h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Zagreb:

There is little anyone can do to stop the consciously racist employer. Employment laws can always be circumvented. As I've said before, I've worked for & with Asian businesses and anyone who thinks they accurately reflect the demographic mix is having a laugh.

You say the big picture over-rules the small picture without realising that it's the small picture that people are confronted with daily. I would say a British trait is one of seeking fair play. That's why no one questions for a moment the Race Relations Act and the outlawing of race discrimination. But Positive Action flies in the face of that. It's basically saying that it's ok to be racist if it's directed against whites.

Any kind of quota is wrong. Be it women only lists for MPs or ethnic-only recruitment days for the Police.

The problem with trying to socially engineer outcomes is it totally fails to take into account cultural quirks. In many Asian cultures, the Arts feature low in prestige value when compared with careers in Law or Medicine so we see poor figures for Asians in the Arts and spectacular figures in the NHS. Sikhs view the Police as an honourable profession so they are actually over-represented there. Pakistanis see commerce as a high priority so we see a very high proportion of Pakistani small businesses. But quotas don't allow for that. Black people were under-represented in football until the mid 70s. This wasn't changed by legislation or quotas but by one Manager in particular giving some exceptional black players a break (ironically, Ron Atkinson is now denounced as a racist). Now the Premier League has 30% black players.

In all of these areas, Positive Action wasn't necessary as Ethnic Minorities were doing very well.

There's talk of having ethnic-only lists for MPs as Black & Asian MPs only account for 2.3% of the total in Westminster. An under-representation seemingly. But at the last election, there were 48 candidates, 7.4%. Is the democratic process inherently racist? It seems to me that, without any external interference, Black & Asian candidates are putting themselves forward in disproportionate numbers. Are the electorate racist then? How would that account for an area that is 40% Asian choosing George Galloway over Oona King? Are the Asians of Bethnal being racist?

IMO, you can't fight racism with racism. You can't end discrimination by discriminating. The Race Relations Act made it illegal to discriminate according to skin colour and imo that should be enough. If a cadidate thinks he has been discriminated against, he has the full weight of the law on his side. By all means, prosecute racist employers. But it is a mistake to look at raw statistics and automatically assume that an under-representation in one area is inevitably a result of racism.

Once you start with quotas, where do you stop? We have just seen legislation passed outlawing discrimination against gay people. In 30 years, will we see gay quotas in the workplace?

It's been a while so I'll put the whole post in ~ "Positive discrimination is still discrimination, it is wrong to lower standards to allow members of the perceived minority group entrance. Regardless of whether they are black, female, or homosexual.

It is a fabrication put about by racists and those too closed minded to accept the truth that positive efforts to recruit from gropups underrepresented in certain areas of employment is about "Lowering standards" this is far from being the case.

Positive discrimination works on getting people who are able into jobs and studying even if sometimes their *paper* qualifications do not match up, but this is not always the case. As has been proven time and time again in white dominated countries like the ones most of us live in many white employers subconciously discriminate against job seekers from other ethnic groups and sometimes actively discrminate against them.

Its an attempt to redress this imbalance.

And please dont say it causs racism because it only enflames it in people who already feel that way already.

one love

I very carefully didn't limit this to race alone because I knew the views that would draw forth. To judge someone on their skin colour alone is to demonstrate the shallowness of your views, however I included gender and sexual preference in my post.

However to say that positive disrimination only inflames racists so therefore if you find it annoying you are racist is not only wrong - it is insulting.

I want the best qualified, hardest working people in my team. I put more emphasis on willingness to work than anything. Thus I want to be able to say that both Alan and Raj are workshy skivers without there being any question of one of them being able to wave a 'race' flag.

I work in IT and when we place a job advert the vast majority of applicants are fom the sub-continent, I have no problem with this. However it has been pointed out there is not a single woman on any of the shifts, and thus a woman was interviewed for the last post. She started by saying she couldn't work shifts......

Positive discrimination annoys those people who have worked to obtain the qualifications to put themselves into the position they desire.

>>In 30 years, will we see gay quotas in the workplace?<<

Very unlikely - any government which proposed them would lose my vote because they'd show a fundamental ignorance about equality.

The history of black and asian minorities means they are often put in a disadvantaged position economically, a situation positive action is designed to rectify, rightly or wrongly.

With gay people it's different, because they occur across all the different cultural, social and economic classes, they can't be said to be in the same disadvantaged position as a black person. A black lesbian with split ends might have a claim to positive action, but it'd be because she's black and a woman, the lesbian bit doesn't disadvantage her.

By all means, take discrimination out of the picture, it's an abomination, but once that's done there's a level playing field.

Iago.

P.S. >>It's basically saying that it's ok to be racist if it's directed against whites<< - I was told I got my job because I was white, there were two candidates who interviewed better, but they were both Asian. Positive action can work both ways, and we're starting to see it in places like Bradford and Leicester where former minorites have become the largest group in a plurality.

I've been following this conversation since the start but have never really felt like I wanted to add anything. But just now I suddenly got the feeling of 'Hey, why not jump in?'.

>>The problem with trying to socially engineer outcomes is it totally fails to take into account cultural quirks. In many Asian cultures, the Arts feature low in prestige value when compared with careers in Law or Medicine so we see poor figures for Asians in the Arts and spectacular figures in the NHS. Sikhs view the Police as an honourable profession so they are actually over-represented there. Pakistanis see commerce as a high priority so we see a very high proportion of Pakistani small businesses. But quotas don't allow for that.<<

This is a good point, SWL, that cultural factors can create inequalities. I'd just like to add this as well:

My upbringing has certainly affected the kind of career I will go into. I have a general distaste for managerial/business-type jobs (some of that's ideological, but let's not argue about that eh? I know it's quite irrational ). My career is (with any luck) going to be an academic/scientific one. Influences such as this affect people regardless of race, as well as broadly because of this. The reason such inequalities don't get flagged up, say, among the white community, is because there is no easy 'marker' to identify people.

But the thing is, what action can we take once we have acknowledged cultural factors are important? Do we just put all inequalities down to this? I presume not, but then how do we know *how much* of the inequalities is cultural and how much is down to discrimination? 'Tis is difficult business.

REALITY CHECK: We don't have, nor is anyone proposing, quotas.

Really?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6572897.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2006/10/13/school_quota_feature.shtml
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-411991/Lords-quotas-ethnic-minorities-atheists-women.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/career_and_jobs/article1073224.ece

If people would indulge me for a moment, I'd like to relate my - admittedly anecdotal - experience of life as an engineer of 20 years. In my workplace at least 95% of the engineers are white males, probably about are 3% non-white - which is probably about the 'right' proportion - and about 2% are female. Of those females, a high proportion are lesbians. I have *never* worked with a male homosexual. There is also a stupidly disproportionate number of working class Scots, and socially-inept shoegazers are probably over-represented too.

Now this mix clearly isn't representative of society as a whole, but I have never known anyone to suggest that this is down to discrimination in any form. It is simply accepted that women, male gays, social butterflies and the English middle-classes, in general, and for whatever reason, don't want to do engineering. Or perhaps they are incapable of doing it; whatever the reason it is accepted that people are different.

The field is populated by fairly well-educated and enlightened people, and I have never seen any racism. I *have* seen quite a strong bias in favour of females - perhaps because they're such a minority; perhaps it is recognised that a woman are quite good at bringing male-dominated teams together.

Obviously any attempt to 'normalise' any of these group across the field would result in a ridiculously strong bias towards the minorities. So how do you define the 'right' mix? You could take the numbers of university graduates in the field, but then you cannot account for discrimination or social differences on the course, such as the lone female with no soul mates who drops out. You could take the number of university entrants, but you'd still lose out on all the females that were discouraged from taking that career path in the first place.

You'd also have to account for differences across subjects. There are more women in chemical engineering than electrical; a lot of Asians go into computing. Then you have differences in companies' domains: female mechanical engineers may be more likely to work on environmental projects than aerospace or defence.

Point is, there are no control groups. There is no way of knowing what the 'right' mix would be if all discrimination was eliminated. No matter what you do, you will never get it right; you will always end up discriminating against someone. Surely it's better to stop at level one rather than introduce a system of state-endorsed discrimination.

The problem is not that there are too many white males in good jobs - that is not a problem; the problem is that certain people are racist and sexist. We need to address that problem directly, not try to compensate for it.

Maybe there are just too many academics and posh nobs in charge of the media?

Isn't that why the nets so much more popular? You can say what you like and people have a decent right of reply to it

What does cause different types of people to pursue different careers ?

Culture, upbringing, or society ? Or maybe - we're just individuals and we make contacts during our upbringing that cause us to be influenced in the direction we take in life.

When I worked for Massey Ferguson the question arose of whether the company hiring policy was racist. The reality was that when a vacancy arose people internally tipped off their relatives and so the company skipped the cost of advertising by interviewing the pool of relatives. Obviously as they were friends and family they were usually of the same ethinic group.

That happens with local authorities too. I was once interviewed for a job before it became vacant. Two weeks after I started, the ad for the job appeared in the press.

It seems, then, that we are agreeing violently that quotas are a non-issue.

Fine. The issue remains general BME disadvantage which is enmeshed in the structure of our society. Some of this is, of course, economic. Recent immigrants, whether white or brown skinned will tend to be doing less well than the economically established.

Non-issue? Is your reading broken?

Let's look at causes of BME disadvantage -

Discrimination
Economic
Educational
Cultural

Discrimination is illegal in this country. You can't pass laws to make it more illegal, we should just enforce the ones we have. But a favourite trick of govt is to bring in new laws quicker than the headlines, irrespective of existing laws.

Economic - Should we give every immigrant £250k when they arrive or should we rely on the fact that the welfare state means no-one need starve in this country? In addition there is a minimum wage to ensure fair reward for labour.

Educational - We give every child 13 years of FREE education. Adult literacy & numeracy classes are also available at no cost.

Cultural - What do we do about people who don't want to work in certain fields, or who perceive some occupations as less worthy? Don't they realise they're screwing up the stats

Well done. Thus any residual disadvantage - which there is - must be down to racism. Correct?

I'm sorry - but what does BME actually stand for ?

Black and Minority Ethnic.

A convenient enough term which avoids getting bogged-down in pedantry.

Do I have to lead you by the nose?

Economic - The claim that poverty affects opportunity is not a colour issue. BMEs start on the same base line as white working class kids. How do you account for Muslim male unemployment rates being almost double that of Hindus? Can you tell a Muslim from a Hindu by looking at him? I can't.

Educational - We have a real problem with black kids not engaging with the educational system. Blicky can probably expound on this, but I doubt if he's going to say the educational system is racist. There's also a problem with Asians who have been here for 15-20 years but who can't speak English. Why not? The resources are available.

Cultural... Ding Ding - how many people in this thread now have pointed out ethnic imbalances in specific employment sectors that have nothing to do with discrimination? It happens naturally all over the private sector and in some areas of the public sector.

I'm not denying the existence of racists or racism. Of course it exists. But it's illegal. Anyone discriminating on grounds of race (or age, sexuality or sex) is breaking the law. They're criminals. Are you proposing legislating criminality out of the picture?

OK thanks.

So many of the least advantaged children in schools are poor and white. They are disconnected from society, they have no ambition - other than being on Big Brother, and no expectations from life or society.

Economic: The claim that colour affects your chances of living in poverty most of your life and having a lower life expectancy in the UK is a fact.

Educational: The problem isn't black kids not engaging with the education system is the same in any inner city area of high poverty. Plenty of kids in Glasgow's East End are playing truant and drinking rather than attending school. They are largely white, but they have drug dealers getting them to spend their pocket money on pills and weed...cos its "SO COOL MAN!" <bigeyes)

I'd say the problem with Asians not speaking English is as relevant as the Russians and Portuguese that can't speak English but earn millions for kicking balls about.... and don't get me started on Americans and how well they speak English. Most Asians I meet speak better English than the T4 presenters ut together.

Hindus vs Muslims (are you related to Mountbatten you dirty mixer?) Theres plenty more muslims than Hindus and therefore the more there are the more likely they are to live in poverty. Which affects quality of education, environment...blah

Cultural: Yeah people should grow and deal with their situations but hey lets have some stuff on the telly.

I'm from Glasgow and here we have BBC Scotland which is treated like a region.

All licence payers up here get from BBC Scotland is one radio station..some web coverage and a few programmes.

London takes all the work when there are fantastic facilities up here that folk come up to use and some of these works get credited as BBC Scotland.

Looking at cultural discrimination whitey down south is so stuck up it takes all the digital bandwidth and broadcasting and holds it in London, cluttering it with child oriented marketing tat. (Mind you this keeps job and house prices inflated in London which adds to this credit crunch.)

You could actually give us more channels to produce and broadcast from Scotland that you guys could watch down south. Or even just one. One?

It wouldn't be great from the start but it could be as god as Channel 4...but outside the cultural discrimination centre, London.

Is that possible?

>> <<

I fear your suggestion that ethnocentric (dare I say culturally impenetrable) regional broadcasting from the Highlands would be suitable fodder for the masses of London will fall on the deaf ears that are part of the job description for Beeb management types.

In Biblical terms you are as one wandering in the firmament and hollowing into a wind that blows no one no good. Which is to say, if the kiddies won't buy it they won't bother stocking it.

Sad but true. The market has spoken. In dollars and sense. Shamefully culture is now merely a commodity and the 'invisible hand' of the marketplace acts more like a pickpocket than a benevolent friend to folkarts and culture.

peace
~jwf~