‘joy’ that we’re not the only ones who feel humiliated by the cognitive dissonance between our perception of the ‘racial situation’ and the experienced reality. I don’t want to make assumptions, but I think perhaps this might be the main reason the minorities were mostly silent - and the one comment you mention may have simply been someone conscious of an imbalance in contributors and trying to make sense of it.

I think when it’s done properly, reaching this point of shared humility allows us to see the problem as one of shared conceptual systems that we can effectively rewrite by listening to each other with our defences down.

Will people always devalue other humans based upon insufficient evidence and irrational reasoning?

Probably.

That doesn't mean that we ought not do everything we can do to eliminate such.

Right? — creativesoul

I am questioning what that would look like?

Is the person that said (something like) "all white people are harmful just for being white" thinking right? Shouldn't they be killing themselves if they actually believe that? And yet the type of person to spew that garbage would always see themselves as part of the solution, not the problem (despite using words that define themselves as THE problem). What are the chances of straightening out that type of thinking? Can someone like that be convinced to think something else? Probably. But will they actually be thinking better? Understanding better? Or are they just blindly believing the "right" thing now?

I think when it’s done properly, reaching this point of shared humility allows us to see the problem as one of shared conceptual systems that we can effectively rewrite by listening to each other with our defences down. — Possibility

Well said.

I fear your reaction here is exactly that they were describing.

Usually, a very literal account is in play with these sort of statements. What does it mean for a white person to harm other racial minorities? How does the particular social construction of “whiteness” manifest? In the existence of white people, that’s to say, their particular existence in a social context of white supremacy is how these particular harms are occurring to non-white minorities. Who are actors of harm in these situations? Existing white people (amongst many other too, but here we are speaking of harms formed by a presence of white people and the social context of their supremacy).

White people have difficult recognising what their own existence involves, which I suspect the diversity training is talking about here. Can one recognise the harms committed by the existence (or rather presence if you prefer) of white people under a white supremacy? Even if it might be no particular fault of their own.

Economic inequality, for example, is a harm towards a racial minority. It is present in the existence of white people in the given white supremacy. Yet, it was never the fault of the white baby born into wealth. It’s not really even the fault of a given white man, certain conditions excepting. But it is nevertheless a harm formed in the existence of the social order and its people. It does not have to be intentional. In some cases, it doesn’t have to any specific action you took. We are born into a social context, our existence has a significance beyond what intend or even do ourselves. A person might not be morally blame worthy in these situations (e.g. a white person born into a rich white family), but it is still an existence with significance .

The more personal level of harm, in which a white person might be morally blameworthy, also tends to run concurrently. In our society it is highly likely an individual has engaged in some instance of racial harm on an individual level, some feeling of disgust or disrupt there, a dismissal there, an off colour joke there, some sort of assumed expectation of “whiteness” at some point. To insist one couldn’t have been anything of those things, that their existence they did not ever engage in any of those harms seems extremely unlikely to say the least. The idea seems to be to put one (the existence of a white person), beyond any possibility of engaging in those harms.

It’s ever unsettling truth in the context of these race issues: “whiteness” is the villain. On some level recognising issues of white supremacy means taking issue with many aspects of how white people exist, including some base assumptions they make about their own identity. It means understanding one’s group, oneself, to be villainous on one level or another. Particularly difficult because it's running headfirst into some of the most basic assumptions about individuals we make in our culture. We tell ourselves everyone is a free blank slate, without relations or impacts upon others unless we choose it.