Vanderbilt University is offering a 10-day diversity
training program during which, on day one, participants are asked to
journal their emotions using a "Feelings Wheel"
as a reference. Enrollees are instructed to “Start with one of the seven core
emotions and then work your way out to dig deeper into its derivatives. Or
identify a higher-level feeling and track it back to the core emotion.”
I wonder if the emotion I’m feeling right now is
represented on that wheel.
The seven core emotions at the heart of the wheel are
"happy," "sad," "disgusted," "angry,"
"surprised," "bad," and "fearful." The core
emotions branch out and connect to two additional rings making for a total of
130 feelings. These additional feelings include "awful,"
"cheeky," and "confused."
First off, “bad” isn’t a feeling. People often
say they “feel bad,” but that’s because people often say stupid things. People
often say they “feel like shit,” too, but “shit” isn’t a feeling, either.
The other nine training days are
titled, "Contextualizing Intersectionality — Our Narrative, Our
Stories," "White Privilege and Whiteness," "Understanding
the Link Between Race, Ethnicity, and Sexualization," etc., etc.
The university has also issued a statement reading,
“Vanderbilt is committed to fostering a culture of inclusion and care where
every community member feels supported and experiences a strong sense of
belonging. As part of this commitment, university leaders are actively working
to mitigate the effects of unconscious bias, along with implementing new
educational opportunities for community members to meaningfully engage with
this issue.”
Vanderbilt is committed to making every community
member feel supported and experience a strong sense of belonging? Conservatives?
The unvaccinated? Are university leaders also actively working to mitigate the
effects of conscious bias?
Let’s
go to the outer ring of the wheel and see if we can find an emotion that accurately
describes how I’m feeling now. Yes, there it is!
“Repulsed.”
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