Race and culture in the workplace is a sensitive topic that many companies don’t like to address; however, racial/cultural sensitivity is an important topic that should be discussed. To put things bluntly, business in America is an area that has been defined by Caucasian/European culture since the colonies were founded. This is true for many other areas in the world, but it is especially true in America. More and more companies have a diverse workplace that includes people of many cultures and races. Some companies offer cultural sensitivity training classes for all of its employees. Unfortunately, companies educating its staff on issues of cultural differences and race are not the norm in my experience. I personally think this should be mandatory for all businesses in a perfect world. Here’s why I say that.

In the IT sector, foreign-born Indian workers are a huge part of the workforce. There are also trends where companies are bringing in workers from China, other Asian countries, and even South American countries to work at American companies on U.S. soil at times. With an increasingly large melting pot of African-American, Asian, Indian, and Latin heritages in the workforce, it is important that we all understand each other’s cultural differences to avoid stereotyping, racism, and cultural insensitivity in the workplace. I have talked to people who seem to think that racism is primarily geared towards African-Americans or people of African descent. Anyone who is a minority and anyone with common sense know that is not true. Just look at the increase in racism/racial profiling and violence against people of Arab descent post the 9/11 attacks (who are most likely not the Taliban, alQaeda, or members of extremist Muslim groups). However, aside from blatantly racist remarks, it is important for everyone to understand that seemingly “generic” things people say of others can be offensive to people of that race/culture (and even some outside of that race/culture).

I have witnessed issues of stereotyping and cultural insensitivity by people who may not be aware that they may be offending someone. I have heard managers joke to people of Indian heritage to “bring us some programmers back while you’re in India.” While on the surface, it looks like the managers were complimenting India’s impressive IT industry, this is a stereotypical statement to make. It implies that everyone in India is pursuing the IT sector. It also implies that India is only good for IT workers and nothing else since the country is known worldwide for its technical services. Another case involves how some people refer to workers of Latin heritage working physically in America on a temporary basis; an example of this is “The Brazilians” or “The Mexicans.” To me, I found that type of reference insensitive and offensive. It implies a type of segregation of foreign-born coworkers from their American counterparts and that they are not “one of us” even though they work for the same company. As for Asian workers, especially from China, there is a stereotype that everyone there is “smart” because “they keep their noses in books and don’t play video games.” While I am not knocking the intelligence of the Chinese, I have seen instances where this stereotype is a blanket reference when referring to Asian-born workers. Being Asian, or any other race for the matter, does not automatically mean you’re intelligent. When it comes to African-American workers, there are stereotypes that they are aggressive, speak in “Ebonics,” and are at the company to meet a quota, which implies they aren’t as good as their Caucasian (and non-Caucasian) counterparts and are there for affirmative action purposes. Finally, Americans working with foreign-born workers may find it rude when someone from another country speaks in their home language with their foreign counterpart. For some, there is paranoia that foreign-born workers are talking about them “behind their backs” in their own language. This occurs whether it’s in English or any other language anyway; nevertheless, some do think it’s rude when others are speaking in a language they do not understand.

Cultural insensitivity towards other races occurs across all color lines, especially if people do not regularly interact with people of other races/cultures outside the office to try to understand each other better. A lack of knowledge about other cultures can create “invisible” problems in the workplace if the company does not address the issue of race and culture in its work environment. Based on my own experiences, it is extremely important for companies to have racial and cultural sensitivity training for all employees. This helps to identify what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in the workplace when working with people of different cultures. While training won’t change everyone, it may help people think carefully about the things they say and realize that they may have unintentionally offended others, making their work environment more difficult than it should be. Unfortunately, we live in a society where everyone thinks Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream has been fully realized and there is no need for racial and cultural sensitivity training.

Posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 5:50 pm in the category:Commentary, Life, The Daily Grind, The Machine, Web 2.0. Comment RSS 2.0 feed. Comment it , or trackback this post.