Diversity or Cutlure Awareness?
I must admit, I dislike the word “diversity” when linked with “management” or “training.” Diversity training has an ugly sound to it, a bit like racism or prejudice. For an employee required to take diversity training is like being taken to the woodshed or to the concentration camp for re-education. Who wants to sit in a classroom for eight hours being scolded for being ethnically insensitive? How about making training positive instead of negative?
Perhaps a better phrase would be “cultural management/training.” To understand culture is to be aware that every person is framed by a worldview in which they were born. Whether they are brown or black, Protestant or Buddhist, male or female, rich or poor, we all begin the same way, only in a different context.
My dad, now over 86 years old, grew up poor on a farm in Arkansas. His generation went through the Great Depression and World War II. His values, outlook on life, liberty and sense of justice is different, in many ways, from his three sons and seven grandkids. Is his worldview wrong? Some of it is, some of it isn’t. But more than anything else, it’s just different, just like your and my worldview. To understand my father’s generation, or the worldview of Mexican’s, Vietnamese, Germans or the white middle class, we need less diversity training and more cultural awareness training.
Culture is not God’s ugly creation. In fact, culture is like a mountainside where fall leaves of deep orange, red, brown and yellow dot the hillside. Culture is God’s mosaic of people throughout the world. Culture is what brings stunning contrast and magnificence to our world. Rather than look at cultures as something to overcome or adopt, people need to understand the core of culture. When one understands why people see the world the way they do the process of communication, identifying values, and behavior will take place.
It’s true, we live in a world of diversity, but culture awareness focuses on the sameness within different context. It’s not me against them, nor is it me learning to be more like them. Culture awareness is about me learning the positive side of difference so we can work and live together more effectively.
Perhaps a better phrase would be “cultural management/training.” To understand culture is to be aware that every person is framed by a worldview in which they were born. Whether they are brown or black, Protestant or Buddhist, male or female, rich or poor, we all begin the same way, only in a different context.
My dad, now over 86 years old, grew up poor on a farm in Arkansas. His generation went through the Great Depression and World War II. His values, outlook on life, liberty and sense of justice is different, in many ways, from his three sons and seven grandkids. Is his worldview wrong? Some of it is, some of it isn’t. But more than anything else, it’s just different, just like your and my worldview. To understand my father’s generation, or the worldview of Mexican’s, Vietnamese, Germans or the white middle class, we need less diversity training and more cultural awareness training.
Culture is not God’s ugly creation. In fact, culture is like a mountainside where fall leaves of deep orange, red, brown and yellow dot the hillside. Culture is God’s mosaic of people throughout the world. Culture is what brings stunning contrast and magnificence to our world. Rather than look at cultures as something to overcome or adopt, people need to understand the core of culture. When one understands why people see the world the way they do the process of communication, identifying values, and behavior will take place.
It’s true, we live in a world of diversity, but culture awareness focuses on the sameness within different context. It’s not me against them, nor is it me learning to be more like them. Culture awareness is about me learning the positive side of difference so we can work and live together more effectively.
posted by RG Lewis at 6:45 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home