Sociology Essay: Examining Cultural Diversity and Personal Experiences

This sociology essay delves into the concept of cultural diversity, examining its complexities through a personal experience of workplace discrimination. The author recounts an instance where a Muslim colleague faced racism and prejudice from a superior, leading to her resignation. The essay analyzes the factors contributing to the author's reactions, including ethnicity, upbringing, and personal experiences with discrimination. It connects the incident to sociological concepts like power, inequality, and discrimination, drawing on the theories of Marx and Weber. The author reflects on the experience, suggesting strategies to prevent racial bias, such as training for leaders and employees, promoting cultural competence, and implementing effective anti-discrimination policies. The essay highlights the prevalence of discrimination, despite existing regulations, and underscores the need for practical implementation of policies to foster a more inclusive and equitable workplace.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
Sociology
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
The term cultural diversity is often used as the concept of multiculturalism can be defined
as the existence of various culture as well as ethnic groups within a society or community.
Multiculturalism can be defined as a system of beliefs as well as behaviours that recognizes as
well as respects the presence of all diverse groups in a society or organization. It also includes
acknowledgement as well as valuing the socio-cultural differences along with encouraging a well
as enabling their continued contribution within an inclusive cultural context that empowers all
within the society (Deitch et al., 2013). Two of the major factors that are responsible for Lack of
cultural competence amongst individuals include racism and prejudice. In the following
discussion, I will be describing a instance where one of my friends had got victimized of racism
by her colleagues.
Part 1 – Describe your experience:
In this paragraph, I am going to describe the experience of one of my Muslim colleague
Sahiba, who worked with me in my previous organization, got discriminated in our workplace
and ultimately resigned her job due to continuous discrimination against her. Considering the
fact that I worked in was a multinational organization, a good number of employees from
different parts of the world used to work there. Sahiba was a Muslim employee who was from
Arab. Being a devout Muslim, she used to wear hijab. Our branch manager, John, was the
superior of Sahiba. His confirmation bias interpreted the quit, patient and introvert nature of
Sahiba as indications of passive behaviour, lack of communication skill and lack of efficiency.
He interpreted that Sahiba possess only adequate competencies to perform. However, the other
employees of the organization including me were aware of excellent problem solving skills as

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well as initiatives taken by her for the team project. She was viewed by the employees as a
pragmatic, resourceful as well as respected peer. When John was given the positive feedback
about Sahiba, he interpreted it as the effort of the team to be protective of Sahiba’s nature rather
than representative.
Due to his prejudiced thought he stated that “Muslim women are oppressed and ductile.”
His tone during staff meeting was highly patronizing towards Sahiba which initially confused her
and eventually resulted in minimizing her interaction during meeting. The unthoughtful and
stereotype comments of the branch manager, John used to make her feel uncomfortable, irritated
and lowered her job satisfaction in the workplace (Wrench, 2016). Things got worse when during
her appraisal time he was given lower apprise. John’s unchecked bias results in mediocre and
unrepresentative performance evaluations for Sahiba. Highly demoralized, Sahiba mailed her
resignation letter in the same date and left the job.
Being one of her good friend apart from colleague, the racial discrimination of John
against Sahiba made me feel highly irritated from the very first day. As per my opinion, it is
highly crucial for all the employees to be culturally competent in the workplace. Especially when
it comes to leaders, being the individual whose responsibility is to show the way to the
employees, mangers need to have high cultural competence and demonstrate the same. Hence, I
believe that it was not Sahiba, but John who lacked the efficiency to be a culturally competent
employee. The action taken by me as a culturally competent employee was to communicate with
Sahiba and provide her with mental support in adverse situations.
Part 2 – Examine your experience

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The chief factors that are responsible for my feelings and reaction to the culturally incompetent
behaviour of the employees towards Sahiba includes my ethnicity, history, upbringing and other
events face by me associate with racism and prejudices. The first factor that made me highly
sympathetic for the racism and discrimination faced by the mentioned organization includes my
ethnicity. By origin I am an Asian. I have worked in USA more that 10 years. The colour of my
skin is brown and as a result of this, I have undergone a good amount of discrimination in my
workplace. Although my issue is different from that of Sahiba, while she was facing racism, my
history of facing discrimination made me understand her mental state and emotions to a great
extent. The social concept of discrimination includes when an individual or a group of
individual is treated unfairly and differently and is provided with lower opportunity, respect and
other social facilities. A person might be discriminated against because of
their race, age, sex, politics, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, and other factors.
Discrimination has been a major social issue for decades and even in this era of technological
advancement it is prominent in the society. Racism can be considered as a major factor that leads
to discrimination of an individual. According the Marx's and Weber's theories of inequality, the
act of discrimination are highly associated with financial resources and others (Brewster and
Rusche, 2017).
When it comes to my upbringing, my parents are highly secular. As a child I was always
taught to treat every individual with equal respect without considering their ethnicity race, colour
or any other factors. In order to deal with the mentioned factor, the bourgeoisie in the capitalist
society discriminate and exploited the workers. Thus according to Marx, the discrimination is
done by the capitalist society in order to gain financial advantage and exploit workers. Max
Weber took issue with Marx’s seemingly simplistic view of stratification (DeCuir-Gunby &

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Gunby, 2016). He argued that owning property like factories or industries determine the social
class of individual that leads to power. From time immemorial powerful individual have
discriminated people who lack power and money. According to the researcher, the conflict
theory of Karl Marx, claims that the society is in conflict due to constant competition between
the society members for limited resources. According to the theory, the social order in the
society is maintained with the help of domination as well as power instead of conformity and
consensus. Racism and discrimination can be considered as a primary of dominating an
individual or a group of individual. Racism in USA as existed since the era of colonization when
white Americans were given privileges socially as well as legally while the same rights were
denied for other minorities and races (Abdelkader, 2016). Even in this era of social as well as
technological advancement, the issue of social discrimination on the basis of race is widely
visible in the nation. Social and racial discrimination is faced by individuals in almost every
aspect of life in USA (Neville, Gallardo & Sue, 2016). However, the most prominent areas
where people face discrimination include academic institution and workplace. USA is known to
be one of the nations with a high rate of Islamophobia. Muslims are one of the major victims
who experiences racism in the nation. The second most vulnerable community to racism in USA
includes the Asian and the African American community. According to (Terman, 2017), after the
resent ‘Muslim ban:” that took place in USA, racism against Muslims is getting increased to a
great level. Thus this problem is gradually increasing and is highly threatening for the society in
my opinion.
A good number of rules and regulation against workplace discrimination has been established by
both the local and federal government. Under Federal Law, employers are liable to punishment
in case of any discrimination against employees on the basis of race, sex, pregnancy, age,

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disability, religion, age and any other factors. Employment discrimination law in the United
States derives from the common law and is codified in codified in numerous and federal laws.
Part 3 – Reflect on your experience
In order to ensure a safer and work friendly organization, it is highly crucial for the mentioned
nation to implement more effective policies so that the discrimination on the basis of race can be
prevented in near future.
1. As per my opinion, effective training session needs to be provided to the leaders in order
to prevent racial bias. Leaders should be educated about the importance of racial and
cultural competence in workplace (Kumar, 2016). Not only this, effective strategies and
communication skills for enhancing the potential of the leaders to communicate in a
culturally competent way needs to be taught (Rosenblatt, 2016).
2. Along with leaders, it is also crucial for the mentioned organization to educate the
employees about cultural competencies. Organizations should incorporate ice breaking
sessions that will help the employees to know about each other (Morgan, 2016). This turn
will enhance their bonding and develop respect for employees who belongs to other
religions.
3. Effective policies against racial discrimination should be incorporated in order to ensure
strict punishment against employee who demonstrates racial discrimination against their
peers or subordinates.
Conclusion
From the above discussion it can be clearly understood that racial discrimination is highly
prevalent in USA even in this era of modernization. In spite of the fact that a good number of

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policies and procedures are already there against racial discrimination, there are several
loopholes in practical implementation of the policies. The above mentioned strategies possess the
potential to eradicate the evil practice of discrimination in near future.

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Reference List
Abdelkader, E., (2016). When Islamophobia turns violent: The 2016 US presidential
elections. The Bridge Initiative, Georgetown University.
Brewster, Z.W. and Rusche, S.N., (2017). The effects of racialized workplace discourse on race-
based service in full-service restaurants. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism
Research, 41(4), 398-414.
DeCuir-Gunby, J.T. & Gunby Jr, N.W., (2016). Racial microaggressions in the workplace: A
critical race analysis of the experiences of African American educators. Urban
Education, 51(4), 390-414.
Deitch, E.A., Barsky, A., Butz, R.M., Chan, S., Brief, A.P. & Bradley, J.C., 2003. Subtle yet
significant: The existence and impact of everyday racial discrimination in the
workplace. Human Relations, 56(11), 1299-1324.
Kumar, D., (2016). In Search of Monsters to Destroy: Islamophobia, the War on Terror, and US
Imperialism.
Morgan, G., (2016). Global Islamophobia: Muslims and moral panic in the West. Routledge.
Terman, R., (2017). Islamophobia and media portrayals of Muslim women: A computational text
analysis of US news coverage. International Studies Quarterly, 61(3), 489-502.
Wrench, J., (2016). Diversity management and discrimination: Immigrants and ethnic minorities
in the EU. Routledge.

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Rosenblatt, P. C. (2016). The impact of racism on African American families: Literature as
social science. Routledge.
Neville, H. A., Gallardo, M. E., & Sue, D. W. E. (2016). The myth of racial color blindness:
Manifestations, dynamics, and impact. American Psychological Association.