Have Diversity Meetings Become A Hostile Environment?

I've attended mandatory diversity and related meetings for several decades now. It began back when my particular otherness was the elephant in the room.

As a young worker, I felt that the business world was trying to find a solution. Even if their assumptions about me were off, the assumptions expressed were at least benign. Decades later, I found myself wondering why this was still a thing. Still, over time, I prepared myself to speak up on behalf of the other presumed elephants in the room - colleagues of Middle Eastern descent who are often maligned for political reasons, sexual minorities, immigrant co-workers - and realized that they were not identified, that "diversity" didn't seem sharply defined anymore . . . that perhaps political correctness had veiled all clarity.

When addressing the racial element of diversity, which is the element most people probably think of as "diversity," it seems that while social change has opened nearly all of America's doors to nonwhites, nonwhites are still not black, while Affirmative Action and "diversity" might still be seen as unresolved, historical, black issues . . .perhaps leaving me as the sole perceived elephant.

A mortifying possibility.

To illustrate, I was a secretary in a law firm some years ago. I was one of three blacks in a mid-sized firm. I had just met a really friendly young office assistant and, as it turns out, her mom headed the accounting team. The mom was "head bookkeeper" until the attorneys changed her title, likely fueled by Affirmative Action, to "comptroller". Her daughter missed the significance of this and, trusting me enough to ask a racially sensitive question, asked me how I felt about Affirmative Action giving me a job.

My point is that the necessity of diversity programs is viewed as the result of a "black problem" that has not changed in people's minds.  Further, I'll hazard a guess that this is why the training only alerts people to what they may say without changing how they actually view their job mates.

This annual repetition - or lack of meaningful repetition with apparently the same desired outcome - has been going on for at least thirty years now. Obviously, it has now failed for three generations of workers. Or has it?

One thought led to another: if the business world considered diversity training a failure, as evidenced by decades of required retraining, apparently to no avail, businesses would have cut their losses long ago. Conversely, if the business world did a headcount of previously vulnerable populations that were now better represented near the ceiling or at least better off in general, they would have deemed the programs unnecessary. Either way, the meetings dredging up vestiges of old stigmas would stop.

So, why didn't the meetings stop?

Why did these meetings continue and then become regular and mandatory?

I started to realize that those meetings' subjects, whether diversity, harassment, or other, intertwined matters, had become an industry in their own right. Somebody was now making money specializing in "diversity".

Did this mean that people were now making money pretending not to point me out?  Inculcated to blend in as much as possible, I was not willing to complain, but I was getting mad . . . and madder.

Since embracing diversity in actual practice is morally right and people are making money off of it, the diversity industry will be staunchly defended if criticized or accused of having shortcomings. Further, the notion of protecting previously vulnerable workers has given way to a newly pressing matter of protecting the employer from expensive, reputation-searing blame.

Under the aforementioned veil, Affirmative Action has now become affirmative defense. While this shift has been occurring, I evolved as well from a worker too embarrassed to make a scene to being afraid to be labeled a troublemaker and having my reputation tarnished for saying I didn't like corporate's tone.

I once spoke with my father, a retired social services executive, about a coworker accused of criticizing our employer. Dad's generation of managers actually had a term for it, "sedition," which was punishable then and apparently still is, although a distinction is now made for whistleblowers.

Compelled to buy into a message that has become more a golden calf than a binding spirit, I resent and dread diversity meetings and do not wish to attend them any more.  What do I find myself doing about it?

As it turns out, the rewards for longevity have changed. Employment is "at will." Although 401(k) vesting schedules may be interrupted, there is likely no pension to be forfeited by leaving, meaning that it's easier to move on materially. Now that I am an older worker and feel as entitled to deeply enjoy my profession as I do to draw good pay, it is also easier to move on emotionally.  And the culture has changed - it has become more acceptable to change jobs if one is "merely" not thriving.

I have now left very good jobs where I did not tell my managers this aspect of why I quit - that I was, very simply, offended at still being a project and making any other issues too much to bear.