Last week I had the honor of participating in a Workplace Diversity event held by the St. Anthony Foundation, which focused on the theme of “Somebodies and Nobodies”. The vexing question that came up repeatedly was how to create a workplace environment where it would be safe for employees to bring up problems. I have to admit that I’m not optimistic about protecting truth-speaking in the workplace. As long as human resources departments are charged with supporting management actions rather than advocating for subordinate employees, managers will be able to abuse their power and retaliate against employees for the slightest inconvenience.

While I was drawing on my own experience when I offered my opinion at St. Anthony’s, I’ve since found my impressions can be supported by a joint Harvard/Penn State study on fear in the workplace. I hope business leaders will think seriously about the outcome of this study and consider how worker silence could expose their organization to litigation, undermine productivity, and ultimately destroy their public reputation. It’s not just about alleviating employee stress and doing the right thing anymore: it’s about the bottom line. The culture of fear is bad for business. It’s time to initiate an open conversation, and the first thing to talk about is rankism.

In college two of my roommates were immigrants from China. One day we were talking about the fact China is regarded as a source of “successful” immigrants in the U.S. This led to a lively discussion of stereoptypes of Chinese immigrants in California from Chinese laundries in the Wild West to Bruce Lee smashing the “No Chinese or Dogs Allowed” sign in Fist of Fury. I learned that the image of the smart, professional, “model” Chinese immigrant is relatively recent, and one of the costs of projecting that image was increased stratification among the immigrants themselves. For instance, “F.O.B.” (Fresh Off the Boat) had become a common insult, implying a whole set of low status traits: poverty, illiteracy, unfamiliarity with the social codes that are the key to masquerading as high status in the U.S.

As the political leaders of the U.S. fight tooth and nail over the fate of illegal immigrants (widely perceived to be poor, needy outsiders), they are issuing engraved invitations for sports heroes and highly skilled technology professionals. Countries all over the world are tailoring their policies to select the good immigrants. The irony is that by denying opportunity to the poor and friendless, the U.S. adds incentive to the international corruption that currently distorts the distribution of visas. While grandstanding politicians justify special visas as an opportunity to reel in only the best and the brightest, what we get in the end is the people who had the money and connections to cut to the front of the visa line. Does the U.S. public really want the over-privileged brats who bribed and cheated their way into the country more than hard-working people who, while they may have been denied the opportunity to develop specialized skills themselves, will raise children who could flower in the U.S. education system? The U.S. already opens the door for science and technology students just on the assumption that they may contribute to the U.S. economy when they graduate. Gambling that the education system will cultivate talent may prove to be a safer bet than letting people who bought their H1-B visa build our banking, health care, and military systems.

I’ve been trying to sort out the case of Lynne Stewart. She served as a court-appointed defense attorney for an accused terrorist, and she dared to do her best as an attorney by issuing a press release on his behalf. For her adhering to the ethics of the legal profession, she could end up serving thirty years in prison. There are multiple reasons why average citizens should be outraged over this case. First, the government gathered evidence by invading attorney-client privilege with a wiretap. Second, treating advocacy of an unpopular client as a CRIME effectively discourages legal defense for dissenters: it’s already way too difficult for unpopular people (or even invisible people – those who haven’t been able to rally the media or the public to their cause) to find representation. Third, former Attorney General John Ashcroft coordinated his arrest of Stewart with an appearance on David Letterman to “message” the public on his actions: in other words, the government is not only trying to deprive the unpopular of any legal defense, it conducts a PR strategy to MAKE the target unpopular.

One of the primary causes of the erosion of Constitutional (and Human) rights over the last few years has been the willingness of the media to spin litigation. If one of the parties in a case gets initiative in the media, then they win, no matter what the actual facts are. This has encouraged both the government and large corporations to devote their immense resources to pre-trial public relations campaigns. Worse, lawyers now engage in the practice of slipping soundbytes into legal filings in the hope that the press will pick it up. They rely on the fact that the courts themselves don’t discourage lawyer from lying: they simply assume the opposing counsel will challenge the lie. The media, however, doesn’t make that distinction: they know that any quote from a legal document will bear a special aura of authority, yet they rarely issue any sort of disclaimer. Nothing grabs an audience like a cardboard-cutout villain, and the media cares more about garnering an audience than defending the Constitution.

At least in the Lynne Stewart case, there is a serious effort to bring this scandal of injustice to light. You can’t walk two blocks in Berkeley without tripping over a pamphlet or poster. Just remember for every Lynne Stewart, there are countless victims of State tyranny who simply go unnoticed. How long before the entire U.S. legal system turns into Guantanamo? This United States will continue sliding into the abyss of autocracy until its constituent citizenry remembers that everything they value is built on equality under the law and the inalienable rights of the individual – even the unpopular individual.

More than half of the people who took last week’s Monster opinion poll believe cosmetic surgery could advance their career. Surveys have confirmed that beauty confers a social advantage that translates into unearned income. Workers have started to file lawsuits to protect themselves from appearance-based discrimination, but some economists are arguing that survival of the prettiest is an attribute of a free society. In other words, it’s human to make distinctions and humiliate others in the process of forming hierarchies: if the free citizen wants to redistribute income from skill and experience to the sexually desirable, so be it. Perhaps the economists might reconsider their position when people start killing for plastic surgery money.

During the 1990s, I worked my way though graduate school as a live-in eldercare assistant. My employer was a fascinating person who had come to California in a covered wagon, and who had spent many of his glory years exploring the world. My job was to help him maintain his independence in the community where he’d lived for over 50 years and to save him from the nursing home, which he regarded as a fate worse than death. I had more than an inkling of what he feared because I’d worked as a stopgap maid for a rural nursing home one summer as a teenager. The environment wasn’t abusive, but it was coldly institutional. It wasn’t the place I’d want to spend the culminating years of my life. Many elderly people tolerate horrific abuse rather than even entertaining the thought of joining a “home”.

This constituted my entire understanding of eldercare before I had the opportunity last week to visit the Summerville (Villa del Rey) retirement community in Napa last week. First, the facilities were stunning. The dining room reminded me of a Victorian resort, and the chef was widely praised as well. I caught a glimpse of an on-site beauty parlor, which included manicures. The entire staff seemed to be involved in spending social time with the residents and participating in fun, creative, and educational activities.

I was most impressed by the Executive Director, Becky Givens. She actively fostered an environment that acknowledged everyone has value, no matter where they fall in the staff hierarchy. She sought out opportunities to praise unsung heroes and encouraged employees to treat each other with understanding and respect. The employees seemed genuinely happy to work there. This general sense of well-being was surely passed along to the elderly residents. Givens put her outlook in a nutshell: “This is their home – we’re here to serve them.”

It’s wonderful to know some people are working toward a world where elderly people don’t have to be terrified about being dumped in a “home”.

If the results from a University of Maine study can be construed as representative of university life in the U.S., more than one in five students have witnessed hazing. A quick glance at the news reveals a surprising number of hazing incidents (including the hazing murder of an Iraq veteran), and efforts to protect the victims through enlightened policies and legislation. Here is a good general resouce on hazing.

Apart from protecting the victim, I think the high numbers of witnesses who apparently do little or nothing call for a renewed public discussion about the bystander effect. This is a difficult topic to bring up, especially if you’re trying to point out and prevent the Bystander Effect in progress. In my experience, anyone who is part of the Bystander group will have a knee-jerk defensive reaction to the implied accusation rather than using the information to redirect their attention and help the victim. Perhaps what we also need is a social pact that makes it safe for people to bring up a Bystander issue: i.e., no hostility, retaliation, ostracization, or attempts to turn the group against the person who dares to point out Bystander behavior. The Bystander Effect is real, and a quick glance at all the news stories about hazing shows that people are getting hurt and even killed because of the social obstacles to intervention.