When my late father was a child, growing up in the working class neighborhoods of St. Louis, Missouri, he actually knew kids nicknamed Stinky, Shorty, and Fatty. He would mention this from time to time, so one day I asked my Dad why did these kids have these names?
He replied: because they were stinky, short, and fat.
In his childhood, the obvious was acknowledged and no one tiptoed around it. There are just certain things that are different about all of us, from our hygiene to our height to our body mass. We notice these things immediately, just like we notice gender and skin color.
The difference between then and now is that in the 1930s Stinky, Shorty, and Fatty were just nicknames but today, these names would be considered at the very least “politically incorrect” and at the very worst, hate crimes.
Hence, the problem I see with the decades old “diversity movement”: if you can’t state the obvious differences between people because it is now considered unacceptable to do so, how can you truly create a diverse community, whether socially or in the workplace?
If you act like everyone is the same, and make it unacceptable to discuss the differences, then where is the diversity?
To really embrace diversity, you must first identify and acknowledge what is different. Then, you have to be able to discuss it and acknowledge it. By doing so, we learn not just about someone else, but about ourselves.
Many times, by discussing what is different, we find our commonalities. We see that we share backgrounds, attitudes, likes, and dislikes. And, if we find we don’t have a lot in common, we can at least learn something new. But this only happens if we are free to discuss it.
Earlier this fall I participated in a Diversity Roundtable with a group of about 15 people. The host is writing a book on diversity, and this was the first in a series of roundtables organized for the purpose of gathering information.
Despite the fact that this was supposed to be a “safe place” to have a “frank and open discussion,” I was chastised several times for pointing out differences that I had seen first-hand in different types of people. For example, people in the Midwest view the world differently than people on either the West or East Coast. How do I know this? I grew up there.
Having visited Paris, France, years ago, I mentioned at another point in the discussion that the French approach social interactions differently than Americans. Someone in the room chastised me for stating this because when I said “the French” he heard “those French people”! Fortunately, someone else in the room had lived in France for a time and said that I had a valid observation.
I found this attitude extremely disappointing as it reminded me of the fairy tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” It was quite obvious that the Emperor didn’t have any clothes on at all, but because the people around him were under peer pressure to pretend they could see the clothes, no one stated what was right in front of them. Today, political correctness and “sensitivity training” pressure us to pretend we don’t see something that is right in front of us. It diminishes us because we are pressured to ignore the many facets that make an individual the person they are.
True diversity is not about head counts based on gender, race, religion, or age, which unfortunately is the approach taken by too many organizations. True diversity is about so much more: the creation of a vibrant community through the blending of the varied education, cultural backgrounds, experiences, talents, and skills of a group of individuals.
But until we get back to the place where it is okay to acknowledge that some of us need a bath, some of us are vertically challenged, and some of us are heavier than others, we will never arrive at the place of true acceptance of each other – with all our faults and all our glories – because we will never really see each other.
