Colorblind or Multi-cultural?

Should my ability as a jazz trumpet player be judged by how well I play jazz trumpet, or should I just be viewed in a positive light simply because there have been great jazz trumpet players?

This might sound like a ridiculous question, but apparently, this is a serious philosophical debate in our society today, and particularly in the workplace.

I know this because today I was listening to NPR and they were discussing the issue of race in the workplace. Specifically, they were discussing the differences between a “color blind” workplace and a “multicultural” workplace.
A color blind workplace would be a setting where workers were viewed strictly as individuals, whereas a multicultural workplace would be a setting where cultural differences were recognized or even “celebrated”.

I have to admit, most places I have worked have been color blind, at least when it came to the way they dealt with me. When I worked at Sabatini’s Pizza and I dropped a pot of sausage on the floor, they were pretty adamant about judging me as an individual. No one seemed to want to celebrate the fact that here I was, the grandson of an Italian immigrant, working in an Italian restaurant! I even tried to point out the fact that there have been many great contributions made to society by Italian-Americans, but they didn’t seem concerned about that either. I didn’t really fare better when I was employed by the U.S. Army, who also seemed to overlook my rich cultural heritage and insisted on viewing me as an individual soldier. Even the school where I now work insists on evaluating me personally and never even asks about or mentions my ancestry, let alone celebrate it. I would expect a little more consideration given that the public schools are so big on paying lip service to the cause of multiculturalism. But I digress.

Anyway, the “expert” that was on the show talking about it said that when Martin Luther King, Jr. made his great “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” statement, he didn’t mean that they should only be looked at as individuals, he meant that they should be looked at as individuals as part of their racial or cultural group, or some such babble.
Personally, I always admired the MLK statement as it was before this expert translated it for me. I always thought it was beautiful and profound in its simplicity and directness. I was fortunate enough (at least, I thought) to be raised in an environment where my parents taught me to think and act and treat other human beings in just exactly the way Dr. King dreamt. That is, to treat every person with respect and dignity; to evaluate them only through their actions and deeds; and to expect to be treated and evaluated in the same manner. Period.

But in a poll taken, workers stated that they felt more “involved” when their culture was recognized in the workplace, and less “inspired” when their supervisors were color-blind.

I’m not really surprised by this. Being evaluated strictly as an individual, as Dr. King mentioned, could be a pretty harrowing experience. I know I was pretty uncomfortable getting chewed out by my boss when I, as an individual, dropped the pot of sausage at Sabatini’s. I’m sure I would have felt much better if they would have overlooked my individual error and viewed me as part of a cultural group to which, by the way, they owed their livelihood: if it weren’t for us Italians, there would be no Italian restaurants.

And the next time I am playing jazz trumpet somewhere, I am going to inform my audience that rather than respond to my personal performance, that they should be considerate of the “cultural heritage” of such greats as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Clifford Brown, and that their enthusiastic appreciation for my artistic ancestry will help me feel more “inspired”.