Many of you may remember a movie called American History X, which examined racism and discrimination through the eyes and actions of a reformed neo Nazi ex con. What I remember most about this movie is that the main character’s father used racist terms in the home and effectively taught his children to be discriminatory and racist in their adult actions.

And that is the way that it is with workplace discrimination, harassment, and racism. I am an optimist, and I don’t really believe that anyone is born racist, just as I personally believe that one emotion we surely are not born with is hate. Racism, discrimination, and hate are all, in my humble opinion, learned behaviors.

Federal, State, and Local governments try to do their part in reducing and eliminating these behaviors, but if the root problem of workplace discrimination is not effectively dealt with, the problem will inevitably persist. In other words, if we can’t figure out how to eradicate racist and discriminatory tones from the home, our efforts to eradicate them from the workplace and society in general will be somewhat futile.

Laws and the subsequent punishment for their violation can change behavior after the damage has been done (as in American History X), but laws generally do not change the way people think, and rarely do they change the values and priorities that have been instilled in people throughout their lives. People who have learned to discriminate at home will bring that selfsame attitude of discrimination into most of their activities and into the workplace.

Discrimination in all of its vile forms has its roots in fear of the different or the unknown, as well as in the lack of education. People who rarely have the opportunity or are denied the chance to interact with individuals that are different from them may learn to fear those individuals, and that emotion may eventually be fueled so much that it turns into discrimination. Many people who currently exhibit discriminatory attitudes in the workplace or in other areas of their life would probably abandon those attitudes if they were given the chance (or chose to themselves) to interact with diverse individuals on a regular basis.

This is why workplace diversity is so important. I love to write about the financial benefits of workplace diversity and how companies that fail to embrace workplace diversity are doomed to failure (or at least abysmal long term growth). But the societal importance of workplace diversity goes well beyond that. We all see individuals of different races, ethnicities, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities, etc., on a near daily basis—even in the most rural of areas in the US. But we don’t always regularly interact with those that are different from us.

In the workplace, many individuals depend on others to help them get the job or project completed in a quick and effective manner. Breathe that in for a second—depend on others. In a diverse workplace, a Hispanic employee may be teamed up with a White, Black, Asian, Gay, Female, Disabled or Multiracial partner for a common purpose. In the course of such a working relationship, both individuals can begin to learn what makes them different from each other and begin to embrace the notion that deep down, people of all races, cultural backgrounds, sexual orientations, and disabilities have much more in common than not.

The mere act of placing two or more mainstream and diverse individuals together in pursuit of a common goal is essentially an exercise in unity, as all parties involved need one another to succeed. Workplace diversity, even at the most micro of levels is one of the keys to unlearning any discriminatory behaviors that may have been instilled in the home.