The euphoria at winning the contract with the State was dimmed somewhat by the knowledge that, as a condition of the contract, I would have to attend a day-long seminar on “Celebrating Diversity in the Workplace.”
The folks attending the seminar were clearly not pleased to be there and at least one would have rather spent the day having a root canal. I know this because a big burly plumbing contractor who looked like Tony Soprano, told me, “I cancelled a root canal to be here. I’d rather have the root canal.”
The Facilitator, (I’m not sure if her name was Wispy or Misty,) looked like an extra from “Little House on the Prairie;” she glided into the room as though she had wheels beneath her ballet slippers and we began.
The objective of the seminar was to learn that “…by celebrating the diversity of others we reach a higher level of connectivity,” and we spent the morning celebrating. This entailed learning that rugs are “oriental” but that people are “Asian.” We learned that “Grecian” refers to a bottle of men’s hair coloring but that people from Greece are “Greeks.” We learned that people who speak Spanish or Portuguese and live in North, Central or South America are not “Hispanic” but “Latin,” but that if they speak Spanish or Portuguese and are from Spain or Portugal they are called “Spanish” or “Portuguese.”
An earnest young man who looked like Harry Potter shrewdly asked what to call English-speaking people born in America to American parents. Wispy Misty never batted an eyelash, “Please refer to this country as the ‘United States,’” she said coldly. “Calling the United States ‘America’ is exclusionary and offensive.” There was a stunned silence in the room. “Everybody born in North or South America is ‘American’,” said Wispy Misty primly.
A clearly stoned Jamaican man asked what Wispy Misty would call him since “Jamaica is not connected to North or South America.” This seemed to stump Wispy Misty who finally said, “That’s a really good question; thank you for asking!”
A young man with spiky hair who had more tattoos than teeth pointed out that Wispy Misty had not answered the Jamaican guy’s question, but Wispy Misty gave him a withering look. “We have to move on,” she said.
As the excruciating morning continued we were instructed not to call deaf people “hearing impaired” because the term “impaired” made it sound like they were broken, and to avoid hurtful terms like ‘tall’ and ‘short.’ Right before we broke for lunch we learned that when meeting the same-sex spouse of a co-worker we should not ask, “So, which one of you is the wife?”
The afternoon session was devoted to learning gender-neutral terminology.
“Terms like ‘male/female’ or ‘he/she’ or ‘his/hers’ are deeply offensive to many people,” Wispy Misty said. “They are antiquated relics of an outdated patriarchal society,” she said, and were to be avoided.
As jaws hung slack throughout the meeting room, a heavy man, asked what we should use instead. “Use gender neutral terms like ‘person’ instead of ‘man’ or woman’,” said Wispy Misty. “And use ‘their’ instead of ‘his’ or ‘her’,” she continued.
I could not help myself; I pointed out that “their” was a plural possessive but “his” and “her” were singular.
Wispy Misty glared at me. “Not anymore,” she snapped, clearly ready to rewrite the rules of grammar to achieve a politically correct goal.
She continued her lecture. We learned to avoid using names like “Bob” or “Donna” that are gender specific and to refer to people as “B” or “D” instead. We learned to not use gender specific terms for clothing, (like ‘bra’ or ‘jockstrap’) but to substitute terms like “foundation garment” instead and then we did a series of drills where we teamed up and said things like, “B left their foundation garment in the gender-appropriate locker room.”
By now it was mid-afternoon and clearly time for a break. Since the class was 100% male, there was a long line to use the men’s’ room. Tony Soprano did not feel like waiting and used the empty woman’s room instead. He was coming out as Wispy Misty passed by him in the corridor.
“This is the ladies’ room,” said Wispy Misty, appalled.
“What an offensive, exclusionary, matriarchal term,” said Tony.