Racism is alive and well in Britain

[lionking]

Remember these are training opportunities, there is no guarantee of a job at the end of it.

Oh come on darat, two years is an eternity nowadays. How long would a "training opportunity" have to be to call it a job?

But the council was decidedly stupid for advertising this way. Leave it open, interview all those with claims and discriminate (lawfully) by selecting exactly the minorities you want. That's the way it's always been done.

 

[rustypouch]

Sorry so the semi-trollish headline. I just wanted to hear opinions.

I just don't understand why it's considered fine to discriminate based on ancestry. I am all for equality of opportunity in workplace and educational situations, but feel that outcome should be based on skill and work.

The diversity quotas get me too. They seem to only take into account superficial qualities. For a glib counter-point, why don't I have a chance to get into the NBA? I am a chubby white guy, and people like me are seriously under-represented, if they even exist in this milieu.

About the repartitions, a few points. No one alive today in the US was a slave or slave owner (maybe with the exception of some human trafficing rings, but that's for another time) Why should the descendants of slaves get money? If so, who pays? Who qualifies for this money? How far back are claims good for? If it's just in North America, will the descendants of all the white slaves have a chance at money?

 

[Primus]

Remember these are training opportunities, there is no guarantee of a job at the end of it. Obviously the hope is that at the end of the training the people would be in a good position to apply for any job, and any such job would have to be open to other people (of whatever ethnicity). Also note that in the UK "ethnicity" does not simply refer to the colour of your skin.

It is a 2 year fixed term contract with a chance to go permanent at the end. That is a job. You couldn't claim jobseekers for 2 years whilst you do it. You couldn't do it because you're employed. As such this is a job.

Looking back on my posts I see I might give the impression that I think there are no issues with race and employment. I really do, I just think this is the worst way to resolve it. I also don't think denying it happens is very helpful as Alt+F4 has been doing. It does happen, I have seen these adverts whilst looking for jobs myself.

To me it seems like they are trying to take imaginary situations that racists have invented to help their cause and then made it so.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

Ah yes, let's cure racism by being racist. It reminds me of the official policy for hiring US federal employees from back in the 90s. If 2 applicants were otherwise equal then you should hire the person who comes from a minority group. As someone mentioned earlier, all things like this do is cause dissent in the workplace and make people question whether the new person got the job because of skill or because of some arbitrary physical feature.

In the case of 2 applicants being equally qualified for the position then any choice made is going to be unfair. However, assuming the hiring manager is a white male then its probably statistically more likely he will hire another white male over anyone else. How do you correct for that?

The truth of hiring is that there isn't some scorecard that managers tick to assess the candidates then pick the one who scores highest (Even though some HR types would like to think there is). Hiring managers are going to have preferences.

In the case of two genuinely equal candidates I don't have a problem with a preference for the minority. I don't think that a lesser qualified candidate should be hired over someone better suited though.

I thought the desired outcome was treating everyone equally.

Which is why I put 'equally' in quotes because its clear from the stats that minorities weren't being treated equally, for whatever reason.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

The diversity quotas get me too. They seem to only take into account superficial qualities. For a glib counter-point, why don't I have a chance to get into the NBA? I am a chubby white guy, and people like me are seriously under-represented, if they even exist in this milieu.

Diversity is one that gets to me too. Seems there has been a whole industry created around that one and its in the interests of diversity consultants and the like to promote issues that don't really exist.

I was surprised at just how far it had gone - my last employer had a diversity scheme for suppliers. They had to buy X% of 'widgets' from minority owned businesses! What ever happened to the free market?

'Quotas' are horrible things at any time, they never really drive the behaviour that people want anyway.

It's all a bit of a mess anyway as you can probably quite easily shape a job description to exclude whoever you want. Want to hire more Asians - stick a requirement for an Asian language in the job description for example.

 

[Mumbles]

The diversity quotas get me too. They seem to only take into account superficial qualities. For a glib counter-point, why don't I have a chance to get into the NBA? I am a chubby white guy, and people like me are seriously under-represented, if they even exist in this milieu.

Are quotas allowed in the UK? I have to ask this, because people complain about them in the US despite the fact that they were deemed unconstitutional a few decades ago.

About the repartitions, a few points. No one alive today in the US was a slave or slave owner (maybe with the exception of some human trafficing rings, but that's for another time) Why should the descendants of slaves get money? If so, who pays? Who qualifies for this money? How far back are claims good for? If it's just in North America, will the descendants of all the white slaves have a chance at money?

Reparations usually involves Jim Crow laws and other forms of discrimination, which continued into the 1970s and 80s. I've noticed, though, that people tend to sit on any such claims until everyone is dead, at which point they tut-tut and declare it to be "too late" to do anything about the obvious effects of discrimination.

 

[Mumbles]

Which is in agreement with what I suggested before: minimum wage makes discrimination in hiring for those jobs essentially cost-free for employers.

And what makes you think that the jobs in question paid minimum wage?

 

[Dragonrock]

Really? Because free labor was essential to the economic ascendency of this nation that you, as a white person, have automatic access to in a way that African Americans don't.

You don't have to build the country club to take advantage of its exclusive membership.

I don't have automatic access to anything, except perhaps my parents house. I went to college on the GI bill, my brothers both had ROTC scholarships. My sister went to vet school and only didn't have money problems because she's smarter than any 3 people need to be and schools were throwing money at her to get her to go there. She also had to work through as much of her time as she could and even took 2 jobs for a couple summers. I will admit that my parents helped us, but it was still up to us to pay the lion share of all education expenses.

Black and hispanic americans have all the same opportunities. Most just refuse to take them because it's easier to cry "racism" and demand things for free rather than working for them.

Black people are discriminated against, but I suspect that a portion of that discrimination is due to the loud and lazy majority dragging down other people's opinions. Which is, of course, a form of bigotry. But then, who's fault is that?

 

[bluesjnr]

No where in the ad does it say that white people can't apply. I just applied for the job, I listed my race as white. They scheduled an interview for me on June 10.

I won't get the job as I don't live in the UK and don't have authorization to work there. I wanted to see if this part of the article linked in the OP was correct

It's an outright lie, white people are not barred from applying. After they offered me an interview, I quickly declined. I didn't want to waste their time.

I am having difficulty in believing that you have applied for this post and have been offered an interview/email/contact/something.

As it is a UK council the application stage will require you to submit an application which will then be held on file with others until the closing date (11th June). I have never, ever known an individual to be offered an interview/email/contact/something prior to the closing date on any job as this would mean that the employers could not possibly know how many people they would be interviewing, not to mention the fact that they could not do a comparative analysis of all applicants until after the closing date.

Furthermore, you are being offered an interview/email/contact/something prior to the closing date and, given the nature of the person spec, to give a white individual precedence over EVERYBODY else is just asking for trouble.

You are not a UK citizen so I won't even ask how you fudged your address, schooling, university and social security number.

Please provide evidence/proof of your claim or consider "fessing" up and withdraw your assertion which does nothing to advance this thread.

 

[Alt+F4]

Please answer the question. Why did the advert state "open to black and ethnic minority candidates"?

You misspoke. Sorry about the misunderstanding there Hiliary. I can see why you did. Saying you got an automated reply just doesn't quite nail home your point the same does it? Government training schemes get thousands of applications. They will not do thousands of interviews.

Given you are throwing questionable accusations of lying about yourself. You might want to make either make sure you're not lying or you do some research before you start making things up about the UK job market. Especially if your debating a point with someone who had spent the last 4 years hopping between jobs around the UK.

Ok, I'll make it nice and simple for you. The article in the OP said that white people were not allowed to apply for the positions. That's a lie.

 

[lionking]

I am having difficulty in believing that you have applied for this post and have been offered an interview.

As it is a UK council the application stage will require you to submit an application which will then be held on file with others until the closing date (11th June). I have never, ever known an individual to be offered an interview prior to the closing date on any job as this would mean that the employers could not possibly know how many people they would be interviewing, not to mention the fact that they could not do a comparative analysis of all applicants until after the closing date.

Furthermore, you are being offered an interview prior to the closing date and, given the nature of the person spec, to give a white individual precedence over EVERYBODY else is just asking for trouble.

You are not a UK citizen so I won't even ask how you fudged your address, schooling, university and social security number.

Please provide evidence/proof of your claim or consider "fessing" up and withdraw your assertion which does nothing to advance this thread.

I have a very solid background in recruitment and I agree with you 100%.

 

[Alt+F4]

I am having difficulty in believing that you have applied for this post and have been offered an interview.

Apply for it yourself

 

[Cuddles]

I thought the desired outcome was treating everyone equally.

Exactly. The whole problem with this "reverse racism" business (there's nothing reverse about it, it's just racism plain and simple) is that many people seem to look at it exactly backwards. As far as I can tell, the thinking goes something like this:

1) Everyone should be treated equally.
2) If everyone were treated equally, the proportion of races in all jobs would be exactly equal to the proportions in the general population.
3) Therefore, if we force jobs to have equal proportions, it must mean everyone is being treated equally.
4) ???
5) Collect underpants.

Where it falls down is 2), because that is simply not true. Whatever the reasons, and however unfair those reasons may have been, different groups do tend to have different cultures, different preferences, different goals, and so on. We can't go back and "correct" history, and you can't "correct" peoples thoughts, so that is just how things are. If that means that you get less black people working in physics labs, but more musicians, then so be it. You can't force a whole group of people to want something just because you think they should want the same things as everyone else. Whether it's ultimately because of some great injustice done to their ancestors, or just that priorities happened to be different where their grandparents came from, it's not fair to them or to everyone else to try and force them to conform to what you think they should want.

That's not to say we shouldn't try to change things at all. If a certain group tends to have poor education, and worse health as a result, you can certainly try to encourage them to become better educated. What you can't do is suddenly force the people who don't have an education into jobs they're not qualified for just because they're the right colour. Cultural changes of that sort are things that take time, they're not something that can be altered overnight with a few arbitrary quotas.

However, assuming the hiring manager is a white male then its probably statistically more likely he will hire another white male over anyone else.

Really? What, is he gay or something? Personally I'd go for the hot blonde with the nice rack well before picking the white male.*


*Note that this may not actually be true. I'm not especially partial to blondes or big breasts. Really, as long as it's a hot girl I wouldn't be too fussy at all.**


**Note that this footnote may not be entirely serious either.

 

[Information Analyst]

So the British government is racist. There are jobs you can't apply for if you don't have the right skin colour. link

Do you want me to explain the difference between national government and local (municipal) authorities to you?

 

[Information Analyst]

My great granddad came to England because of the potato famine, and spent his life being worked to death in mines, for land owners that could take his job and house from him at the drop of a hat and leave him to die in the gutter.

Although, to be fair, the same could be suffered by the majority of born-and-bred Englishmen at the time, as well!

 

[Ziggurat]

Remember these are training opportunities, there is no guarantee of a job at the end of it.

This is a laughable assertion. Most people who have a job don't have a guarantee that they'll have a job in two years. In the mean time, they're getting paid for their time, on a regular and recurring basis. That makes it a job.

 

[bluesjnr]

Apply for it yourself

Why? How would that prove your claim?

I'm saying you did not apply for this job as you stated. You are claiming you did.

I have given you my reasons for doubting you, Lionking has concurred. I see I'm not the only one calling you on this.

All you have to do is show the evidence that proves me incorrect or admit that you did not apply for the position but said you did to drive home a point that needed no extra weight behind it anyway.

It is implicit in the advert that people of Black or Ethnic Minority will be given preference over whites, therefore it could be argued that white people applying are going to find themselves discriminated against, quite legally, under Section 37 of the Race Relations Act.

I agree with your point, I just don't like the way you went about making it. Your method requires a measure of credulity from others that I don't possess.

 

[Primus]

Why? How would that prove your claim?

I'm saying you did not apply for this job as you stated. You are claiming you did.

I have given you my reasons for doubting you, Lionking has concurred. I see I'm not the only one calling you on this.

All you have to do is show the evidence that proves me incorrect or admit that you did not apply for the position but said you did to drive home a point that needed no extra weight behind it anyway.

It is implicit in the advert that people of Black or Ethnic Minority will be given preference over whites, therefore it could be argued that white people applying are going to find themselves discriminated against, quite legally, under Section 37 of the Race Relations Act.

I agree with your point, I just don't like the way you went about making it. Your method requires a measure of credulity from others that I don't possess.

If you check his reply to me earlier he has already claimed to have "misspoke" and is now saying he got an automated reply.

To be honest given that he has made up the interview I would not be suprised if the reply/application in the first place is total cobblers as well.

 

[Alt+F4]

If you check his reply to me earlier he has already claimed to have "misspoke" and is now saying he got an automated reply.

Hey don't blame me that you're too lazy to apply for the position yourself.

 

[TraneWreck]

I don't have automatic access to anything, except perhaps my parents house. I went to college on the GI bill, my brothers both had ROTC scholarships. My sister went to vet school and only didn't have money problems because she's smarter than any 3 people need to be and schools were throwing money at her to get her to go there. She also had to work through as much of her time as she could and even took 2 jobs for a couple summers. I will admit that my parents helped us, but it was still up to us to pay the lion share of all education expenses.

The what are you complaining about Affirmative Action for? It had exactly zero affect on your life.

Black and hispanic americans have all the same opportunities. Most just refuse to take them because it's easier to cry "racism" and demand things for free rather than working for them.

I thoroughly enjoy when people express the notion that racism is a frivolous complaint in the midst of a racist statement.

Black people are discriminated against, but I suspect that a portion of that discrimination is due to the loud and lazy majority dragging down other people's opinions. Which is, of course, a form of bigotry. But then, who's fault is that?

Whose fault is it that people wrongly generalize about all African Americans based on one stereo-typed subset of their population? I would say the people doing the generalization.