Sign of the times of the day: This slide was included in a Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) training presentation at a state university.
If you can’t read the slide, here is the text:
Khalilah is a Muslim, and Janice is a Catholic. One day, Khalilah loses her favorite ring. Janice grabs Khalilah’s hands, bows her head, and starts praying to St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost things. Khalilah pulls her hands back and reminds Janice that she is a Muslim. Janice gets upset, tells Khalilah that she will never find her ring because she is a heathen, and storms off. Over the next couple of weeks, Janice stops by Khalilah’s desk over and over again to ask if she found her ring. When Khalilah said that she had not, Janice would smirk and tell her it is because she refuses to pray to St. Anthony. As a new employee, Khalilah is scared to mention anything to her supervisor, because she knows her supervisor is also Catholic.
Yeah, why do Catholics always grab your hand and start praying to St. Anthony when you lose something? I mean, this happens all the time, right? It ain’t just happening in fictional situation with Muslims, is it? (It couldn’t be, otherwise the EEOC would have used a more relevant example.)
(Via: Thomas Peters)
October 6th, 2011 | 11:31 am
I’d show you my St. Anthony medallion on my keychain, but I can’tseem to find it.
October 6th, 2011 | 11:37 am
Janice clearly needs a few weeks in an EEOC re-education camp to wipe that smirk off her face.
October 6th, 2011 | 11:47 am
What would a more relevant example be? Is there something Catholics actually do do all the time in the workplace that violates EEOC guidelines?
October 6th, 2011 | 12:15 pm
So Janice is clueless and, apparently, Khalilah thinks all Catholics are the same. Both are fictional, so what does this say about the author and her supervisor?
October 6th, 2011 | 12:16 pm
Of course, Christian very often make non-Christians uncomfortable in the workplace. It’s usually unconscious– the result of centuries of privilege– but it happens. And it’s not always unconscious either. I write this out of personal personal experience, alas, and it doesn’t seem so awful for a state university to mention it. At least to me.
October 6th, 2011 | 12:49 pm
St. Anthony must be laughing in Heaven.
October 6th, 2011 | 12:49 pm
Hello, Eric Mattingly,
There is a lot of non-Christian speech and behavior in the work place that often makes Christians uncomfortable. I think this happens far more often in our secularized culture than the reverse, in spite of “centuries of privilege” for Christians which I think is pretty much over for the time being and has been for quite a while.
October 6th, 2011 | 1:09 pm
“We need a new slide for religious harassment.”
“OK. Let’s see. . . . How about this:
Janice is Catholic. Khalilah is not religious. One day Janice loses her favorite ring, so she puts her hands together and starts praying to St. Anthony. Khalilah grabs Janice’s hands, pulls them apart, and says “You don’t believe that nonsense, do you?” Janice reminds Khalilah that she is Catholic. Khalilah gets upset, tells Janice that she’s a superstitious fool, and storms off. Over the next couple weeks, Khalilah stops by Janice’s desk over and over again to ask if she found her ring. When Janice said that she had not, Khalilah would smirk and tell her it’s because prayers are useless. As a new employee. Janice is scared to mention anything to her supervisor, because she knows her supervisor is an atheist.
“Nah. That’s just not realistic.”
“Yeah. I guess you’re right. Back to the drawing board. . . . .”
October 6th, 2011 | 1:48 pm
There is a lot of non-Christian speech and behavior in the work place that often makes Christians uncomfortable.
harry,
By this do you mean anti-Christian speech and behavior, or do you mean speech and behavior that a pious Christian would find offensive (like dirty jokes).
in spite of “centuries of privilege” for Christians which I think is pretty much over for the time being and has been for quite a while
How do you square this with the “is Romney really a Christian” debate, which basically seems to me to be “can Romney make a significant enough case that he is a Christian to be elected, because a non-Christian is unelectable.”
As I pointed out recently, in all of the House and Senate, there is only one member who describes himself as an atheist.
I don’t think Christians are yet the embattled, persecuted minority they claim to be.
By the way, I could use your expertise in another thread. Someone is maintaining that when a Catholic is excommunicated, he or she is no longer a Catholic. That is most definitely not true, but I don’t think he is going to believe the likes of me.
October 6th, 2011 | 2:39 pm
I don’t think Christians are yet the embattled, persecuted minority they claim to be.
So I guess you’d have us just keep quiet for now and wait until we really are an embattled, persecuted minority?
October 6th, 2011 | 3:25 pm
David
For that other thread, you might want to start with this interview of canon lawyer Ed Peters at Ignatius Insight. Here’s a quick snippet on point:
IgnatiusInsight.com: And the most common misperceptions?
Peters: I’d say there are two, maybe three.
First, there is the idea that excommunication kicks one out of the Church. That is not right. There are ways to cancel one’s Church membership, but excommunication isn’t one of them. The analogy I use to explain it is that of a felon serving a long prison term; he’s in prison, but he remains a citizen bound by the laws of his country. If he, say, owns property upon which he incurs taxes while in prison, he still owns the property and is still liable for the tax from prison; if he commits a crime in prison, he can be prosecuted for it, and so on. A felon loses certain important rights, obviously, like freedom of movement and the right to vote, but he is still a citizen. Similarly, an excommunicated person is still a member of the Church, but he or she has lost certain key rights attached to Church membership and is cut off from many of the activities and benefits of the Church
October 6th, 2011 | 4:37 pm
So I guess you’d have us just keep quiet for now and wait until we really are an embattled, persecuted minority?
John V.,
I would be most happy for someone to maintain that the price of religious freedom is eternal vigilance. I think, for example, the price of freedom of speech is eternal vigilance, and I take any potentially small encroachment on the right to free speech quite seriously. But say the Supreme Court on flag burning as free speech had gone the other way, and it had been decided that burning the flag was not protected by the right to free speech. I don’t think I or anyone would have been able to declare that we had lost free speech in America.
I think to really keep up on threats to freedom of religion, it’s more helpful to follow Mirror of Justice than First Things. It’s not that First Things doesn’t cover them, or that they don’t get discussed when brought up as topics. It is that the Mirror of Justice contributors are all lawyers, and and they cover all the freedom of religion cases in depth.
Thanks for the information from Ed Peters. No one can claim he has been brainwashed by “the Spirit of Vatican II.”
October 6th, 2011 | 5:40 pm
“which basically seems to me to be “can Romney make a significant enough case that he is a Christian to be elected, because a non-Christian is unelectable.”
It seems to me it’s more like, can he make a significant enough case that he is a Christian to be elected, because people are suspicious of those who claim to be something they are not, and Christians naturally disinclined to entrust with great power those who (in their minds) falsely claim to be so.
BTW, it seems that way to me that that is the question people have, without respect to my position on it.
October 6th, 2011 | 6:57 pm
Maria Monk next?
October 6th, 2011 | 7:23 pm
Did Christ come to make us comfortable–Christians or otherwise?
October 6th, 2011 | 8:18 pm
Janice clearly needs a few weeks in an EEOC re-education camp to wipe that smirk off her face.
Or the people who do EEOC training materials need to cultivate some sensitivity.
This particular example perpetuates a negative stereotype of Catholics – and one, I might add, that I have NEVER in my life encountered.
I have known many Catholics, and not one has EVER pushed their faith in my faith, or done anything even remotely close to it.
I have had almost every other religion do so – including atheists – but I have been quite struck by just how *nice* the Catholics I have met have been about respecting other peoples’ boundaries re: religion.
Perhaps it is because Catholicism does not emphasize aggressive proselytizing as a method of recruitment the way some Protestant faiths (and atheism) do.
October 6th, 2011 | 8:21 pm
Of course, Christian very often make non-Christians uncomfortable in the workplace. It’s usually unconscious– the result of centuries of privilege
Here’s a new relevant example of where sensitivity is needed.
The kids these days apparently are joking quite mercilessly at the expense of people who use the word “privilege” with a straight face.
I can’t decide whether to clip this example – to share it with those who would get a good chuckle out of it – or whether I should feel ashamed of the desire to do so.
October 6th, 2011 | 11:23 pm
Blake,
You should feel deeply ashamed of your impulse to give undergraduate students one more reason to ridicule their elders and graduate student teaching assistants.
Some tireless government functionary no doubt spent a lot of time on that Powerpoint slide. It took a lot of thought and imagination to come up with that scenario. The part where she grasps the other woman’s hands is a nice bit of detail that a less diligent writer would have overlooked. That lets us know that this is someone who has carefully observed the behavior of Catholics in the workplace.
I myself would never go that far. Personally, I limit myself to secretly baptizing colleagues while they are asleep at their desks – always keep a little vial of holy water handy just in case the occasion arises.
October 7th, 2011 | 12:24 am
Good one, Peter. All I can say is thank the Good Lord you’re not Jewish! :)
Blake ~ What you’ve said has been my experience, too. One could say for many of us, we leave little evidence to convict ourselves of the ‘crime’ of being Catholic.
And dear Eric M ~ If Christianity is the target, the CC is the bulls-eye. Everything that comes out of the left is directed at the Church. If you happen to be a member, you are immediately deemed superstitious, backward, brainwashed and ignorant. Even your own family will ostracize you when they have lost the will or desire to continue to practice their faith. I’ve got an extra pair of moccasins if you want to try walking a mile in my shoes …
October 7th, 2011 | 12:43 am
How is everyone missing the point here that Catholics don’t join hands and pray to St. Anthony? Generally (with the occasional exception for the Our Father at Mass, depending on how traditional your church is) Catholics don’t join hands to pray, particularly with non-Catholics. What’s more likely is the person would say “I’ll pray to St. Anthony for you.”
I find this example particularly humorous because I recently had an Evangelical Protestant tell me that he and his wife would pray for me, and I thanked him. I assumed he meant in the privacy of his own room/head, as a Catholic would, only to find that we were joining hands and he and his wife were alternating speaking in tongues.
So, yeah, wrong denomination, EEOC.
October 7th, 2011 | 6:58 am
Remember last winter, when the most popular show in New York was a musical-dramatic extravaganza about how weird and ridiculous and hypocritical the Mormon faith is?
And remember what good sports the Mormons were about it? How they just published some free pamphlets and developed some websites that explained that that isn’t really what Mormonism is like and anybody who is interested is always welcome to come and see?
October 7th, 2011 | 9:06 am
LOL Katy!
October 7th, 2011 | 9:33 am
To connect this to the following thread on atheistic Jews, I have a friend who doesn’t believe but considers himself strongly Jewish. When his mother died, a woman he cared greatly about, I asked him if I could remember her in prayer. He essentially said, “Please” and willingly gave me her first name. She has remained on my list the several years since.
(I didn’t grab his hands, but then we’re both men, big burly men.)
October 7th, 2011 | 10:19 am
Whoever came up with the title “Ask St. Anthony to Help the EEOC Find a Clue” deserves special recognition.
I once worked in a university art history department. Our small unit’s sole focus was Christian art. One of the young art historians made a snide remark about Christianity and I suggested it could hurt feelings. She assured me that “no one around here believes in anything like that”. Well, I was a practicing Catholic. So was our boss and so were the experts on Byzantine and Romanesque art. My atheist colleague’s own office mate was married to an Episcopalian priest. I didn’t know what or if the other few colleagues believed. She was amazed that so many of us were believers and wondered why we hadn’t told her. I suggested that maybe we didn’t feel comfortable doing so. I know that I usually keep mum because of the hostility that comes from some people.
We briefly had a student intern with us, a Moslem student who prayed at regular intervals—right there in the office. Want to guess who “freaked out” and asked to have her replaced? To keep the peace, our boss set aside the conference room for the intern and suggested she keep the door shut when she prayed.
October 7th, 2011 | 11:04 am
I continue to be struck by the “privilege” comment (I have heard about, but have not personally encountered, this line of thinking)….someone decides that things ought to change and not only is the burden not on them to demonstrate why change is needed, but now it’s “privilege” for a person to think their old beliefs are acceptable?
You would think everyone would at least getting a memo informing them that Those Who Really Matter have decided what we should all believe, who we should be, and what we should do, and continue to cling to the old ways – being unacceptable ‘privilege’ – must get with the program At Once.
(Or is that what this EEOC training stuff is? The memo?)
Because God knows just because a culture has done something a certain way for X number of years doesn’t mean you have the right to continue doing that, if some smart young kid has decided he’s got a new, better way. How selfish of you to not adopt his new, better way ASAP! It is your OBLIGATION to be whatever the new kids think you ought to be! Failure to do so is a sign that you are *spoiled* as well as culturally insensitive!
What a ridiculous way of looking at the world. I see now why certain young people I have spoken to laugh so hard at the phrase “privilege”. It certainly is about privilege – but not in the way the users imagine…
October 7th, 2011 | 11:12 am
I think to really keep up on threats to freedom of religion, it’s more helpful to follow Mirror of Justice than First Things.
Or you just let us know when the negative stereotypes, caricatures, or outright dehumanization get severe enough that we’re allowed to mind.
Since obviously you don’t think Catholics have the same right to be offended by attacks that “legitimate” or “worthy” or “deserving” groups have.
October 7th, 2011 | 11:40 am
Whoever came up with the title “Ask St. Anthony to Help the EEOC Find a Clue” deserves special recognition.
Except for the fact that it is almost certainly based on an inaccurate assumption—that the offending scenario was cooked up by the EEOC. In all likelihood, it originated with someone in the HR department of the state university where the blogger works.
Here are the EEOC’s own guidelines regarding religious discrimination. There is one scenario involving a Catholic.
October 7th, 2011 | 12:43 pm
David,
The difficulty is that the current administration has populated all of the executive agencies with bureaucrats hostile to religion and to religious liberty. Even though Christians are certainly not a minority when it comes to voting, nobody actually votes on these agencies and their workers, and the regulations they issue are only slightly accountable to anybody. Recall the quote from Peter Berger, about how America is ‘a nation of Indians ruled by Swedes.’
October 7th, 2011 | 2:37 pm
‘Here are the EEOC’s own guidelines regarding religious discrimination. There is one scenario involving a Catholic.’
Yeah, yet another scenario in which the Catholic and her boss come off as the jerks again.
I think I might lodge an EEO complaint against the EEOC.
They should deep-six their cartoonish scenarios and just put out the rule: all or none get to be late because of religious observance.
October 7th, 2011 | 3:07 pm
[...] Ask St. Anthony To Help the EEOC Find a Clue. [...]
October 7th, 2011 | 4:56 pm
Except for the fact that it is almost certainly based on an inaccurate assumption—that the offending scenario was cooked up by the EEOC. In all likelihood, it originated with someone in the HR department of the state university where the blogger works.
Here are the EEOC’s own guidelines regarding religious discrimination. There is one scenario involving a Catholic.
I know someone personally who cane very close to losing a job for attending Mass and in so doing limiting the hours he was available to work overtime.
But of course Catholics are always the lucky ones who enjoy “privilege”, and never themselves ever victimized, so that makes it right and good to use them as punching bags and scapegoats.
Such is how it is when the principle of equality under the law is replaced by the principle that presumptions of innocence or guilt should be based on the identity of the victims rather than the actual facts of the case.
October 13th, 2011 | 9:44 pm
This has generated such an interesting discussion. I thought you might be interested in some follow-up. I can now confirm who wrote the training. Because of my complaint, it has been reviewed and rewritten!
See: http://www.soundmindandspirit.com/2011/10/anti-catholic-eeo-training-scenario.html
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