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

The most vile and loathsome thing to have been invented in recent times is Positive Discrimination. The firm my dad worked for went quite mad, giving inflated 'scores' to anyone who didn't tick the "white English" box on their application form. The 'points' value for having a different background was worth more than being fully trained at the job.

My dad was a supervisor of a team of 12 people. One of his jobs was firing people who were bad at their job. He got accused by one person he fired of being racist, the company of course took it very seriously and suspended him while an investigation was carried out. The investigators interviewed a group of people at the company asking them questions about my dad, and how he acted towards various groups. The overall verdict was case dismissed, as it came to

*mutters about posting from work...*
Light that the guy was grossly under qualified and had made several major screw ups before finally getting the boot.

*runs to catch his bus*

My fiance had a job application form to fill out this week and was shocked when, after the question "Do you consider yourself disabled" was the statement "If you are disabled you will be guaranteed an interview". Why? I thought that to discriminate was to treat someone differently from others based purely on something like race, sex or "ability". It really should work both ways.

Charlie

This is pretty widespread. A hell of a lot of firms do state that the registered disabled are guaranteed a job interview.

My dad works in the public sector, and up till very recently most application forms did indeed state the above. He felt that it was deeply, deeply unfair. (By the way, he is disabled, but would rather get a job fairly and on merit and ability)

Mind you, the public sector that he works in seems to have a lot of young, relatively inexperienced, black and Asian women in higher positions than contemporary white males with similar experiences.

So, if you want to get ahead anywhere, I suggest:
becoming female
becoming a member of an ethnic or religious minority
becoming homosexual
replacing one of your limbs with a wooden one.

That way you're bound to fly up the career ladder...

They company probably doesn't want to employ disabled people. "Guarenteed an interview" in brackets ensures people don't lie and do tick the box if they are indeed disabled. Then they can just set you up an interview with a lowly junior employee for 5 minutes and then tell you they'll contact you....you get the message

I wouldn't recommend 'becoming homosexual' as a good way to career advancement, since it is the only form of discrimination in the uk that is still legal. As a queer I can be harrased, persecuted and fired for my sexuality and it wouldn't be against any british laws. If such a situation occured I might just be able to get somewhere with the european court of human rights, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere that there is a bill going through the system ATM which will unify the equal rights/anti discrimination legislation and bring in discrimination on the basis of sexuality (although we've accepted the european human rights bill which covers this too so it's already in UK law - but more by accident than by design)

Your right though positive discrimination is still bad. I am currently going to high school and it is currently cool to be black. One guy in some of my classes is darker than the rest of us (I'm from Newfoundland where pretty much only irish and english, and a bit of french people live). This guy (one of his parents is black i think) dresses like the rappers on Much Music and MTV which, correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't like the real black culture or is at least exagerated. People put generalizations on him and although positive ones, is still putting him in a given category.
Now I'm not trying to put down blacks here but cool to be black? Coll to be any given culture? Sounds real stupid to me.

Positive discrimination seems to be a sure way to racism. If I was seeing a lot of black guys less qualified than me take a job right in front of my nose, I imagine I would start to get pretty resentful towards them. A person should be judged solely on their qualifications. Then if all the races are equal, there should be no problem, there would naturally be a mix of races at the workplace.

In Malaysia the goverment has recently made a bit of an apartheid policy. There are three large races in Malaysia, the chinese, the indian and the melayu. The goverment has issued a law saying that there are certain professions(hundredsomething) which should only be given to melayus. They often talk about how all the races live in harmony down there, I wonder if that will continue now.

I'm sorry, I was just reading my previous post and it is a bit misleading. I mean to say that It seems like this is happening (the cool to be black thing). just clearing that up.

"A person should be judged solely on their qualifications"

The problem with doing this is that in some circumstances schools discriminate (albeit mainly through institutional discrimination - the inability to adapt to different peoples needs - than directly).

For example...my husband recently applied for a job doing a similar job as he has been doing for the last 10 years but in a much bigger organisation (ie more room for promotion/development).

The job spec asked for an A level, my husband was going through diagnosis at the same time as his GCSEs so unsurprisingly didn't do particularly well and so left education to get a job.

The job is a practical(ish) computer support job - it doesn't require any programming or calculations it involves fixing people pcs...not something you need an A level to do.

However despite explaining the reason behind his lack of qualifications he was rejected (didn't even get asked for an interview which kind of disproves the disabled people always get an interview promise) on the basis of no A level.

Now he may not have been the best candidate, the other candidates may have had much more experience but in my view the employer did themselves a disservice by trying to use qualifications *alone* in deciding who to interview.

Anti-discrimination laws in employment are based around chosing the best person for the job - regardless of what prejudices/assumptions the selecters may have. *Everything* should be considered when reviewing applications (apart from gender, race, religion, sexuality and disability), and if there is any promise that the applicant has the appropriate skills/personality/experience applicants should be invited to interview.

Xanatic:

You are so right about positive discrimination being a cause for some people to get feelings of racism towards co-workers they see getting what they see as favourable treatment.

But does that explain the names that I was called on the way to school when psitive dicrimination had not been heard of. Or why my mom was spat on for being a *N****r lover*.

So many people do not really understand what positive dicrimination is for and why it is there.

The level playing feild theory just does not work. There is a legacy of discrimination that will not disappear by simply saying it is gone. Look at the Stephen Lawrence case, or the unecessary barriers to employment that disabled people face or the ratio of people from lower income families entering higher education and you will see that life for people outside of the white affluent male able bodided norm is still an uphill struggle.

Positive Discrimination is infact EQUALISING DISCRMINATION.

On the subject of black people and *coolness*. It has become a very popular term in recent times. It originated as a term of respect amongst black slaves for slaves who would take a beating without flinching or gained some small victory over their masters even if that meant being beaten for standing upto injustice.

In my opinion it is over used at present but as a black person like positive discrimination I have to say I like it when people treat me better because of the way I look. This is mainly because I know that on the whole I am treated worse than average because of the colour of my skin.

To me equalising discrimination would exactly be taking people solely based on their qualifications. And by qualifications I mean what they can do, not grades in school. Making laws saying that an employer can get into trouble, if it can be shown he didn't hire a guy because of his race. The other one will just mean we have a lot of unqualified people in companies, doubt that would be a good thing.

The best candidate for the job might be someone who is outside of the group who have traditionally had the best opportunities given to them by people who are from within that same group. Maybe we need four hundred years of *equalising* discrimination to get a level playing feild?

If a broader cross section of society were really appointed on their merits we would not be having this conversation.

You wouldnt have Judges asking "Who is Gazza" but the people who run society ARE still out of touch. Just as much as when Marie Antoinette said let them eat cake.

Without *positive* efforts to equalise the wrongs of times gone by there is no way that disadvantaged groups will ever catch up. I work with young people some of them dont see themselves as having a chance. It is essential that amongst other things that we have high profile positive role models for them to aspire to AND a leg up for the young people as they are already behind. If this does not happen the next generation of young people will be in the same situation as this one.

My wider family straddles both side of the so called *race divide* I know this situation first hand.

Wouldn't giving them the same access criteria as any other person for school, uni and work be enough?

Yup - but even if we get schools to be providing equally good education to everyone (which some people think is a pipe dream), it will be 60-70 years before everyone in the workplace will have had a fair chance from the start. If positive discrimination is used as a way of making allowances for discrimination past in the interim while we level the playing field from birth upwards then in theory we will eventually live in a fairer society where people are judged on their merits not judged based on assumptions or past prejudice.

For exapmle even today disabled people are half as likely to get qualifications, this isn't because they are stupid it's because our education system discriminates against them...should that one instance of discrimination have a negative effect on their entire working life or should we make efforts to allow for that?

In what way does it discriminate?

If you have trouble moving around are you going to helped by being schooled alongside people who have a mental problems with learning?

Or would it be better for you to be schooled along side children who are intellectually stimulating for you?

So you apply to a school where the head does not want you but the law says the school says they must. You spend three months at home waitng for the local Authority to cough up the money and another month waiting for the school to get the modifications to the school done. When you are at the school you still *feel* left out in many ways.

This is relatively speaking a *good* case scenario compared to what some physically disabled students experience.

Well aside from basic access issues (http://www.tesfefocus.co.uk/hot_news/nife_archive/warning_of_law.asp it's pretty hard to do well at school when you can't get through the door or half your classes are upstairs)
there are all kinds of ways students are discriminated against, the DDA only made this discrimination illegal in Sept 2002 so understandably it's taking time before test cases have been heard. If you want to hear an example you could ask 2legs about his teaching placement that didn't happen. F64235?thread=245130