Good Diversity-Related Conversation Starters?

November 12, 2010 10:30 AM

Can you suggest (or point me to) some good conversation prompts about diversity issues?

I'm putting on a happy hour event whose theme is "conversations about diversity issues." We're going to pair people up and give them some prompts to help kick-start some good, sincere conversations about any and all "diversity" issues. They'll be given a chance to switch conversation partners as well. Other than that, the event is relatively unstructured. The participants will be grad students who are interested in diversity issues.

I'm not looking for an entire diversity-training curriculum. I'd just like to come up with some good questions that people can use as conversation starters if they want them. I'm aware of the Appreciative Inquiry model, and I'd ideally like these questions to use some of the AI principles. I'd also like to provide some thought-provoking articles and/or diversity-related stats as fodder for conversation.

So, wise MeFites, got any ideas or suggestions for me? Online resources are also appreciated!

posted by aka burlap to Grab Bag (11 answers total)

Best answer: If you can get to the library, there's a book "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" that might be helpful. I'd also encourage you to think about diversity as more than about race but socio-economic status, sexual preference, class, veteran status, people with disabilities, etc. Think about situations where people might feel unintentionally discriminated against, like when several of the men I work with all left work early to go to a Yankees game. And talk about how, despite our efforts to put people in boxes, they don't always go there (like people who are biracial).
posted by kat518 at 10:41 AM on November 12, 2010

One issue that has recently been the subject of legislation in a number of countries is the Islamic practice of concealing the female face in public, by means of the hijab or burqa. This practice raises a number of questions:
Is it acceptable for people to conceal their identity in public? There are many situations in which society or portions thereof want to identify people. The reason we put people's photographs on their drivers' licenses, passports, or ID cards is precisely so that they can be visually identified.
Is this also discriminatory against women, given that the same culture which forbids women to reveal their faces does not forbid men to reveal their faces? Does this not imply the inferiority of women?
Muslim women will often say that they want to conceal their faces, but are such statements legitimate given that these women have male relatives who put pressure on them?

But then, lots of religions involve religious garb of various sorts. Orthodox Jewish men wear the kipa (or yarmulka) and Hassidic Jews have even more elaborate requirements (essentially dressing in the fashion of 19th century Poland). Sikhs wear turbans. Etc. Can we allow some kinds of religious garb and not others? Is that not also discriminatory?

Does the principle of freedom of religion outweigh all other concerns? Are we at risk of making the Muslim world even angrier at the non-Muslim world than they already are? Would that serve to increase the global level of violence?
posted by grizzled at 11:01 AM on November 12, 2010

Best answer: It's The Little Things could have some good starting points for you!
posted by bq at 11:04 AM on November 12, 2010

Best answer: Muslim women will often say that they want to conceal their faces, but are such statements legitimate given that these women have male relatives who put pressure on them?

Do we want to give such leading questions? Wouldn't open ended questions be better? You're assuming that women don't want to cover their faces, whereas there are many locales, cultures and situations where women themselves would prefer to, speaking from personal experience and I'm not a muslim.

I'd suggest (as one of the most diverse members of my community who is almost impossible to pigeonhole) that maximum value of such a conversation comes from enabling mutual understanding of what makes for "differences" that underlie the concept of "diversity". And open ended questions or broader topics for conversation starters would lead to the participants coming to their own understanding of the topic at hand rather than a leading question or one that implies an external judgement already made, one way or another.
posted by The Lady is a designer at 11:06 AM on November 12, 2010

I'm not sure how you could work this into your discussion, but it's always been a bother for me- are Middle Eastern people "white"? My Iranian parents think they are, but because of the experiences I've had (born and raised in the USA) I've never thought of myself as white. It's a point of frequent contention between us that we identify as different races despite the fact that as a family, we would be the same. Because of that, I've begun seeing 'race' as being a social construct rather than an actual measurable 'thing'.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 11:19 AM on November 12, 2010

Ooh, I like the "are Middle Eastern people white?" idea. It's like how when I think of what someone who is Asian looks like and what someone who is Russian looks like, they're pretty different even though Russia is part of Asia. On what BuddhaInABucket said, what does "white" even mean? A college friend complained that the African Student Union kept bothering him to join because he was black but his family was from Haiti. What does it say about the terminology we try to use that it doesn't fit into our lives?
posted by kat518 at 11:34 AM on November 12, 2010

Best answer: You can ask questions about the diversity of gender and sexuality. At school (a left-leaning women's college), we sometimes have conversations about the gender spectrum, the sexuality spectrum, and where we stand within them. For people outside of our context, the concepts are a little confusing, because generally, people tend think of gender as a binary structure (m/f) with a few aberrations, and sexuality as a structure with straight people, and everyone else . I'm don't know where your grad students stand with these topics--but if they're already interested in diversity, I imagine they have some context for questions like "What's the difference between gender and biology? How fluid is sexuality? What kind of effect does the gender binary have on society?"

As for questions that come closer to the Appreciative Inquiry, maybe you could use the article that was posted on Metafilter a little while ago, and ask, "What works here? What kind of environment gives a student like Kye Allums the support and courage to come out as trans in such a complex situation?"
posted by myelin sheath at 11:56 AM on November 12, 2010

Geez, this sounds like the set-up for an all-out bloody-knuckled brawl. More power to you and the people engaging in it, I trust everyone will remain civil!

I get a lot of thought-provoking stuff from the Sociological Images blog. One of the most interesting things they posted recently was a chart showing the diversity (or lack thereof) of the guests on various late-night talk shows. (Spoiler: The Daily Show is terrible in this regard. Really shocked me!)
posted by ErikaB at 2:49 PM on November 12, 2010

A few off the top of my head:

- Which word do you hear more often — "homosexuality" or "heterosexuality"? Does this say anything about how we view or talk about sexual orientation?

- When you look at magazines ads (TV commercials, etc.), do you notice any patterns of race / gender / sexual orientation? For instance, what kinds of families do you usually see — white, black, Asian, biracial, etc.?

- Is there such a thing as a "white" person? Someone above mentioned "Are Middle Eastern people white?" I've also heard people ask whether Jews (as in, people of Jewish ethnicity/heritage) are "white." Italians used to not be considered "white" in America. Barack Obama had a white mother and a black father, yet he's usually called "black," sometimes called "biracial," and almost never called "white" — does this say anything about how we view race? And so on.
posted by John Cohen at 6:17 PM on November 12, 2010

Best answer: I don't know if "homework" will work at a happy hour, but this paper about white privilege is very thought-provoking IMO. Perhaps you could read it (in your role as facilitator) and find some good conversation starters. See, particularly, the numbered list that begins at the bottom of page 1.
posted by scratch at 6:28 PM on November 12, 2010

Response by poster: Great answers, everyone. Thanks!
posted by aka burlap at 5:36 PM on November 20, 2010