Torrey Dixon

October 20th, 2017

Diversity in the Workplace
Individual Paper #2 (Wilson)

Diversity in the Work Place: Where are We?

Diversity is an ongoing beast that society has always been working to tame however,

once one sector of it closes, another opens or rises to the top. This is said because diversity is not

something that is one headed just as its meaning states, its a variety of something. This monster

literally has numerous heads such as racism, inequality, being sexist, and more. When we speak

of racism, this can be racist towards a race, appearance, gender, and so forth. One of the biggest

issues with diversity today is the simple fact that it takes place in the workplace. At that point,

this issue often times creates a secondary effect on the individual lively hoods of people. When

many people are effected by diversity at work then they become subjected to lost jobs, damaged

images, personal issues, family damages, decreased money, and involvement with court systems.

A United States president once said, Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you

can do for your country. Well in my opinion, the better question really is, What can my

country do for me?, because with it does for a lot of people is create issues based off of

diversity.

It is due to this issue know as diversity that the United States and other countries have

issues like Fox News being sued by two African American women for racial discrimination.

More specifically, the sued for what was referred to as Top-down harassment. The names of

these two women were Tichaona Brown and Tabrese Wright. These two women both worked

very closely with Fox News Networks payroll management. In their case at the Bronx State
Supreme Court, the two women mentioned how Mr. Slater made statements saying that black

men are women beaters and how African American men wanted to physically harm white people

which isnt at all true. Ms. Brown also mentioned how Mr. Slater bashed African Americans in

the workplace wording saying how they often mispronounce words. He then proceeded to ask

Ms. Brown and Ms. Wright if both their children all had the same father. This case is taking

place is 2017, over sixty years after civil rights movements and yet we still are facing these

issues.

Though African Americans are often times the ones in these vicious and unfair

circumstances, there are still other cultures greatly effected in the workplace. Google for

example, happens to be one of the biggest and most diverse companies that many people look to

as a dream job due to all the perks and money one can gain working there. However, even they

had negative discrepancies within their workplace. In August of 2017, google was exposed to

negative diversity within their workplace when Qichen Zhang came out about quitting her job as

a technical specialist. The reason for her quitting was due to a white colleague of hers felt it was

okay to make a racist joke about her employment at google to her face. Word for word Zhangs

colleague said to her, It mustve been really easy for you to get your job because youre an

Asian woman and people assume youre good at math. This drove Zhang to shutting down and

quitting as it added on to her already existing feelings of feeling isolated and alone. There were

already few women working there, even less women in the technical field, and even less women

of color (Asian, Black, etc.).

One of the most disturbing things about this whole topic is the person who the United

States is supposed to follow, our commander and chief plays a part in diversity in the workplace.

A portion of Donald Trumps campaign during the election was based on him supporting the
LGBT community. He just like everyone else knows that there is always issues with gay people

in the workforce with jobs ranging from professional sports, to law enforcement jobs, to office

jobs. There is issues in the NFL where players are dropped from teams or just not signed because

they are gay. There have been cases where men have been fired from their law enforcement jobs

because the cooperation found out their preferred relationship status. We havent heard too much

about this issue from Trump since he was elected in presidency. The LGBT community greatly

voted for this man with hopes that he would keep his word on supporting gays but instead hes

been silent on the topic. For example, the newly released first transgender playboy has been

receiving a great deal of backlash for chasing a dream with a job that was wanted for years.

Trump has yet to speak on that in the trans-genders defense. In the meantime, while Trump

refuses to address issues such as LGBT discrimination in the workplace, it is causing more

negative energy to the public because these issues are going to be taken serious by someone

whether Trump is in or out.

Just doing this research, it is clear to me that we as a society still have a lot of work to do

when talking about diversity in the workplace. I do believe that this goal can be reached but the

question is, how long will it take for everyone to buy into the benefits of a better diverse

workplace? Diversity in the workplace hurts us as a whole and it can affect our future

generations. We have to start leading by example and showing equality for all. This is said not

just as support to racism but with support to the LGBT community, gender roles, and

appearance. I believe that opportunity is a starting step in the right direction for society today.

For example, this is no reason that Zhang had to feel isolated because her job was being

dominated by mostly men simply because Google feels that technical jobs are more so for men.

A man wanted to serve his country and community by joining law enforcement shouldnt be able
to be laid off because of his personal life decisions. However, my paper was more so pointing

out the flaws with diversity in the workplace. There are some different workplaces out in the

world that one-hundred percent except women in higher up positions, gay members, and Asian

workers as long as they perform their task at hand in the best manner possible. I just believe that

over all we have to do better or we will eventually force ourselves into a corner.
Citations:

Associated, P. (2017, July 11). Man alleges in lawsuit he was fired because he is gay. Retrieved
October 20, 2017.

Chokshi, N. (2017, March 28). 2 Black Women Sue Fox News, Claiming Racial Discrimination.
Retrieved October 20, 2017.

Levin, S. (2017, August 18). Women say they quit Google because of Racial Discrimination, I
was invisible. Retrieved October 20, 2017.

Wheeler, L. (2015, June 1). Court sides with Muslim woman in workplace discrimination case .
Retrieved October 20, 2017.

Zillman, C. (2017, July 27). Why Trump's Justice Department Just Increased the Stakes in the
Fight for LGBT Workplace Rights. Retrieved October 20, 2017.