Why Diversity Training and Awareness is Important

Recently, my roommate's teaching assistant (TA) received quite a bit of attention.  He sent an email to his supervisor explaining why he refused to attend further Diversity Training sessions required by the University of Wisconsin - Madison for TAs.  I found his explanation quite frustrating.  The reason why he gained some notoriety (and why I could even read said email) was due to the fact that he included some conservative news/blog outlets in the correspondence.  I don't want to go into too much detail regarding this email because I did not attend these sessions so I do not want to assume.  The only thing I would like to say before continuing on is that whether you approve of someone's characteristics you shouldn't cause significant damage.  Calling a transgender student by the wrong pronouns harms said student.  Perhaps without diversity training you might not realize the consequences of your actions because it wouldn't harm you.  People come from different schema and it isn't unexpected for you to step on a few metaphorical toes if you aren't aware of your surroundings.  For example, in some cultures showing the bottom of your shoe is offensive.  In my culture that isn't offensive, so I could unintentionally offend someone.  I've had moments in my life where someone unintentionally was rude or racist towards me.  I understood that it wasn't their intention so I tried to brush it off, but it doesn't take away from how it made me feel.  Most of these occurrences were in Japan.  Japanese people don't typically deal with people from other cultures, so I expected as much.  But that doesn't mean that Japanese people should just ignore the issue.  It is one of the major reasons why I wouldn't want to live in Japan for over five years.  Why would I want to live in a society that keeps on stepping on my metaphorical toes and doesn't bother to say they are sorry?

What really motivated to write this was that two of my friends were talking about an ethnic studies class that I had previously taken (and recommended) and that one of them is currently attending.  (The University of Wisconsin - Madison has an ethnic studies credit requirement for undergraduates.)  They both were complaining about being called racist.  Now, whenever I hear these type of statements it makes me cringe.  I do have to mention that my friend has a different TA than I had, and that based on the things I've heard he does a poor job.  You often hear the term white privileged in relation to complaints about being called a racist.  I doubt that my roommate's TA and my friend are being called racist.  I'm curious as to why when other people think they are being called racist I have a completely different perception.  When I tried to explain institutionalized racism (stop-and-frisk) to one of my friends (a conservative republican) I felt like I wasn't getting my point across efficiently.  (This was inbetween classes so I had little time to challenge her perception.)  I gave her a different example of institutionalized racism, acceptation rates for minorities compared to Caucasians.  Another example is that in human resources (HR) you need to avoid bias.  There are two types of bias: disparate treatment and disparate impact.  Disparate treatment is treating applicants or employees differently because of their membership in a protected class.  Disparate impact is when using a seemingly neutral employment practice that has unjustified adverse impact on members of a protected class, EVEN IF UNINTENTIONAL.  See institutional bias doesn't necessarily mean you are biased or racist.  Sociology and ethnic studies classes' purpose is to help students notice and critique/ analyze society.  I think that is the difference.  When someone informs me of institutional bias it makes me glad (and I happen to find it fascinating).  Now I know that doing ______ causes __________.  I don't see it as an accusation.  Have you noticed the role women play in films, especially protagonists?  The majority of female protagonists are in romantic comedies where their life revolves around their relationship.  How many movie scenes can you think of where two women with names talk about something besides a guy.  What does this say about women?  Why do we see more words related to emotion when reporting about female politicians than men?  White privilege is bad and it exists.  There are a lot of types of privilege (gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, religious, physical or mental impairment).  By educating ourselves and being able to notice and critique these things on our own we can help to deter bias in society.  I doubt that we can totally erase any form of bias, but the least we can do is try.