MURPHYTOWN's

Soapbox Corner!

Will the Real Multicultural Diversity Please Stand Up?

Multicultural Diversity is the new buzz word being used across the country and within the federal government. This subject has been the topic of numerous books, articles, and training programs in education, private industry and in Washington, DC. The changes it proposes promise to affect all of us as Americans, and particularly as federal government employees, for decades to come. I have been following multicultural diversity with interest for the last several years, learning about it in training programs, reading about it in articles from the private sector and participating in running some of the training myself. As a result, I have reached the conclusion that multicultural diversity is an issue that needs to be accurately defined and examined in the private sector and in government as we progress toward our common goal of equality in the work force.

Much of the momentum for the multicultural diversity movement across the country was produced by a 1987 study from a think tank called the Hudson Institute and titled Workforce 2000. This study produced the theory that, due to current demographic trends in America, by the year 2000 the American workforce would be comprised primarily of what were previously minorities, and that Americans of European decent, especially men, would soon be a minority. The message to corporate and government managers was this: You better get ready, or you will suffer the economic consequences of being unprepared. What was done with this information has been interesting, even fascinating.

This, and other publications produced an explosion of multicultural diversity organizations, trainers, and publications. Once this subject gained public attention some interesting things began to happen. Diversity became a platform for the acquisition of tremendous profit and a vehicle for some to implement an agenda of radical social change in America. Consequently, there have arisen two kinds of cultural diversity movements: One promoting acceptance and equality for all Americans in the workforce, and the other assaulting the fundamental social and moral structure of America.

The first philosophy of diversity is very simple, indeed very American. It promotes equality for all and embraces strict punishment for prejudice and discrimination of any kind. it continues to promote the idea that, as Americans, even though we are very different we are all important and share the commonality of being part of the American family. It promotes the idea that it has been America's diversity throughout history that has made this country the greatest nation in the world and produced some of the world's greatest thinkers. This philosophy promotes unity, equality, patriotism, and the potential of the individual to obtain the great American dream.

The second philosophy of diversity is altogether different. Its goals are entirely distinct from the philosophy of diversity we have just discussed. It has been promoted as a vehicle for large scale social change and has been used as a means for making huge profits from its sale. It launches relentless attacks on traditional America, the white male sector of society, religion, sexuality, and the American family. It avoids scrutiny of its premise and refuses debate. Promoters of this kind of multicultural diversity have marketed their product by approaching corporations and the federal government and offering them a way to avoid Equal Employment Opportunity and Sexual Harassment lawsuits, which they portray as inevitable, and thereby save millions of dollars. Subsequently, they sell these organizations diversity programs which cost as much as $500,000.00 a year.

Much of this diversity training is sponsored by the National Multicultural Institute. As revealed in the April 1994 issue of The Washingtonian magazine, curriculums are developed at the institute to include a specific diversity message and instructors are trained to promote this message in their training courses. The message is this: The white American male is the cause of all society's current ills and traditional American values are oppressive and outdated. Diversity trainers from this institute market their skills to organizations and make salaries of up to $2,000.00 a day for their seminars, which many times are billed as mandatory for employees.

Examination of the training programs of the National Multicultural Institute reveal that its courses are designed, through the popular new technique of role playing, to arrive at the same conclusion each time. The white male subject of the scenario is prejudice and bigoted no matter what he does. He is hopelessly prejudice whether he knows it or not. In addition, all of traditional America is hopelessly prejudice and the culture must be radically changed. With the goal of saving an organization millions of dollars in lawsuits, staving off an economic crisis in the future workforce, or out of a sincere effort to reach equal opportunity in the work force, many corporate and government officials have bought these training programs with very little examination of their actual content.

As certain special interest groups have realized the potential of the diversity movement to further their causes, they have jumped on the bandwagon. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in the Gay and Lesbian activist community (which represents only a fraction of the total Gay and Lesbian population). Created and inserted into diversity training programs have been segments on "sexual minorities". In these training programs, Americans who feel homosexuality is immoral are termed "racist" or "homophobic" Courses on homosexual sensitivity training are presented featuring homosexual men discussing homosexual sex and their relationship with their lover and attacking the Bible for its teachings against homosexuality. According to the 7 October 1994 issue of Human Events, one such course sponsored by the Department of the Navy and held in Crystal City actively attacked religion in a training course paid for with federal dollars. Due again to this diversity agenda these courses have recently been promoted by the Department of Defense and although the training was billed as voluntary employees were "strongly encouraged to attend" by their supervisors. The inaccurate aspect of this training is the fact that it bills homosexual behavior on the same level as true minority status, even though statistics show that Gays and Lesbians exist in virtually every race, the average homosexual in America makes $60,000.00 a year and attempts to locate a "Gay gene" have been unsuccessful.

It also calls for including this particular lifestyle in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, thus granting this group of people special rights under the law. Minority Americans need to be very concerned about this. What this training is designed to promote is the mandatory hiring of homosexuals based on their sexual behavior, employment and promotion quotas and promotion of the homosexual lifestyle. Inclusion of this lifestyle into the Civil Rights Act would make the public discussion by religious groups of the moral issues involved illegal. However, homosexuals already enjoy the right to privacy and individual freedom possessed by all Americans. it must be noted here that the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not include sexual behavior and strictly forbids quotas. However, this particular training is designed to accomplish a more determined agenda of social change under the guise of diversity.

In American schools, multicultural diversity education offers test questions with the only correct answer for some questions being that individualism is egoism, unquestionably something bad, and is the single factor that has defined American civilization. Historical white males such as George Washington have been portrayed as an integral part of the problem. Recently, at Cornell University a residence hall director was pressured to remove pictures of herself and her husband from a publication, when because of the photograph, she was accused of "heterosexism". In Brooklyn Massachusetts parents were branded as "censors" because they wanted a course on European history put back into the school curriculum. This was because the course had been found to be against multiculturalism. Thorough and accurate documentation of cases like these are dismissed as being anecdotal11, in other words, as one columnist puts it, "inconvenient evidence." Never before have we witnessed to this extent such successful covering up or altering of facts simply because they run counter to the platform of a certain philosophy.

In his book, Dictatorship of Virtue: Multiculturalism and the Battle for America's Future Richard Bernstein discusses a pattern of attack on certain groups in America in the name of diversity. In the book, Bernstein shows that America's demography has not changed radically since the 1960s. Bernstein demonstrates that the foreign born population of America is actually much smaller than in 1920. Therefore, the multicultural movement is based on something other than a plan to prepare for future economics. As George Will described in a 14 November 1994 article in Newsweek magazine, many cultural institutions have fallen into the hands of individuals who despise America. in his article Will states that this kind of multiculturalism is a campaign to lower America's moral status by defining the American experience in terms of a myriad of repressions and their victims. Will further writes that "by rewriting history and using some name calling ("Racist!", "Sexist!, "Homophobe!") to inhibit debate, multiculturalists cultivate grievances, self pity and claims to entitlements arising from victimization." This type of multiculturalism, by defining society in terms of groups rather than individuals, destroys alternative sources of individuality and social cohesion. Sources of social cohesion such as a shared history, common culture, and unifying values, the very things a true diversity curriculum should stress, are eliminated from diversity programs.

Diversity has become a growth industry. Certain organizations make up to several thousand dollars a day for their diversity programs which engage in hostile attacks on traditional America. In addition, the diversity movement has become a platform for those with no other opportunity in the market to make a lucrative income. The promoters of this diversity philosophy demand to be exalted and receive federal subsidies. They vocally oppose debate or anyone who challenges their assumptions. And it is evident in this country and in the federal government that this philosophy is systematically dividing us by separating us into separate groups and promoting our differences rather than our equality as Americans.

As mentioned above, training programs sponsored by the National Multicultural Institute design training that targets the "European white male". I have not only participated in programs like this in the federal government, but I have helped coordinate them. At first I accepted the basic tenet of this approach as it was discussed during these training courses. However, as I studied the issue it became apparent that this approach is not only inaccurate, its goal is far more than what I was after, equality in the workplace. More recently, an article appeared which demonstrated the evolutionary steps of an organization from the most primitive to the most advanced. The second most primitive organization was the one with the most white males in management positions. In addition, a poster on display in federal buildings during Women in Government Month showed apicture of Anita Hill below which was a caption stating "Hill's courageous testimony before an entirely white male Senate Judiciary Committee." The piece then goes on to convey that Anita Hill brought the issue of sexual harassment to the forefront. Whereas, we all agree that sexual harassment must be stopped, this piece portrays white males as the specific enemy. All of this begs the question: How do you define the white male? We must remember that white males in America are usually a mixture of several different ethnic backgrounds. For example, American white males have ancestry from Sweden, Scotland, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Britain, Ireland, Russia and the Baltic states, etc. Several of these groups have been discriminated against in the past (Polish and Irish for example). When an attempt is made to define the white male further as European, you include a host of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, including Spain. Therefore, this particular multicultural movement has targeted this group of Americans based on two factors; the color of their skin and their gender. if you study the issue you will find that the term "European" came along later in order to make the label seem more legitimate. it must also be noted that America's cultural heritage, and especially its work ethic, is not an invention of white males "linear thinking" as some multicultural trainers have taught, but is a result of America's mixed cultural and religious history.

It is clear that there is prejudice in the workplace. it is also clear that there is harassment in the workplace. This is the sad fact of the ignorance of some. But, the point must be made that women are harassed by men of several different races, not just white, and that hatred and prejudice exist in every race, ethnic background, and even between religions in America. it is prejudice and discrimination that must be stopped. Attacking a certain group of Americans based on the color of their skin and their gender cannot be justified either by reason or in light of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And, as I am becoming increasingly convinced, this is an effort by some to promote their particular group at the expense of another.

It is time for private industry and the federal government to seriously examine what it has been promoting, and what training will best benefit the workforce. We are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on these programs. It is critical that we examine what this training is accomplishing, where these resources are going and what effect this really has on the members of our workforce. And, we need to encourage healthy discussion. Perhaps we can come up with a diversity training program that teaches true diversity. One that promotes unity in the workforce and reinforces the foundation of this nation, liberty and justice for all.

Kevin M. Shipp