Posted by
Ron on Wednesday, July 12, 2006 12:30:36 PM
This is my first official post. I submitted this
as an article to National Review Online for their consideration, but I
haven't heard from them yet. It's not like this is the only one sent to
them. So not knowing when they would respond, I decided to go ahead and
post it here. As always, I welcome your comments. Let me know what you
think.
Ron
On Being Diversity Neutral
I spent the first nineteen years of my career at a large
multinational, multibillion dollar, multi-thousand employee company. In the
early years, it was the epitome of a performance-driven company. One could
start anywhere and go anywhere based on one’s ability to execute and contribute
on behalf of the business. Secretaries became vice presidents. Software
developers became Group Executives. It felt wide-open, bare-knuckled, and
no-holds barred. The esprit-de-corps was remarkable, and each of us felt that
we were part of something unique, special. The only factor determining your
success was your willingness to work hard and your ability to succeed. And that
was my experience for my first several years at the company. It was an exciting environment, and I loved it.
And then the politically correct forces of the times
arrived, and the company caved. Diversity awareness set in. The company began
offering classes on diversity to increase employees’ awareness of other
ethnicities and their cultures, and sensitivity to same. I had mixed emotions
about it at best. And sure enough, shortly after this process began, my low expectations
were confirmed. I was speaking to a friend in the company who had attended the
diversity class. If he wasn’t aware of the stereotypes of Mexicans before the
class, he certainly was now. I can’t say he was better off for it. In the
course of discussing the class, his eyes widened slightly, as if really seeing
me for the first time: “You’re a Mexican, aren’t you?” Um, yes, at least I was
the last time I checked. And I was fairly certain I was a Mexican the last time
we had talked, before he had taken the diversity class. I recognized that now
my ethnicity mattered, whereas before the only thing that mattered was how I
treated people and the results I was able to achieve through my work. That’s
what my parents had always taught me. I disliked the change immediately.
For the first time in my career, people began to notice the
fact that I was an American of Mexican descent. I always knew I was a Mexican,
but never thought about it very much. What difference did it make? So what?
Wasn’t I still a human being first? Wasn’t it the content of my character that
mattered? Wasn’t it my ability and willingness to work that mattered? Why,
then, was I now being at least partially judged by the color of my skin? All of
a sudden people I knew were noting that I was, in fact, a Mexican. Many of my more
astute colleagues and friends had already recognized this fact, of course, but
now I felt somewhat like a novelty instead of a person.
I didn’t ask for it, and I didn’t want it, and I still don’t.
It was forced on me. This new “sensitivity” immediately threw everything into
question. Now, was I being promoted because I was effective, or partly or only because
I was a Mexican? I found it irritating, unnecessary, and insulting. I didn’t
need a break, I could compete with anyone. And if someone was a better
contributor than me, then that’s the way it was. I didn’t want a “Mexican
dividend.” If I was promoted, I wanted it to be based solely on my
contributions. Now I felt that whenever I was promoted people would always
question whether or not my ethnicity contributed to the decision. Gross.
Then I saw a different aspect of this thinking revealed to
me, which I had in no way considered and in fact would not have even occurred
to me at the time. I was attending a company-mandated class designed to evolve
the nature of the company from a competitive, aggressive posture, to one which
operated under a more sensitive, “kinder, gentler” environment. Diversity was a
key component of the class. The company was sending all of its leaders to the
class, as leadership basically drives the environment of a workplace. At the
end of the first day of class, the instructors showed the movie The Color of Fear. It is a very
powerful film about the state of race relations in America
as seen through the eyes of eight North American men of African, Asian,
European, and Latino descent. In a series of emotional and dramatic
confrontations the men reveal the pain and scars that racism (or their
perception thereof) has caused them. On the flipside, however, the movie could
be perceived as six guys of color verbally beating up on one white guy (the
other white guy was gay; he seemed to escape the bulk of the assaults), who
really had nothing to do with creating the social systems that led to racism.
He was just a convenient punching bag. The film, nonetheless, was very
powerful.
The following morning the class discussed the film, several
of us sharing our personal experience with it. I shared with the group that
though I understood and was sympathetic to the perspectives of the Latino men
in the film, I didn’t see things the same way they did. I had different ideas.
I didn’t want everyone assuming I thought the same way they did simply because
I shared the same skin color. If all the white people in the room were getting
their first cracks at understanding diversity, then I wanted them to understand
that there were diverse thoughts within the same ethnic groups, much as there
is vast diversity of thought within whites.
Another person shared, then the next person (whose name I
will withhold to protect the guilty) volunteered that she was “ashamed of the
company for showing this film with no people of color in the room.” I was, in
fact, the only person of color in the room. She caught herself, looked at me,
and said, “Well, you don’t count, Ron, because you’re diversity neutral because you espouse white male views.” I was so
floored that I didn’t know whether to burst out laughing or whether to publicly
humiliate her for the hypocrisy, arrogance, and presumption of her thinking. I
just responded that she, nor anyone else, could limit my ethnic diversity
simply because I didn’t think the way she expected a Mexican to think.
So there you have it. It was my first exposure to the line
of thinking (and this from a white woman, as if she would know how a Mexican should
or would think) that one’s race only counts if one possesses a particular ideology.
If a person of color has conservative convictions, they won’t be called racist
themselves, but they will not really be ethnic because they have adopted conservative
American values, such as hard work, independence, self-reliance, and the love
of freedom. I find this to be one of the most insidious, arrogant, and
presumptuous lines of thinking I’ve ever encountered, and in itself is an
insidious form of racism.
At some point in the near future this line of thinking will
no longer be viewed as credible (which means that liberals will continue with
it for years to come). People of color are being appointed and elected to some
of the highest leadership positions in the nation. The hypocrisy of race-card
wielding ethnic leaders campaigning against and attacking ethnic conservative leaders,
and in fact promoting white leaders running against them, exposes that race no
longer matters to them, only ideology. Or, they view only one ideology as being
useful to their race. This can only last so long before it collapses under its
own weight. Either way, this behavior and line of thinking contributes to the
dilution of the power of the race card, something one would think ethnic
leaders would want to avoid.
So all this having been said, I think for virtually my
entire career my race hasn’t mattered one way or the other. If it has, I’m
unaware of it. I’ve never in any form tried to exploit it. The notion that I
need help or that I need a spot reserved for me because I’m a Mexican makes me
sick. My parents worked hard to give me a better life, as their parents did
before them (they emigrated to the U.S.
from Mexico).
They taught me right from wrong, personal responsibility and accountability,
and the fact that I was going to have to earn my way through this life. They
never ever suggested that anyone owed me anything, and never did they suggest
that I should look to the government for help. So I just go about the business
of providing for and raising my family the best I know how. If I wanted to be
in a majority population, so to speak, I suppose I could immigrate to Mexico,
assuming they’d want me or have me. After all, I wouldn’t be considered
diversity neutral there. But all in all, I think I’ll take my chances here.