DIVERSITY
DIVERSITY
Not the type of email that you normally get, offering you generic Viagra (or V 1@GRA) or Cha.lis, or V1AOCODIN or a new septic tank, or refinancing, something far more insidious than that. An email that informed that sometime during the very late days of March, that I was to attend a Diversity Training Course at work. And only the prior authorisation of someone at Director level could get me out of it. Not because I could avoid it but to defer it.
This training course was like death. Inevitable and mandatory. The question was not if. But when.
Diversity Training scares me. I�ve been on some fairly frightening training courses in my time, hosted by people who clearly knew not what they were saying, and getting paid loads for it. Wish I was amongst that Ignorant Army. But I instead had another role. Life had alternative plans.
I was not going to be the fool. But the fool who follows him.
But what is Diversity? Well, bluntly put, its about tolerating others. Sure, I tolerate everyone. (Even old people, despite some less than charitable comments I may have once made). And its remarkably easy to do.
There are certain types of people I don�t like being around : Drunks, Chavvers in White Trainers drinking in the street, dealers, religious nUtters, terrorists� for example. That�s not me being intolerant, that�s me not wanting to be around people who could threaten me. And there�s nothing unreasonable in that.
But you know, I don�t need to be told to tolerate other people. I really really don�t. It�s kinda like being told I need to tolerate sunshine. Whatever colour, religion or belief�s you are, I don�t care, as long as you�re going to let me get on with my day. Hell, white, black, purple, green, your colour is as irrelevant as the colour of your eyes. Well. If you�ve got green skin that is quite unusual, after all, and I might be concerned on your behalf, but don�t expect me to take that much notice.
Besides which, if I had difficulty tolerating diversity, wouldn�t life be hard? I would be apoplectic with rage every time I left the house to be surrounded by someone who isn�t a white middle class male. Honestly, I don�t know how I survive�.
�.. or what type of person is going to think its OK to bully and discriminate until they go on a training course, and suddenly, HallelFuckingUjah! I have Seen The Light. It�s akin to showing a Clansman The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air to show him that those weird darkies are you know, just like us underneath. .
Anyway, Diversity Training is not a load of rubbish. There are idiots in this world who discriminate against people on the grounds of their skin colour, or whatever. The point is I�m not one of them. I don�t need to be told. Maybe I, like one of their victims, was different : despite being white, middle class, I too was bullied, I too have been discriminated against. I know what it�s like : I don�t need to be told. I don�t need to be spoken to. Tolerate that instead. Accept me. For all our differences and all our similarities, all human being are part of the same tribe, and we must work together or cease to exist.
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