Wednesday, Apr. 09, 2003 | 11:02 AM

The other night when I was hanging out with Angus and Lynn, the topic of diversity in the work place arose.

A touchy subject to be sure.

One thing I love about my current job is that there are people of all shapes, sizes, colors, creeds, sexual orientations, and nationalities working all kinds of jobs. The concept of �Minority� is almost moot. There isn�t a power structure here based on any of those tired old castes. It�s like utopia, and it�s wonderful.

Lynn was saying that at her job, they have Diversity Training almost every week. And that one of these Diversity Training sessions involved everyone watching the movie, Barbershop.

No shit!, said I.

That to me seems like the most condescending activity I�ve ever heard of. Imagine if there were gender diversity training and everyone had to watch Steel Magnolias, or if we all needed to learn how to tolerate and understand the white male ruling class and thus viewings of American Psycho were compulsory? The problem with the political correctness diversity movement is that they�re still dealing in stereotypes, and there can be no real relating, no connection, if I�m only trying to understand you as a �Gay Black Man� or a �Chinese Paraplegic�. Understanding comes when one individual relates to another individual. It seems to me that what really changes the mind of someone who�s racist or homophobic or anti-semitic, is actually getting to know someone who belongs to one of those groups and realizing-- shucks, he/she is a human being, just like me!

Lynn also said there was a Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual Appreciation Day Lunch at her workplace. Seriously. Can you imagine all these uncomfortable straight older people walking up to the token gay guy in the office and saying, �You know Bruce, I really appreciate your Gayness and what it has brought to the office. Gee, I mean your sense of interior decorating and your good grooming have really made this office a better more diverse workplace.�

It kinda reminds me of that South Park Episode where that woman with the birth defect is thrown a parade and everyone keeps screaming at her, �We respect you! We respect your differences!� And she gets all wigged out and begs to just be left alone.

And then we of course got to talking about the Stupid Company, which was a strange place to work in terms of race. There were no people of color in any position of power. You had all these white supervisors with health benefits and salaries in charge of low wage minorities�yes yes, there were white college age kids there and middle aged housewife types in the low wage jobs too. But there was something always disconcerting about the way race played out in the office. If someone of color was talked to about not doing his job correctly, it sometimes turned into a race issue. I remember once I got called a racist, and it really hurt a lot. It was really hard to know how to deal with.

The thing is, there really was a certain low grade sub conscious racism in that organization, and I don't think it was individua but sort of inherent in the power structure. Nothing overt, but you could just kinda feel how uncomfortable people were with each other. There was something really segregated about that office. So many times the supervisors would try desperately to find a person of color to promote, and for whatever reason, it wouldn�t work�either there was nobody we thought could handle the job, or we would want someone but she couldn�t make the time commitment.

But this search for The Token Black Supervisor was so insulting and so calculated�

See�we aren�t racists!

Everything wrong with race relations in America existed in the microcosm of that company. And I still can�t put my finger on exactly what it was that felt so bad about the whole situation, or what made me so uncomfortable. But it was polarizing and disheartening to work there.

I still have friends that work there and I have no idea what it�s like now. Maybe it�s better. I hope it is.

I just think it�s sad that these things are still issues, and that there are so many complexities and contradictions. In the past, racism was easier to deal with because it was so concrete. Now, it�s gone underground. And we still haven�t solved things.

I hope we will someday.