Obversity

What could be the opposite of diversity? Could the appreciation of diversity be a perishable thing? I recently had to attend a training session at my gigantic company, entitled, "Valuing Diversity". I think the training was poorly planned and poorly delivered, and could have done more harm to the cause of "valuing" diversity than good.

I haven't been overseas for a long time now. I haven't even lived in a region that is particularly diverse. There are Americans in my community and in the city in which I work. They are black and white and different shades in between, but they are all members of the same distinct culture.

The core activity of the training was to write stereotypes of different ethnic and religious groups on post-it notes and stick them to flipchart paper, then to walk around and read all of the stereotypes that people assigned to these groups. There was not very much discussion of the assignation of stereotypes after that- the facilitator just kind of said, "It's a shame that people feel like that..." Then she kind of dropped in, "Make sure that someone is on hand who can translate Spanish, and be sure to show the public the different kinds of people working in your office."

The first thought that came into my mind was that I should get back to the north before my children turned into people like this. How important is it to keep notions of diversity alive in the community, and how should those notions of diversity be formed and manifested?