A reader writes:

Recently, at work, we got in another new person from England. There are a lot of people fleeing England, although it's one of the most liberal places on earth. Like most English men, he drinks a lot, drives drunk, masturbates to extreme pornography, and sleeps with moronic sluts who give him infections. He is very liberal and I'm sure what I said was totally insensitive.

Apparently, after a few beers, I referred to the United Kingdom (in which England is a state, like Vermont) as "Brokeback Island," at which point he punched me, but it felt more like getting hit in the face with an effete wet dishrag.

Someone immediately called me racist against the English, which I've never felt was true (some of my best friends were English) but then our black friend Tsewethawa said it might be homophobic instead. I think he took pity on me.

My question is:

* Is calling the UK "Brokeback Island" racist? If so, I need to go to Sensitivity Training SD-3082, "Learning to Recognize and Eliminate Racial Bias."

* Is calling the UK "Brokeback Island" homophobic? If so, I need to go to Sensitivity Training HD-6139, "Discovering and Preventing Sexual and Gender Bias."

If my words were determined to be racist, homophobic AND sexist, then I have to go through the whole diversity training seminar, which will take two weeks and be taught in Nigeria, and that's really going to wreck my vacation schedule.

Can someone help? If there's an informed opinion that says the comment was EITHER racist or homophobic, then I'm OK, but if it's both, I may well be screwed.

How do we even begin to answer this one? Well, for starters, a little bit about forced brainwashing:

Most diversity training efforts at American companies are ineffective and even counterproductive in increasing the number of women and minorities in managerial positions, according to an analysis that turns decades of conventional wisdom, government policy and court rulings on their head.

A comprehensive review of 31 years of data from 830 mid-size to large U.S. workplaces found that the kind of diversity training exercises offered at most firms were followed by a 7.5 percent drop in the number of women in management. The number of black, female managers fell by 10 percent, and the number of black men in top positions fell by 12 percent. Similar effects were seen for Latinos and Asians.

You know, it's not really any different from "all communists are bad" during the McCarthy era. No matter what year it is, the public has to have demons, and a reason to consider themselves "progressive," so they pick egalitarianism, which unravels into diversity training and not calling rapists "rapists."