[skh]

We all have biases and those are largely shaped by media and pop culture and to a lesser extent personal experience. The talk of diversity evokes a lot of emotion. I sometimes think the focus ought to be not on race/religion/ethinicity but rather on how to prevent our assumptions from adversely affecting others.

There is a need for diversity training but the way I’ve seen it done is off putting to the people who need it most. All it ends up being is a virtue signaling fest for so called allies of minority groups and the real harm persists - people making false, often times demeaning, assumptions about others that adversely affect them.

I work in academia and have never been outside of academia. My belief about diversity training comes solely from my experiences within academia. Do companies spend time on diversity training? Is it a yearly training like it is in parts of academia? Do you find the way it is done off putting? Helpful?

[kwamenum86]

Lots of tech companies do require diversity/bias training for managers and interviewers. It's often counterproductive. In my experience people either don't take the training seriously or strongly object to being forced to go through it. I'm not sure it'd be effective even if everyone embraced it since shifting attitudes and behaviors takes time and effort even when you're highly motivated to do so.