Unitended racism

I'm not upset about the effective imposition of a racial quota per se, I'm upset about its imposition as a result of the primary AA law directive.it's like if I'm asked to make someone 'sleep with the fishes' without drowning them. So I shoot them and throw them in the harbour. Technically speaking, I didn't drown them so I followed the letter of the instruction.
You're saying that because the instruction prohibits drowning that somehow makes it ok. Your whole defense of this law hangs on a spurious technicality.The U of M followed the letter of the law and it led them to an immoral and illegal action. 'Bad' laws make people do 'bad' things. I'm not complaining about the effective imposition of a racial quota per se, I'm complaining about its imposition as a result of the primary AA law directive. Until the legal case which shows that employers can legally hire white males, based on their colour or sex, without being branded and crucified my interpretation is perfectly valid. Until the legal case which shows that employers can legally hire white males, based on their colour or sex, without being branded and crucified this law doesn't protect them I'm just wondering if there were other candidates who were as suitably qualified as Sotomayor but were sidelined because of their colour, race or sex. Because that would be plain old racism. Or Affirmative Action, as you prefer to call it. If the person's background has absolutely nothing to do with their suitability for the job than that's a big problem. Can you really not see that?How does being a Latina woman from a poor background qualify you to be a better SC Justice than anyone else? And as long as the people selected were selected based on their academic performance then even the 'losers' won't mind. It's when you start selecting students based on their skin colour and race that people start becoming resentful.
Racism feeds racism. It's as simple as that. And what about the other students who were perfectly qualified but didn't get a place because they weren't born Puerto-Ricans, female and grew up in a poor neighbourhood? In your eyes they seem to deserve whatever they got because they happened to be white, middle-class males. This isn't about equal opportunities, it's about race, class and the ol' guilt syndrome. That's generally true but I don't see many other current laws directly causing people to take racist actions against their fellow humans, do you? that's what I mean when I talk about the Causal Paradox fallacy. Think about what you're writing: AA caused discrimination, which caused the Bakke case, which overturned the discrimination, therefore AA didn't cause discrimination!There's no need for this absurdity. If we did not have affirmative action law then the white students wouldn't have been discriminated against. It's as simple as that.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

This ain't how it works here in 'Murica. We have successive levels of degrees (associate's, Bachelor's, Master's and Doctorate), but if you get at least a passing grade in your classes required for the degree, you get the degree. So, in other words, I could get a 4.0 in all my classes and get a Bachelor's degree in a specific field. Another person could barely pass his classes, perhaps taking a class two, three, or more times just to get to that barely passing grade, and at the end of it all, he gets the exact same degree as me. Ok, so, remembering my above description of the degree system. I have a job description that says:REQUIRED:
Bachelor's degree in Business Administration
2+ years of relevant experience
Apptitude in MS Excel, Word, and Access
Apptitude in PageMaker a plus
Ability to multitask and handle various jobs at once
Good written and oral communication skillsPREFERRED:
Master's degree in Business
A+ certification
Profficiency in PeopleSoftSo, we have two people, both of whom have the Bachelor's degree, both of whom have experience, but of course, one's experience is different form the other (which is better?). Both claim to have ability within programs that are pretty basic, so it's quite probable they're telling the truth, but how are we to know? Both of whom claim to have good written and oral communication skills. Their resume and cover letter don't show any deficiencies in this regard, but do we know if they had any help writting these?One of them has experience with PeopleSoft and A+ certification. One has a Master's degree, but no cert and no experience with PeopleSoft.So, using only objective criteria, which one do you pick?
Let's say, you can't decide based on the available information, so ou call them in for an interview. At this point, no matter how hard you try, biases and assumptions are going to come into play. People go by "First Impressions" alot. The more attractive person gets hired, more often than not, and it's entirely subjective who is considered attractive. If someone has a latent fear of black people, and this rarely comes into play, but right in front of them is the choice between the "comfortable" white person and the black person who makes them feel, for no obvious reason, uncomfortable, how is he to know if it's a hunch based on a slight, but overlooked discrepancy in the resume or a racial bias?If situations like this come up and over and over, you hire the white person, does this not show that it's the fact that the other applicant is black is the criteria that is "disqualifying" them? Shouldn't we try to even the playing field for the black people who, for all intents and purposes, don't have a shot at this job, despite being just as quialified?Edited by Perdition, : No reason given.

Noone is talking about claiming anything! Rrhain stated that employers demographics should match the demographics of the general population. I've given him a crude example of why this *is not, can not and must not* be the case! Exactly! However -according to Rrhain- this should suggest that the employer is being racist (as their staff demographics don't match the general demographics) and they would have to justify themselves to the thought police.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

quote:

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A Hindu would in general be unwilling to work in an abbatoir, whatever animal is slaughtered, hence their reduced numbers in such places.
Second. If a Hindu has objections he would simply not apply for an abbatoir job. Period.

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Noone is talking about claiming anything! YOU stated that employers demographics should match the demographics of the general population. I've given you a crude example of why this *is not, can not and must not* be the case! I used to get pissed off at the way you mis-represent me, setting up a nice strawman and using it to launch a personal attack but now I'm beginning to find it quite quaint, in a predictable and pitiful sort of way.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

Bingo! Why is this is so hard to accept for some people? You have my sympathy. That's exactly what he's been doing with me. Very true. I too initially thought he was just a bit thick but I now realise he's intentionally obfuscating.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

Imbecility?I dunno though, I guess they have to keep those PC gods appeased. Its his MO. That's the only way he ever debates. I usually just ignore his posts, but I thought he actually had a point with the firefighters not being denied a promotion when everyone else thought that they were. But he avoided supporting his claim (which should have been my first indication that I was wrong to stop ignoring him), and when I finally get down to the bottom of it, it turns out to be the same old crap he's been doing since he's been here. Yeah, what a prick he is!

I am surprised! I thought that there would be some grading system, especially in the US. I was obviously wrong. There are standardised tests that help measure technical skills. We already use them where I work. Again, communication skills can be assessed fairly easily and objectively using a range of methods from a simple ol' chat to standardised testing such as Rochester method, ICSC and others. You pick the one who has most of the required skills. If they both have, then you must prioritise the optional skills and pick the one with most of those. You can only decide after you called them to interview. You can't run standardised tests remotely. Of course they will. Noone's denying that. Absolutely. He won't know. That doesn't mean that we should assume that every black person rejected fron interview is the victim of latent racism. Nor that we should start treating black people favourably at interviews, to compensate for potential latent racism on the interviewer's part. If this occurence you describe is repeated regularly and if all other factors that affect the selection process can be safely eliminated then yes, that would indicate racist tendencies on the employer's behalf. If we can detect specific businesses that have a racist selection pattern and we can safely exclude all other factors, like I said above, then maybe we should for the particular cases. That's one thing.Issuing a blanket-coverage law that encourages anyone and everyone to select people based on their race or colour is *a totally different thing*!Assuming that employers whose demographics dont match those of the general population are racist is *a totally different thing*!Making employers afraid to reject, fire or discipline minority candidates is *a totally different thing*!.Encouraging minority candidates who've been rejected to assume that it was because of racist rasons and sue the employer is *a totally different thing*!.Can you see where I'm getting at? There's a massive difference between selective and specific corrective action and totalitarian witch-hunts while encouraging 'inverse' racism.Throughout the western world ant-racial discrimination legislation has existed for decades. The legal framework is already there to discipline employers who behave in a racist manner. The only reason for AA laws to exist is to institutionalise racism (albeit the 'good' kind), feed resentment and increase racial tensions. Oh yes, and to give self-satisfied idiots detached from real life (like some of our government ministers) the opportunity to say that they've done something in their otherwise useless careers.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

I agree here. I think the population should, within reasonable bounds, match the population of qualified applicants. This is my biggest concern with AA, which population do you consider, and how to do you determine that population once you pick one? But that's what the goal of AA is. If someone is behaving in a non-racist manner, he'll already be following the rules of AA. The problem is, people tend to go too far in the other way, which is why AA has specific rules that try to protect against this overcompensation. (The Bakke case and U of M are perfect examples of this at work.)The issue comes down to, how do you weed out the racist employers from the nnon racist ones, especially when the employer themselves may not know that they're behaving in a racist manner. AA is the attempt to do that. The fact that employers have become so scared of AA that they second guess themselves is perhaps a foreseeable outcome, but that doesn't mean we should scrap AA, that just means we should educate employers (or any institution) on what AA actually calls for.It's not the law's fault that people don't understand it, as there are many people out there who do and could explain it to them if they'd just take the time to learn. Most laws, especially ones of such a delicate issue have to be very wordy and precise in their language, making them seem unweildy and cumbersome to an extreme. That's why we have court cases that help refine the actual application of the law as opposed to strict adherence to the letter of the law.Does AA scare some people into acting in a racist manner? Yes, I agree with you there.Do I think that's a failure of the law? No, I think it's a failure of the education about the law.Of course, this opinion comes from my knowledge of the American laws and the judicial/legislative process we have here. I can't speak to English law, or any other country's law, for that matter.

Good posts Legend, I found your posts interesting. OMG, boy you really hit the nail on the head with that line. Yes, sometimes race trumps competency.I work for/through the Dept of Social Services. To show that race is completely "unimportant", to show that we are equal opportunity employers, we are legally obligated to go out of our way to the millionth degree to show how extremely important race is. Total oxymoron.I can understand why AA was started, and perhaps its intention was originally good, but perhaps now the scales of justice should start slowly reversing its swing. If I parallel AA to hate crime legislation, would you think it a good comparison? Eg. to bring public consciousness to crimes against gays and minorities, "special" laws are temporarily enacted to deliver harsher sentences. When public consciousness is complete, then hate laws can/should be removed from the books, leaving just "equal" laws. Alas, perhaps it is a journey that never ends? But at least the pendulum of the scales should swing less and less.BTW, don't mind Rhain too much. Courtesy and integrity aren't high on some peoples values.

Can you expand on how you go about showing it?

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I heard on the local news last night that the big highway project here in St. Louis is changing their goal to having 20% minority workers and some other X% female workers.Actually, if you look at the pdf here, on page 17 it has the old goals of 14.7% minority and 6.9% women.Oh, here, I just found this news page.So for the pro-AA people here, these new laws are effectively quotas right? And they're illegal according to AA? And they are actually in spite of AA and not as a result of it, right?Really!?

Hey CS,Having "Diversity in the Workplace" is BIG here. Let me try to dig up one of our "Diversity in the Workplace" training seminars we organized.Thanks for the "St. Louis law aimed at jobs for minorities" article, interesting.

Why should it? are you implying that people cannot behave in a non-racist manner without following the rules of AA? or some other rules for that matter? People go as far as the law dictates. The U of M fulfilled the primary directive of the law which was to represent under-represented minorities. Technically, they didn't set up a quota. The SC found that essentially they did. But that's really a secondary issue. It's like pontificating over which murder method is worse, whilst ignoring the fact that murder itself is a horrible thing regardless of method employed. as far as I can see AA in the US has one rule against a particular form of discrimination (quotas). And that's because one court case decades ago (Bakke) ruled against this particular application of AA. So don't think that current AA legislation is being benevolent and protective in banning quotas. It does so because it has to. you certainly don't get on your high horse and start a crusade, assuming that everyone is racist until proven otherwise. They already know what AA calls for: the promotion of under-represented minorities. I can't think of any means of achieving this objective without making decisions based on someone's colour, race or ethnicity. Which is racist - pretty much by definition. It's not solely the employers fault if they're racist: the law encourages them to be. What do you expect?

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

Because if race is not a facotr at all, this is what would happen from a generally random selection of the qualified applicants. Now, it won't match exactly, of course, but it shouldn't be off by more than 10% or so, I would guess off the top of my head. If it doesn't match, that's a strong indication that race played a part in the selection, and should be looked into. If it's shown that race didn't play a part, and this is a fluke, then the infstitution should not have any repurcussions at that point. I'm saying, if you're not behaving in a racist manner, then what you're doing is not countermanded by AA. Much like, if someone is driving safely, they're already following many of the rules of the road, whether they are consciously doing so or not. It's merely a correlation between the fact that the rules are trying to create a situation that you are already in. In other words, they become redundant in those circumstances. But it doesn't. I haven't heard of a single business around me that has had any issues with AA. They're all assumed to be acting in a non-racist manner until someone proves they are doing otherwise. A law against murder doesn't assume that all people are murderous bastards, it's merely pointing out consequences should a murderous bastard happen to come along. But that's not what the law calls for. What it says, boiled down is, "if you're behaving in a not-racist manner, this is how your hiring bell curve should look. If it doesn't, that may be an indication that you're not behaving in a non-racist manner, so if someone points this out, we will take a look at it."It doesn't say, pick the black person. It says, if you don't factor in race, you should hire the black person an equal percentage of the time as black people apply. Conversely, you should hire the women, the white guy, the Indian, the etc, etc, etc an equal percentage of the time as they apply. This is just statistics and mathematics, assuming that the factor in question is taken out. If your percentages don't match, then it's an indication that that factor (race or gender) is impacting your hiring practices and should be looked into.

that's what gets me! They're preaching that race shouldn't be a factor while at the same time passing laws that make race a factor. It's the sheer hypocricy of it. In the sense that they're both poorly conceived pieces of totalitarian legislation which feed racism while proclaiming to combat it, yes it's a very good comparison. What gives you that idea? Have any official statements been made to that effect? You'd have thought so but it appears to be swinging more and more!

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

You see, what happened here is that the directors of MO DoT woke up one morning and randomly decided to impose some racial quotas just for the hell of it. Rumour has it that the MD's wife eloped the night before with her Caucasian lover so he decided to exact revenge by setting up some quotas. Another theory is that Mercury was aligned with Pluto and Venus and that apparently causes transport ministers to take racist actions. In any case, I hope you understand that this has absolutely nothing to do with AA whatsoever.At least that's what some people here would have you believe.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"