Uncultural diversity

Today was mandatory cultural diversity competency day. Awesome.

I don't mind taking some training on cultural diversity. It certainly beats staring at a monitor everyday of the work week and watching myself go blind. Plus, I know the drill; accept everyone for everything and we'll all get a long just nicely. It's a pleasant way of censorship. If your culture supports eating other people, sobeit. If mutilating womens' reproductive organs is your bag? More power to you. If NAMBLA is your source of happiness, who am I to judge? The ACLU loves this kind of stuff.

Of course, for those of you that know me, I just don't fit that kind of mold. And to top it off, I start to get this antagonistic approach when forced to participate because I want to see how people react. I mean, these people aren't going to start "dialoguing" until provoked. That's a calling I can muster.

So we were separated into 4 "tribes", wherein we had to build our own cultures, traditions, greetings, power structure, and so on and so forth. I didn't want to be the leader because I needed someone else to take the heat for me. But, I quickly explained that we needed to build up our military because we could not trust these 3 other tribes around us. Instead, if we were to survive as a culture, we needed to pillage the other tribes, subjugate them to our wills, have them build up our empire so we could rule the world.

I then went into a history lesson about the Maori and Moriori tribes; islanders in the Pacific off New Zealand. Basically, the Maori were aggressive people, and the Moriori are a stark example of pacifism. Needless to say, the Moriori do not exist in the true sense of blood preservation, the last true Moriori having died in 1933. This, I stated, was why we needed to conquer these "other" tribes quickly and ruthlessly, lest the above history lesson becomes our current problem.

Well, it didn't go over as well as I had hoped. As a matter of fact, it was flatly rejected many times. And of the 40 people attending, about 10 were male, and in my group, that was 3 out of 10. So, I informed the ladies that it would probably be a necessity - for self preservation - that we institute polygamy. Somehow that didn't fly very well either, and as a matter of fact, some even suggested exiling the males altogther, to which I responded that it would be foolish to make another Isle of Lesbos, all things considered. Silence.

We were given some things to incorporate into our tribe; a deck of cards, some Costa Rican belt thing, a toy C3PO from Star Wars (his eyes lit up when manipulated), some red paper stars, a Disney toy car and that may have been it. I suggested that we make the chrome C3PO our loathing irrational false God of war and destruction. Any tribe that rejected this would be dealt with harshly. Again, perfectly good idea passed over. However, I did get the tribe to agree upon our greeting, which was an animated, "Hey-Yo!" And I sorted out the deck of cards as a form of currency.

Unfortunately, our physical form of greeting was touching fingers a la ET, and we had a revolving leadership which was exchanged via calls of "Marco" and the new leader responding in the obvious "Polo". When asked why, I told them that the famous Italian traveler discovered our greet society. The red paper cards were our form of friendship which we gave (or not) to the other tribes.

The mingling with other tribes was weird. One incorporated the chicken dance, which reminded me that perhaps we should have more seriously considered cannibalism, and that perhaps this tribe tasted like chicken -- there was no way to know without trying... However, for the most part every single tribe was a fun-loving quasi-hippy commune. If given the opportunity, I could have conquered them all single-handedly.

The interesting part, as I knew would come, was the airing of grievances after it was all over. Not surprisingly, I got put on the spot a few times. As a matter of fact, I think my tribe did almost all the talking, while I was busy defending. Naturally, I had history on my side and I based it under a historical social experience, while everyone else was busy trying to "co-exist". People had some issues with the Isle of Lesbos comment, but I explained it wasn't necessarily a reference to lesbians (although that's where the word comes from), but that it was an island exclusive to women, just as my tribe had suggested. The beauty of this is that the instructor took my side and stated that I was obviously "offended" with being excluded and made a natural "knee-jerk" reaction from being rejected. Why, yes, that's exactly it... even better, he had the class thank me collectively for bringing that issue up. This is great!

Interestingly, the British guy there, with classic British stereotypical teeth, was also offended by one of my comments about being an "Indian giver" for being "way off the reservation." Yeah, I got in two comments. Funny thing, someone else defended my statement in that it actually means giving to the Indians, and then taking it back. Not the other way around.

I should be honest in that as soon as the instructor stated he was from Costa Rica, I knew I couldn't do any evil. During the morning I let slip some slang that only a Costa Rican (or "tico") would get, and that prompted him to ask me questions which led to an immediate connection between us two.

I will say that he was an excellent instructor and I had a lot of fun, even if I was deliberately stirring the melting pot. Here's my position on the whole matter -- accept the culture of the country you live in. Do not expect the inhabitants to joyfully embrace yours if you live in their society. In my opinion, cultural diversity is a dividing wedge in society. It singles you out and quickly labels you as different and thus causes strife. Sure, we need to be accepting of other cultures, especially when in the midst of them, but don't expect me to accept it when you are parading down the streets of my nation, demanding citizenship, waving your national flag over mine. You left that country for a reason, now embrace the culture of your future.

Unfortunately, there are so many facets to this, that I don't want to bore you all (14) with my perceptions. But, I would like to say I did have a good time today. And not much was brought up that I had not already considered, that is, being the considerate folk that I am. In the end, magically, no one was offended about anything. We were all pacified like peaceful Moriori tribesmen. Meanwhile, I sharpened my weapons of war...

***Side tangent: Since I somewhat mentioned this, I'll just add that any one who gives you the argument that we should give back to Mexico the states we "stole", let's look at a little bit of history. Who originally owned Mexico? The Aztecs until 1520, then Spain owned it until 1821, then it belong to the country of Mexico, then the US fought for it in 1844-46. Break-down; Aztecs owned it for thousands of years, Spanish owned it for hundreds of years, Mexico owned it for 2 decades, and the US has ever since. I don't hear the Aztecs or Spanish asking for it back, and in my opinion, they certainly should be ahead of the line for it.