Credits. Sing along! True story: My sister came to my parents' house this summer to visit for a week during the time I was staying with them between leases. One day, I went out and came home to find my sister, who had never seen an episode of this show, up to about the fourth one. My mom, who's already a fan, had gotten her hooked. Over the week, my sister watched the first season, all of the second season, and all but the last two episodes of the third season. And you can bet your ass that my sister, my mom, and I sang along with the theme song...most of the time, I'd say.
We open with Michael peeking in the conference room, where the man we will know as Mr. Brown is setting up the diversity seminar. Looking particularly hair-plug-tastic (something I'm very glad they addressed between this season and the , because it was hurting my soul), Michael THs that it's Diversity Day, and they're all going to be trained, which he says he's wanted to do for a long time. He tells us that corporate "beat [him] to the punch" in scheduling it, even though he was totally going to. Totally. He loves diversity. And he's turned on by people of different races, which he wants to tell you about, and maybe he can figure out a way.
Jim is at his desk on the phone, and he's trying to sell over a bad connection. Dwight abruptly picks up a shredder and starts to feed it, which loudly disrupts the sales call. Jim unplugs Dwight's shredder; Dwight retaliates by hanging up Jim's phone. Oh, you guys -- just kiss already! Dwight calls this "retaliation -- tit for tit." "That, is not, the expression," Jim says. Dwight returns to shredding. Jim THs that the sale he's doing today gives him a big chunk of his sales for the whole year, and he only has to do it once a year. In fact, he buys a little bottle of champagne, which he hides in his desk. The fridge, Jim! The fridge! It must be chilled!
Jim visits Pam while she's playing solitaire. He points out a card she could move, and she sheepishly admits that she's saving that one, because she likes the sound the cards make when a bunch are moved at once -- the "fft-fft-fft-fft" that you will immediately recognize if you play Freecell on a computer. "Who doesn't love that?" he asks, leaning moonily on his hand like Lucy on the edge of Schroder's piano.
Michael noodles around to ensure that he emerges from his office at the same time Mr. Brown emerges from the conference room door, and then Michael starts fussing over Oscar, celebrating how he's friends with all the minorities. Mr. Brown says he's ready to start. Jim is forced to interrupt the Yearly Halpert Champagne Closeout Sale to attend the seminar. It turns out that Mr. Brown's firm, Diversity Today, champions "honesty and positive expectations." Kinda right up Michael's alley, ironically, if you think of it as "lacking a filter and ignoring current and potential disasters." We catch, right here, our first glimpse of Kelly Kapoor, although she looks absolutely nothing like herself -- she's dressed like a buttoned-up librarian, complete with a bun. It's like this is Patty, and Future Kelly is Cathy, but either way, Mindy Kaling is TWoP's girlfriend, and has our ID bracelet, and if there were a fraternity that would have us, we would join just so we could give her our pin.
Anyway, in this very uncomfortable seminar, Michael keeps telling everyone that race doesn't exist in his world, and Mr. Brown keeps pointing out that this is…not true, and not that helpful. It's interesting, because I took Sociology with a "there is no color in my eyes" person, and I almost beat him up. Beat him up with sensitivity, that is. Mr. Brown is horribly hamstrung here by the facts that (1) Michael can't shut up; and (2) Michael is as dumb as a bag of racist hammers. Michael demonstrates the problem when he suggests that they start off by having each person "say a race that you are attracted to sexually." Dwight leaps on this question to announce that he likes "white and Indian." Kelly, stationed to him, freezes in horror, determinedly not looking directly at him. He is a stupidity eclipse. Mr. Brown doesn't like this idea. In fact, he finally makes Michael shut up and sit down. But nicely.
As Mr. Brown continues trying to get the thing moving, Dwight asks to keep gay people out of the discussion, since they're "not a race." He adds that people of other races are often intolerant of homosexuality. "So…paradox," he opines. This is where Mr. Brown announces his name, and Michael insists that he will not be using that name, because it's clearly "a test." No, Mr. Brown explains -- that's his name. Mr. Brown says that on the cards he handed out, they were all asked to write down an uncomfortable incident, and they mostly wrote down the same one -- which is the same one he's here about.
Short version: Michael chose to recite "the Chris Rock routine." That would be the one where…well, I'm not doing it. But suffice it to say that in "reenacting" it for role-playing purposes, Kevin speaks of the difference between "one kind of black people" and "the other kind of black people." Michael, for his part, can't understand why it's okay for Chris Rock, but not okay for him. Paranoid enough to think a guy named "Mr. Brown" is a test; innocent enough to not get...this. Frustrated at Kevin's censoring of the routine during the recitation (violence against comedy cannot stand!), Michael jumps up and puts his tasty foot directly into his disturbing mouth. Of course, when Michael is shrieking epithets at the top of his lungs, Mr. Brown has to reel him in, which is no fun for anyone. Except, I think, Jim.
Later, Jim's phone rings at his empty desk as he stares longingly at it from inside the conference room. Mr. Brown explains about a "HERO" mnemonic of sorts, and as he discusses what makes you a hero, Dwight objects that he has neglected to mention that in order to be a hero, you have to fight crime and be born from a nuclear accident, and you have to be seeking vengeance. "You're thinking of a superhero," Mr. Brown says gently. I think Dwight spends a lot of time thinking of superheroes, actually. Soon, it's time to fill out evaluations, which also serve as acknowledgements of having received training. Michael balks at signing his, but Mr. Brown takes Michael into his office, where he gently (sort of) explains that Michael is the very target of the training -- they all sat through this because Michael fucked up, and Michael is going to have to sign. Michael tries to make Mr. Brown feel guilty, but at last, he grudgingly signs and hands the paper over. Mr. Brown has already toughened up his Michael calluses in less than one day, so Michael's attempts at guilt inducement are ineffective.
In a TH, Michael reveals that he signed the form "Daffy Duck." As he so often does, he laughs conspiratorially, but it is a conspiracy of one. If you close your eyes, you can see the person at corporate who will discover this "prank" and inevitably say, "I fucking wish we could have that office run by Daffy Duck."
Jim tries to reach his customer again. Pam is back at the solitaire grind. They're both interrupted when Michael strolls out of his office, starts mocking the seminar, and tears up his copy of the acknowledgement he signed. He goes on a tear about how they learned nothing, that training was terrible, and they need some real training. From Michael. About diversity and being sensitive. After lunch, Michael promises to have everyone in tears. This, I believe.
After lunch, Jim still hasn't reached his client when Michael drags him out of his chair again and makes everybody return for more "training," which the Print Shop dot-matrix banner on the wall tells us is called "Diversity Day Take 2." We get our first glimpse of Toby (Toby! Toby! Toby! TOBYTOBYTOBY!) as he smiles and asks Michael if they're all going to have to "sit Indian-style." Michael's irrational hatred of Toby bubbles up and stops him from accepting one of the only times we will ever see anyone attempt to include Michael in a joking moment, and Michael orders Toby to leave. Of course, in current days, Toby takes that kind of thing as a blessing. "This is an environment of welcoming, and you should just get the hell out of here," Michael announces. Defeated and indifferent, Toby leaves as Michael has everyone "cop a squat." Oh, great. Now we're going to have to have Diversity day Take 3, in which the inadvisability of using the word "squat" in the workplace is addressed.
Michael shows a video. It's a video of himself. He tells us on the tape that he's the president of Diversity Tomorrow (presumably a very young company, no?), "because today is almost over." Here, you get one of the classic examples of the way Michael wants to do everything better for his employees -- he really thinks, at this moment, that the diversity training he's going to give is better than what they'd get through corporate. That's his agenda. I mean, part of his agenda is always self-aggrandizement, but it is actually true of Michael that if he didn't think his training would be better, he wouldn't be doing it. He is remarkably short on malice and equally long on ineptitude. The introduction to Michael's video? "Abraham Lincoln once said, 'If you are a racist, I will attack you with the north.'" Don't bother looking that one up.
Kelly needs to leave after the video -- she's got a prior commitment. "If you leave," Michael says, "we'll only have two left." She pauses. Michael stops himself, hearing some distant alarm bell clanging quietly in his head, and he sends her on her way with a "Namaste." These days, she'd have thought that was a kind of purse. Too bad for Michael. Michael straddles a rolling chair and tries to conduct a straight-talking rap session. He claims to be "two-fifteenths" Native American, until Oscar points out that that's impossible. I don't know. If you told me Michael is partitioned differently than normal people, I don't think I'd argue the point. Of course, Michael says it's hard for him to talk about those two fifteenths, because of "the suffering." After Oscar is prodded into talking about being Mexican, Michael keeps up the bridge-building by asking whether there's something less offensive than "Mexican" that Oscar would like to be called. He declines to elaborate for Oscar about what makes the word "Mexican" offensive. In the middle of this, Jim dashes out to answer his phone, but the call is gone when he gets there. I love the fact that they included the detail that not only are office seminars of this type often (if not always) excruciating, they keep you from doing the things you're actually supposed to be doing.
It turns out that Michael's seminar is highlighted by a game he has people play where you put a card on your forehead (without looking at it) that has the name of a "race" (like..."Italian") on it, and then people treat you like the race written on your head, and you have to guess what it is. This game is approximately as ill-advised as you think it is, based on that description. Kevin's reads "Italian," Angela's reads "Jamaican," Pam's reads "Jewish," and, brilliantly, Stanley's reads "Black." As Michael sets up the exercise, he smacks a card onto his own forehead that reads "Martin Luther King, Jr.," telling them all that he has a dream that they'll all "really let the sparks fly." And then, because the people who write this show never leave a joke at a 9.8 if they can boost it to a 10, Michael adds, "Git 'er done!" It's just...it's tiny, tiny, tiny, that throwaway, but it speaks to (1) Michael's relentless efforts to reference pop culture; (2) Michael's embrace of dumb comedy; (3) Michael's failure to recognize that maybe self-consciously redneck humor isn't the best choice for Diversity Day Take 2; (4) Michael's irritatingly enthused pep-talky-ness; and (5) Michael's repetition of all things tired and overused. And it's not even the joke, really. The joke is that his head says "Martin Luther King, Jr." That's just extra.
Speaking of which, Michael THs that the reason he did that is that Martin Luther King is a hero of his, and, of course, this leads him to another foray into Chris Rock comedy. Hey, at least this time, Michael recognizes that maybe he shouldn't do the whole routine, so maybe he's learning something from his own seminar after all.
In the conference room, Michael supervises as Pam ("Jewish") and Stanley ("Black") attempt to speak to each other as the game requires. Of course, because they've been told to treat each other as you'd treat someone of the actual race/group at issue, Stanley and Pam are simply...being polite to each other. This irritates Michael, who mutters that they need to pump it up. "Olympics of suffering right here!" he whispers. "Slavery versus the Holocaust!" At this, Stanley abruptly frowns and tears the card off his head to see that it reads "Black." "That was inadvertent," Michael assures him. Stanley will now, I predict, go off and do a crossword puzzle.
"Lots of cultures eat rice," announces a frustrated Dwight ("Asian") as he stomps away from Meredith. He walks up to Pam and says, "Shalom. I'd like to apply for a loan." Hey, Dwight's getting with the program. "That's nice, Dwight," Pam says sarcastically. Dwight wants Pam to give him something "stereotypical" so he can guess what his card says. When Pam says, "I like your food," Dwight concludes that he is Australian, and that she likes the Outback Steakhouse. Michael walks up and harasses Pam to be more controversial in her comments to Dwight, so after offering a series of stammering disclaimers assuring everyone that she is talking about dumb stereotypes she does not embrace herself, she tells Dwight, "You would maybe not be a very good driver." Dwight, nearly shrieking: "Oh, man, am I a woman?"
Michael THs that there were no Arabs in the mix. Too soon, he figures. Too "explosive." No pun intended! Don't email me! (Oh, sorry. Instinct.)
Out at reception, Ryan is borrowing Pam's computer to download an episode of Chappelle's Show. Ryan says he hopes Pam won't mind, but Jim assures him that Pam would "really like it." As he watches, Ryan follows up with, "She's cute, huh?" Jim: "Yeah. Yeah. She's engaged, though." Ryan, really only catching the faintest whiff of the snap, says, "No, no, the girl on the...sketch." Jim agrees that "she's hot." Eeeeek, Jim's heart escaped into the wild! But only for a minute, fortunately.
Kevin ("Italian") and Angela ("Jamaican"). Kevin asks her if she wants to go to the beach. "Sure," she says. "You want to get high?" he asks. "No," she says flatly. Kevin pauses. He stares down at her tiny figure. "I think you do, mon," he says. Michael has to interrupt this one, because he's beginning to think this might not be working. Thus, he will have to demonstrate what he's looking for. He runs over to Patty-Kelly as she's on her way out the door. Apparently, his idea is to treat her as if her forehead is festooned with a card that reads, "Indian." He speaks to her in a loud, obnoxious voice and what you can pretty much assume is the accent he cribbed from Hank Azaria. Only in part because he welcomes her to his convenience store. No, really. Her face falls into numb horror as he repeats over and over that he wants her to try the "googi-googi." Finally, she hauls off and smacks him, then she leaves. Everyone stares. "Now she knows what it's like to be a minority," Michael says, choking back...something.
Finally, Jim gets on the phone with Mr. Decker to complete his sale. But when he does, he learns that Mr. Decker has already been dealt with. By Dwight. Who gave him a discount. I pause here to mention that in most offices, this kind of client-poaching is absolutely emphatically Not Done and is often entirely prohibited by policy, but it works in the story, so...whatever. Jim leaves the mini-bottle of champagne on Dwight's desk.
Conference room. Michael is complaining to the entire group about Mr. Brown and his seminar of renown. He is holding court about how he wanted to do it "our way," and everyone in the room is wondering how long they have to sit here before they can go wash the adhesive off their foreheads. Except for Kevin, who still has "Italian" on his forehead. Michael mentions food, and Kevin throws in "Maybe some spaghet-ti," at which point Michael finally tells him he can take it off. One gets the feeling Kevin kind of liked being Italian. An exhausted, bored Pam drops her head onto Jim's shoulder. He smiles a bit. He waits a beat, then smiles a bit more. Elsewhere, things are wrapping up but not getting better as Stanley corrects Michael's mention of "colored greens" to "collard greens." Michael says that this makes no sense, since there are no "collard people." Michael really needs to dismiss the seminar before he gets popped in the jaw. And indeed, finally, Michael lets everyone go, wishing Oscar "buena vista." When everyone is gone, Jim sits with a snoozing Pam on his shoulder. Reluctantly, he "hey"s into her ear, and she stirs. She sits up, and they both chuckle nervously. She gets up and walks out.
Jim TH. "Ahhh...not a bad day," he says through a goofy smile. And then he looks up and to the right, as he always does when he's squashing his feelings.