My Diversity Experience

“Think about race in its universality. Where is your measurement device? There is no way to measure race. We sometimes do it by skin color, other people may do it by hair texture - other people may have the dividing lines different in terms of skin color. What is black in the United States is not what 's black in Brazil or what 's black in South Africa.”-Dr.Goodman, Race: The Power of an Illusion

The term "race" is a modern concept. It's definition has adopted radically new meaning over the past few centuries. Currently, the term is used to characterize differences among human groups. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the term "race" in 1512 is "a group or class of persons, animals, or things, having some common feature or

Sociologists say race is a social construct, which is the way society can view a group, and their perception of the group. Race is a big example of this, as people could have the same genetic make-up, but be different races. Two people can have the same eye color, and even common DNA through blood. If two brothers had kids, one with someone of Asian descent, and the other brother having a child with someone of Native American descent, the kids who are cousins, are made up of different races. Race is more socially agreed upon, than being of a biological nature. A prime example of this, is most people will same someone is Asian, but they can be descendent of ant country in Asia, while being categorized as Asian. When we look at people from Europe,

The principles of genetics and evolution show that race, biologically does not exist. The differences that appear in humans does not come from an allele that marks for a specific race. Usually most of the variations we see in humans comes from mutations that occur. The change in DNA is a major factor of variation in humans, it is something random which means certain attributes aren’t associated with a specific race. Another important thing to note is that all humans share the basic structure of DNA. This reinforces the idea that race is a social construct, not a reality of nature. Another main source of variation comes from gene flow (the movement of alleles to and from a certain location). Populations have always been moving from one place to another, and through this a trait can become more unique or more common. So there is less to do about

There have been scientific findings that race is not biological. There are many things that make up a person and one-size fits all label does not always work. There is a huge difference between race and ethnicity. Every single person has a different makeup, as far as culture, ethnicity, and race. The world is changing so much, with immigration, culture, and social norms, we need to learn to change and adapt with them.

I completed my inclusion/diversity field experience at the Isanti Intermediate School/School for all Seasons in Isanti, MN. I was able to complete my 15 hour observation in a special education classroom. The classroom consisted of one special education teacher and multiple instructional assistants. The special education teacher taught kindergarten through 5th grade students’ social skills, math, and reading. In her social skills she currently has three 1st grade students and the topic was about stranger danger. She has as three kindergarten students, two first grade students, three third grade students, six fourth grade students, and three fifth grade students who came in throughout the day for both math and reading instruction. She also has multiple students’ come in and out for additional help with homework throughout the day. Also, one student

Race in our text is a group of people who share a set of characteristics. These characteristics are not always physical. However, we believe were taught that race can easily be identified by the color of the person skin. The text explains this as a social construction of race. The book explains, the social construction of race is a set of stories we tell ourselves to organize reality and make sense of the world. As humans we have to put things into perspective. Hence we have light to establish daytime and darkness to establish nighttime. Cold to establish winter heat to establish summer.

Race is our way of dividing people up. Race is a real issue in our society and it impacts all human beings. The way society groups people is varying their linguistic, religious, historical backgrounds. However, these categories are not constant. They can change over time as society grows and expands their social, political and historical status. In biological way, there is not a single element unique to any of the racial groups. There has never been a successful scientific way to find any racial classification in biology. Not to say that humans do not differ biologically, we definitely do. If anyone thinks that racism is based on biological differences, according to recent researches scientist do, they are

To understand more in depth about the effects of diversity on an individual’s career path, I have interviewed an Indian who was born and brought up in India and moved to USA 4 years back for his project work. Johnson Fernandes is an Operations Manager, currently working at Voya Financial Services at Connecticut, U.S. He has 8 years of experience in the IT industry and has worked in three different countries, India, Canada and the United States. He has done his engineering in India. This is his fourth year working in United States. He moved to US to do IT consulting for an US client. Before he could come to U.S, his company provided him various diversity trainings to help him get accustomed to the cultural difference in U.S. They provided him training on etiquettes and grooming. It trained him to be careful of punctuality at meetings and also to be accurate while providing an ETA. His training also included sessions on learning how to address people by their first names. In India, seniors are addressed by titles such as Sir, Ma’am or Mr., Mrs. or Miss. It is considered offensive in India to call a senior by their first name, especially if we do not know them personally. However, in U.S companies, most of them address each other by their first name. Cultural difference was indeed challenging for Johnson to cope up with. However trainings provided to him helped him to understand the culture of the companies in U.S. It helped him to amend his

To me race means who you are and where you come from. Race is the group of people that share physical characteristics as well as a genetic background. I feel that many people often confuse race and ethnicity. Where race connects people by genetics ethnicity connects people through their cultural and social backgrounds.

The concept of race in modern world that is generally accepted by the public is different groups of people that share the same genetic divergences that are observable (Phenotype) (wiki). The most prominent example is the classification system use by the U.S Government: White (Caucasoid); Black (Congoid); Asian (Mongoloid); Native and Hispanic. This system adheres the modern race concept as all of the classifications are based on phenotypes of different people. Some older concepts of race are based on differences in ethnicity or origin. This kind of concepts were used in WWII as Germany classified its people into Aryan (pure German) and Jewish. Although viewed differently, most of the time the sole purpose of race classification is for the majority to enforced discriminations on the minority (Racism).

I found the concept of being diversity-supportive to be the most important concept of Module 6. I think it is the most important concept in this module because in each part of being diversity-supportive, we are taking an approach that is not only the right approach to take with every individual, but the right approach to meet organizational goals and lead highly effective teams. Because being diversity-supportive means acting proactively, the concept is leadership-driven, it encourages ownership of initiative, promotes thinking inclusively, and has the goal to mainsteam diversity, we can see it really boils down to two things: getting to know people so we can anticipate their needs, wants, and pitfalls; and removing barriers to every individual succeeding to the maximum extent of their ability.

Interestingly enough, the main diversity-related obstacle I’ve faced in my life has been the categorization of diversity itself and the notion of being “enough” in these categories. I’m a person of color, and I’m a person of mixed race. My late father was English, and my mother is African American. It was always awkward growing up without my father, because I was a drastically different skin color from my mom as a very pale and white child. People often asked my mother ignorant questions like, “Is she yours? Are you watching her for someone else?”

I assess how diversity influences occupational opportunity and participation of individuals through my reflection on my cultural self-awareness in OTS 401.

My diversity experience began on November 12, 2016 in Wilmington, North Carolina at the Jamaica’s Comfort Zone restaurant. I chose this experience because I feel I need to learn more about Jamaica, Jamaicans and their culture. Also, because there appears to be a large number of Jamaicans residing in various parts of the United States, particularly in New York, Florida, and Georgia (Atlanta). Prior to searching for an authentic Jamaican restaurant, I decided that I needed to do some research regarding the culture of Jamaica; and, as a result of my research, I discovered that the culture of Jamaica is quite interesting to learn about. In fact, Jamaica is a mountainous Caribbean island just south of Cuba (see Figure 1) with a population of approximately