Unitended racism

Firstly: you're totally overlooking all the other factors that may account for the demographic mis-match!I already mentioned the 'Hindus in an abbatoir' example. Another example: A local company employs about 20% Indian staff, which is way above the population average, locally or nationally. Looking at it from the AA pont-of-view the company is being racist. However, when you know that this company does a lot of business with India, it makes perfect business sense for them to employ people who understand the customer's culture, speak their language, etc.Secondly: why should employer demographics match the population demographics? what value does it add to the employer? or anyone else? so what you're saying is that if the employer demographics don't match the population demographics then the employer is assumed to be racist and must be investigated by the powers that be.Can you really not see how this approach smacks of authoritarianism and oppressiveness? That's just not true. It's perfectly possible to drive quite safely while exceeding the speed limit. In fact, many people do. You're assuming that the rules always lead to the 'right' way, whether that's safe driving or non-racist behaviour. Often, the 'right' way can only be found by not following the rules. Following the rules sometimes leads to the 'wrong' way as we've already seen by all those employers setting up racial quotas in their zeal to follow AA rules. Infamous case in point: the Nuremberg laws (eeeaasy Rrhain.. down boy, down) led many otherwise decent Germans to some horrific behaviour. 'Bad' laws make people do 'bad' things. That's not what you said! You said that they're all assumed to be acting in a non-racist manner until their demographics are not the 'correct' ones and then they're assumed to be racist and have to explain themselves -like naughty little children- to the self-righteousness police.I'm quoting you from the following paragraph:

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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."

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This whole thinking about 'proportional demographics' and 'correcting statistical disadvantages', like some other poster said earlier, really makes me shudder. I aspire to live in a free and open society but hearing so many people repeat this sinister and ominous mantra really makes me worry about the future.

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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're totally missing what I'm saying with regards to this. I agree, making a company match some local demographic is ludicrous. I'm saying, the law should be (and in practice, it essentially is) that the employee demographics should roughly match the demographics of the pool of qualified applicants. This would get around your example of needing Hinuds to kill cows. As for the language thing, if understanding a language is a necessary part of the job, someone who doesn't speak it would then NOT BE QUALIFIED. Well, there's the PC thing to say, that diversity adds possibilities that you don't get with a homogenous group. (Which is true, but of course, any employer could decide that he doesn't care about that.)The main thing is, we as a society, have decided that racism is bad (and you seem to be agreeing with this based on your arguments, sort of) and we've done a pretty good job of decreasing overt racism, but subconscious or implicit racism still run rampant. We want everyone who lives and works in America to have the same chance as anyone else to rise and pursue the "American Dream." The fact of the matter is, though, that for many groups of people in many parts of the country, this is not possible because, despite their qualifications and hard work, they get looked over for no other reason than their race or gender. For one thing, they have to be accused. For another, in America, they are considered innocent until proven guilty. As you have been asked, how often has a defendant accused a company of racist hiring practices and won their case?Do you not see that assuming that everyone who is driving at 100 miles down the highway is necessarily doing so recklessly is authoritarian and oppressive? The fact is, if the ogvernment gets involved in any way to try and protect people who are being harmed, the ones doing the harming will accuse the government of being oppressive, but until the government abuses the power, they're merely acting as a shepherd, not a cop. True. But you have yet to show that AA is a bad law. You disagree with it, but as you've shown repeatedly, the doomsday scenario you keep painting isn't the way it works in actuality. Everyone who claims that they got passed up because of AA has not been able to show it. The only cases that have been brought are against employers who are misunderstanding AA. We can't make people understand, no matter how we word the law.Here's an allegory, I like allegories:You're a project manager and have a group of people working under you and you're ultimately responsible for their work to management. You notice, as you're walking around, that some of the people are spending a lot of time standing around talking and joking. You understand that this isn't fair to the people who are actually working, so you decide you want to make a rule that anyone caught slacking off will get punished (fired, pay reduction, extra supervision, whatever). This equates to the government seeing that some employers are acting in a racist manner when hiring employees, and they want to outlaw racist hiring practicesYou understand that making a rule "No slacking" won't do very much. For one thing, it's vague, it doesn't define what slacking is, and people may end up more concerned about whether they're slacking or not and not actually do their jobs. So, you have to come up with an objective measure of slacking that can apply to everyone, while also realizing that everyone is working on something different and work at different speeds. You don't want to set up metrics that may not apply to everyone, and you don't want to mandate a certain level of work output, because some people take more time, think things through slower, and may still be very good employees.So, the compromise you come up with is, at the very least, if everyone is doing their job, they should be at their desks at least 80% of the time, or be able to show that they had a valid work excuse to be away from their desk for longer. This would equate to the government setting what they view as a way of objectively describing what a racist hiring practise looks like.So, you put the rule into effect, and it seems to work. You don't see people standing around and wasting time as much. Productivity jumps up, and as far as you know, everyone is doing fine. It is then brought to your attention that Tom, while he as abiding by the letter of the rule and staying at his desk for 80% of the day, is playing Tetris on his computer for msot of it. You call Tom over, and tell him that he needs to actually do work. The intent of the law (and you explained this to them all) was to increase productivity, not give you an excuse to sit and play Tetris. You ammend the rule to say, you must be at your desk 80% of the time doing actual work. This is similar to institutions misusing the law to create quotas, and the courts telling them, no, you're doing something wrong, the point of the law is to make people act without considering race, your quota system is the exact opposite of what we intended.So, was the rule bad? No. Was it vague enough that people could misunderstand it and think they're obeying the rule when in fact they're acting opposite of what you intended the rule? Yes, but that's why we have courts, so we can iron out those vague spots with actual examples. Someone has to accuse them. If you read carefully, I said "so if someone points this out, we will take a look at it." And it's an indication, not rock-hard proof. There could always be legitimate reasons for the curve to be off more than was thought average. Again, how many times has someone successfully sued an employer for racist hiring practices except for whites suing for overcompensation? I want to live in a society where everyone has the same opportunities and possibilities to work hard and acheive. The fact of the matter is, we don't live there yet. People can work as hard, or harder, than others and not get ahead because of something they can't control, their race or gender. If the playing field isn't naturally level, them I'm all for levelling it through rules and laws. In a perfect world, we would focus on education, and eventually, AA laws won't be necessary anymore, but until hiring managers can look past race and gender to see just a human being, we need to help them along.Edited by Perdition, : No reason given.

Show me. Show me.I mean, like you said:

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how many times has someone successfully sued an employer for racist hiring practices except for whites suing for overcompensation?

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That sounds nice and dandy. However *that's not what the law says*: Here's the UK Secretary of State for Equalities and Minister for Women who drafted the Bill, explaining it in her own words:

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"we will legislate to give more scope for employers, if they want to increase the number of women or black or Asian employees — to take positive action."

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and:

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"This will help the police, for example, who want to make more progress on diversity because they know that they can be most effective when they reflect the ethnicity of the communities they serve"

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(emphasis is mine).So, no, sorry but you are wrong. Affirmative Action REALLY IS about social engineering and demographic alignment between employers and the general populace. I'm afraid you've fallen for the marketing version of AA, the PG certificate one, the one that the freshly-shaved salesman will sell you at your doorstep.But yeah, other than that we have some people here trying to convince us that AA is really there to protect white males and trying to lay the guilt trip on us about how we're responsible for the poor black kid who can't get access to the internet to look for work thereby implying that we deserve whatever injustice AA inflicts upon us. Sorry but I'm not buying!

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

If you keep going back to the UK law, then we're at an impasse. I have no idea how things work in the UK. I'm speaking purely about the AA in America.Beyond that, the intent of AA is to objectively define what a racist hiring practice would look like. The way to do that isn't perfect, but it's better than doing nothing. The US and UK have decided on differing ways to define what a racist hiring practice would look like, but I think you're misunderstanding the intent and reasoning behind the laws. FOr instance, based on what you've quoted: This sounds like it's voluntary, the whole "if they want..." part. This is just common sense. If you have an all white male police force, and they're trying to investigate a highly ethnic area, that's going to lead to conflicts. The ethnic minorities in the area would perceive it as harrassment, and the white guys trying to investigate would probably miss things someone who understands the culture involved might see.Notice, however, that it doesn't say the ratio has to be perfect, it just says it will reflect the community. So, if they're operating in an Hispanic community, it makes sense to have at least a couple Hispanics on the force.

I don't know. What does it prove either way? That's plainly wrong. That's what clause 153 of the UK Equalities Bill 2009 states :

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This clause permits an employer to take a protected characteristic into consideration
when deciding who to recruit or promote, where people having the protected characteristic are
at a disadvantage or are under-represented

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Where one of the protected characteristics is race. AA encourages people to make recruitment selections based on race! that's actually very good and I appreciate the effort you put into it. However, as I explain in my previous message what you describe here is not AA. It's just a romanticised version you have in your head, a bit like finding out your partner is really a serial killer but refusing to accept it and sticking to the memory of your first date. then why are you supporting AA? AA gives some people unfair opportunities based on ther colour, race or sex. Surely that's the opposite of what you believe in, isn't it?!

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

It allows them to consider race or gender when that race or gender is underrepresented in their workforce. So, this works if there are a statistically small number of whites as well. But it doesn't say, and in fact, I would be greatly surprised if it didn't in fact say the opposite, even in England, that race or gender MUST be the factor. It merely says, if three people meet all qualifications, two of whom are white males, and one of whom is a blak female, and you have a statistically small number of blacks or females in your workforce compared to the population, you can use the gender or race to tip the scales, so to speak. It says no where that an unqualified or less qualified individual should get pushed ahead of a more qualified person based on race or gender. This is exactly how the legislative/judical process works in the US, and is exactly how the bill went through the minds of those who voted for it and developed it. Maybe the Parliament in the UK did something different, but here in the US, this is how AA is supposed to work. Yes, some employers misunderstand it, but that's not the fault of the law or the lawmakers, that's the fault of the employer who doesn't make sure he/she understands the law before trying to follow it. Where does it give them unfair opportunities? You are completely missing how it works (at least in the US)!! You have to be qualified at least as well as the majority race/gender candidates. You have to have worked just as hard (if not harder). If two people have the same qualifications, or equivalent qualifications, and one is black and one is white, how does picking one of them over the other confer an unfair advantage?The point to AA is to even the playing field, not to elevate minorities. People who view it as elevating minorities generally misunderstand the law, or feel jilted because they feel that "uppity" black man shouldn't be my boss and the only reaosn he got the job is because he's black. Not because he went to college and got the degree and spent years working the floor and has a better work record than me, it must be because those bleeding heart liberals wanted to make themselves feel better about slavery which ended over a century ago.If you can find one instance of AA being applied correctly, that resulted in someone getting a promotion that didn't deserve it over someone who did, then you might have an argument. The fact that the only cases you can provide are instances where people misunderstood AA and were rightly prosecuted for it, means your argument is on very shaky ground. If the law was supposed to elevate minorities over the majority, why has the law only been successfully used to help white people?

But from what I can see it's exactly the same in the US. This is from Encarta:

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Affirmative Action, policies used in the United States to increase opportunities for minorities by favoring them in hiring and promotion, college admissions, and the awarding of government contracts. Depending upon the situation, minorities might include any underrepresented group, especially one defined by race, ethnicity, or gender.

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No difference there from the UK. False. There are already anti-racist laws that cover racist hiring practices. As you can see above AA goes one step beyond that, encouraging discrimination in favour of minorities. with due respect, I think it's you who misunderstands what AA is about. I've quoted you the actual text of the law, even the Minister's own explanation of the motivation behind the law. It should be pretty clear by now.

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we will legislate to give more scope for employers, if they want to increase the number of women or black or Asian employees — to take positive action.

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It is. She's saying "if you want to be racist, go ahead, we're behind you"

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"This will help the police, for example, who want to make more progress on diversity because they know that they can be most effective when they reflect the ethnicity of the communities they serve"

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that does make sense, but I get the distinct impression that she's referring to a wider demographic match and not specific cases, like you mention. That's interesting. I take it then that if they're operating in an all-white community it would make sense to get rid off the Hispanic officers and replace them with whites, based on your reasoning.Of course we both know that if they did that they would be crucified for being racists. You see, these are the double standards that AA imposes! It's a system that harms everyone touched by it.

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

So, minority, in this context, just means an underrepresented group. So, it could me white males, if they are underrepresented in the job. No, it's saying, if you value diversity, we're behind you. How does saying, "we have a lot of white guys around here, so if a qualified black woman applies for this open job, we could use someone with her different take on things", hurt anything?How is that different from saying, "we have a lot of PC users around here, so if a Mac user applies for this open job, we could use someone with their different take on things?" Getting rid of someone who's a different race, yeah would be racist. Just like getting rid of the white guy on a Hispanic Community beat would be racist. But, if you have someone of the "local" ethnicity applying and they're just as qualified as someone with a different ethnicity, why wouldn't you pick them? You've quoted parts of the text. Just as with just about anything, taking points out of context can severely change the intended meaning. Also, when it comes to writing a law, it can be difficult to understand the entire gist of the law, especially by picking pieces from it, which is why we have Judicial Review to show examples of the law in action, and to show what the law-makers meant when they said what they did. I'm of the opinion that AA was a good and useful law when it was created, and despite the attacks from some opponents, it does exactly what it was intended to do, it opens doors that had been unfairly closed to ethnicities and genders that had been discriminated against. I also think AA has been pushed farther than it should have gone. There needs to be a legal recourse for people who are being discriminated against in the workforce, and there needs to be an objective way for the court to define when that has occurred.The wording of the law may say something, but the application of the law has been very different. The application of the law, as far as I've seen, and from what I've read about the cases that have a direct impact on AA, have been very much as I have described them. If you can show me one case of someone getting a job they didn't earn, based solely on their race, then you have an argument. Until then, you're railing in the dark against an imaginary monster.Edited by Perdition, : No reason given.

That's not how I see it.In 1965 was Executive order 11375 that said:

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The order specifically requires certain organizations accepting federal funds to take affirmative action to increase employment of members of preferred racial or ethnic groups and women. Any organization with fifty or more employees and an aggregate revenue exceeding $50,000 from a single federal contract during a twelve month period must have a written affirmative action plan. This plan must include goals and timetables for achieving full utilization of women and members of racial minorities, in quotas based on an analysis of the current workforce compared to the availability in the general labor pool of women and members of racial minorities.

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sourceThat sets the precedent for affirmative action, that you should actively do something to combat racism. Its not about doing less of being racist, its about do more to go against it.Now, in Gratz v. Bollinger:

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Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003)[1], was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the University of Michigan undergraduate affirmative action admissions policy. In a 6—3 decision announced on June 23, 2003, the Supreme Court ruled the university's point system (which automatically awarded points to underrepresented ethnic groups) was too mechanistic in its use of race as a factor in admissions, and was therefore unconstitutional.

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The U of M was following what the law intended, what the law-makers meant when they said what they did, but the Supreme Court determined that it was unconstitutional. They did not interpret the AA law and explain what it was really suppose to mean, they ruled that what U of M did in its efforts to follow the law was illegal. Grutter v. Bollinger

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The case originated in 1996 when Barbara Grutter, a White Michigan resident with a 3.8 GPA and 161 Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) score, was rejected by the University of Michigan Law School. She contacted the Center for Individual Rights which filed suit on her behalf in December 1997, alleging that the university had discriminated against her on the basis of race in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She said she was rejected because the Law School used race as the main factor, giving applicants belonging to underrepresented minority groups (African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans) a significantly greater chance of admission than White and Asian American applicants with similar credentials. She argued that the university had no compelling interest to justify that use of race.

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and

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The Court's majority ruling, authored by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, held that the United States Constitution "does not prohibit the law school's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body."

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The decision largely upheld the position asserted in Justice Powell's concurrence in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, which allowed race to be a consideration in admissions policy, but held that quotas were illegal.

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Granted, thats not a job but it should fit the bill.

Sure, here's a famous one, SC Justice Sotomayor herself speaking :

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"I am a product of affirmative action," she said. "I am the perfect affirmative action baby. I am Puerto Rican, born and raised in the south Bronx. My test scores were not comparable to my colleagues at Princeton and Yale. Not so far off so that I wasn't able to succeed at those institutions."

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She said that using "traditional numbers" from test scores, "it would have been highly questionable if I would have been accepted."

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(emphasis is mine)So I guess I have an argument then!!

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

Wait, how is her test scores for Princeton and Yale relevant to her directly getting the job as Justice?I'd say you have an argument for her getting into Princeton and Yale, but not as a Justice.And as far as the Princeton and Yale argument, if you go there, certainly it can be expected, generally speaking, that a Puerto Rican born person whos first language is not English will not score as well as most of the privilaged students at Princeton and Yale, right?But see how awesome it was to let her in the schools, She's now a SC Justice. Doesn't that prove that when given equal opportunities, any one from any race can succeed? The point is that conditions have to be made to equal the playing fields, do they not?- Oni

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If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.
~George Carlin

I'm presuming that if she hadn't gone to Princeton and Yale she wouldn't have eventually gotten the job as SC Justice. Apparently she has indirectly admitted so herself:

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In an early 1990s panel with two other female judges, Sotomayor talked about her educational background and how it helped her in her job as a federal trial judge in Manhattan.

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if she hadn't managed to succeed as a federal trial judge in Manhattan she wouldn't be SC Justice now.

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"I am the perfect affirmative action baby. I am Puerto Rican, born and raised in the south Bronx.

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She was born and raised in Bronx. I don't think arguing that her English was so bad that affected her test performance holds much water.Anyhow, that's besides the point: Perdition asked me for a case where someone hadn't earned their position. Sotomayor is such a case. Yes, that's pretty cool. I'm not saying she doesn't *deserve* to be SC Justice, I'm saying she didn't *earn* it. Perdition asked me for a case where someone hadn't earned their position, to which I've responded. Yes, I never disputed that and it was never in question. I'm all for equal opportunities, equal being the operative word. Unfortunately AA is the cause of in-equality and racial discrimination. The point is that the only way to convince people that race doesn't matter is to make race not matter, i.e. decisions should be made without any consideration to race, colour or ethnicity. Unfortunately AA goes the other way and encourages people to take into account someone's race, colour or ethnicity. AA makes race matter, it feeds racism and that's why it should be abolished asap.

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

But she still had to do well in school. She still had to do well as a judge. She still had to progress in her career on her own merit, so her final destination had more to do with her own acheivements than simply getting into a good school. Then her own acheivements got her to the SC position and not simply getting into a good school. But it does and that was the whole point of AA.President Lyndon B. Johnson:

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Men and women of all races are born with the same range of abilities. But ability is not just the product of birth. Ability is stretched or stunted by the family that you live with, and the neighborhood you live in--by the school you go to and the poverty or the richness of your surroundings. It is the product of a hundred unseen forces playing upon the little infant, the child, and finally the man.

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Do you agree with the above quote? Expain. The way I see it is, if she deserves it then she must have earned it working hard in school and as a judge. Her own acheivements earned her that position, not simply getting into a good school. Many get into good schools and do nothing with it. If Sonia can serve as an example of AA, then I say in her case, and in cases that mimic hers, AA proved beneficial. I'm not saying it does for all cases, but for many it has. Perhaps a reformating of the AA laws is in order and not so much an abolishment of it completely. If it proves successful then the only thing that has to be considered bad about it is where it is not beneficial.- Oni

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If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.
~George Carlin

But, by her own admission, her educational background helped her in her position as federal trial judge in Manhattan.The same educational background into which -again by her own admission- she got herself because of AA and despite her test scores.

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Men and women of all races are born with the same range of abilities. But ability is not just the product of birth. Ability is stretched or stunted by the family that you live with, and the neighborhood you live in--by the school you go to and the poverty or the richness of your surroundings. It is the product of a hundred unseen forces playing upon the little infant, the child, and finally the man.

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Yes I do. However, this has nothing to do with the point in contention between myself and Perdition. Deserving something means being worthy of some reward. Earning it means gaining that reward through meeting a certain standard of achievement. I have no doubt that Sotomayor is suitably qualified and worthy of her position as SC Justice. However, she didn't *earn* entrance to Princeton and Yale, as her test scores were not that good, instead she was *given* it because of her race and gender.To illustrate: I deserve to be Departmental Manager at the company I work for, as I have the skills, qualifications and done some good work there. But I haven't earned it yet as one has to be with the company for a certain number of years before they can be given this position and I haven't. Again by her own admission, her education helped her in her job as a federal trial judge in Manhattan. Which, in turn, helped her to get to the SC Justice position. So getting into a good school did indirectly help her to acquire the SC Justice post. I think it's fair to say that hadn't she gone to Princeton and Yale chances are she wouldn't be where she is today. Beneficial for her, no doubt! But what about all the others who were applying for positions at Yale and Princeton and had higher scores than her? What about all the others who are as worthy as her, maybe more, to be SC Justices but had the misfortune to be born white males and therefore lose out on the AA handouts?AA is only beneficial for those who are favourably discriminated. The people who are discriminated against lose out and so does the rest of society which has to bear the consequences of increased racial tensions and bitter resentment.

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