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Racism Worse Now Than In The '80s?; Are remedies part of the Problem?
Topic Started: Jun 13 2006, 09:52 PM (598 Views)
TexasShadow
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Jane
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No, the government does NOT force the hiring of unqualified applicants. The AA program has never done that. Yes, they have to align work force demographics with the local demographics, but that is not the same as telling a company they have to hire unqualified people. Who they hired remained a business decision based on qualifications.

Or are you suggesting minorities and women are unable to meet the expectations of business?

Racial and sexual balance doesn't mean a company has to hire unqualified people.


Qualifications come at various levels of skill/knowledge/experience.
When a company has to hire a person with no experience over a person with lots of experience because the company has to meet a racial balance...that's racism.

When a police dept has to hire a 5 foot, 90 pound woman as a policeman instead of a larger, stronger man, that's stupid. Granted, there are plenty of women who can handle the job, but size ought to be a consideration.

Another example of discrimination is:
when TWA was forced to comply with government regs re balance of races, it hired a whole bunch of black people as ticket agents, bag handlers, etc.
okay, that was fine, but the company gave these people 9 years of seniority right from the start. now maybe that was justice, but I can tell you, it sure didn't go a long way in establishing good relations between black and white workers.
Posted Image "A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking."
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
Well, I think we disagree. Filling quotas can very well mean hiring perhaps not unqualified but certainly less qualified people. If I'm looking to hire one more person and to meet quotas I must hire from minority X and I have 3 better qualified Ys, I have no choice--other than to face government lawyers. Being fair to one group is unfair to another.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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ngc1514
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TexasShadow
Jun 15 2006, 06:09 PM
Qualifications come at various levels of skill/knowledge/experience.
When a company has to hire a person with no experience over a person with lots of experience because the company has to meet a racial balance...that's racism.

When a police dept has to hire a 5 foot, 90 pound woman as a policeman instead of a larger, stronger man, that's stupid. Granted, there are plenty of women who can handle the job, but size ought to be a consideration.

Another example of discrimination is:
when TWA was forced to comply with government regs re balance of races, it hired a whole bunch of black people as ticket agents, bag handlers, etc.
okay, that was fine, but the company gave these people 9 years of seniority right from the start. now maybe that was justice, but I can tell you, it sure didn't go a long way in establishing good relations between black and white workers.

You keep insisting, on no presented evidence at all, that companies have to hire anyone. The racial balance can be met by finding and recruiting trained, qualified people. It's that "has to hire" I question. No one is saying they don't have to hire to fill quotas, but the decision on who to hire remains the company's and not governmental mandate.

Your police example is silly because most police departments have minimum physical requirements. There are millions of women who will meet those requirements.

Was TWA forced to give those people the 9 years seniority or were they attempting to right an injustice where, perhaps, had TWA not used discriminatory hiring practices for decades some of these people would have had the seniority and the rights it entailed?

When I was hired by AT&T they gave me 39 months of time credited to pay on a 6 year pay scale. That's a corporate decision and not governmentally mandated. I find the idea that TWA limited its hiring to low end jobs to be almost as reprehensible. Couldn't find any black pilots or A&P mechanics? Or did they save the good jobs for whites?

What I find interesting is how little similar outrage has been expressed in this discussion about the centuries of hiring discrimination that preceeded Affirmative Action.
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ngc1514
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cmoehle
Jun 15 2006, 06:13 PM
Well, I think we disagree. Filling quotas can very well mean hiring perhaps not unqualified but certainly less qualified people. If I'm looking to hire one more person and to meet quotas I must hire from minority X and I have 3 better qualified Ys, I have no choice--other than to face government lawyers. Being fair to one group is unfair to another.

You fail to mention the other option - finding a minority X who is as qualified, or, perhaps, even more qualified than your Ys.

Are you saying that there are no Xs who are as qualified or just you just don't wish to expend the time and effort to find one?

Posted ImageEric
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
If no X as or more qualified as Y are available, X must still be hired under affirmative action. Those X may come from those who apply or those recruited.

Should the company expend extra effort to find qualified X, it's the same, being fair to X is unfair to Y.

Note that Johnson's executive order applied only to government hiring and contractors with contracts over a threshhold value. Private industry did embrace the policy voluntarily, likely to avoid lawsuits.

Some evidence comes not from affirmative action in hiring practices but university admissions policies. This evidence was presented by Clarence Thomas' dissent in GRUTTER V. BOLLINGER (02-241) 539 U.S. 306 (2003). The negative aspects of reverse discrimmination on blacks is particularly telling in this key paragraph:
Quote:
 
Indeed, the very existence of racial discrimination of the type practiced by the Law School may impede the narrowing of the LSAT testing gap. An applicant’s LSAT score can improve dramatically with preparation, but such preparation is a cost, and there must be sufficient benefits attached to an improved score to justify additional study. Whites scoring between 163 and 167 on the LSAT are routinely rejected by the Law School, and thus whites aspiring to admission at the Law School have every incentive to improve their score to levels above that range. See App. 199 (showing that in 2000, 209 out of 422 white applicants were rejected in this scoring range). Blacks, on the other hand, are nearly guaranteed admission if they score above 155. Id., at 198 (showing that 63 out of 77 black applicants are accepted with LSAT scores above 155). As admission prospects approach certainty, there is no incentive for the black applicant to continue to prepare for the LSAT once he is reasonably assured of achieving the requisite score. It is far from certain that the LSAT test-taker’s behavior is responsive to the Law School’s admissions policies.16 Nevertheless, the possibility remains that this racial discrimination will help fulfill the bigot’s prophecy about black underperformance–just as it confirms the conspiracy theorist’s belief that “institutional racism” is at fault for every racial disparity in our society.


By analogy, the same argument applie, imo, in business hiring practices under affirmative action.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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tomdrobin
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ngc1514
Jun 15 2006, 12:24 PM
I know, all this is ancient history and purely anecdotal, but gives a personal perspective why AA was put into place: to counter explicit and implicit racism and racist hiring policies in an historically racist nation.

I don't think anyone likes affirmative action, but most people understand why it was originally implemented. Has it worked? Swimmingly well! Just look at the numbers of blacks who have moved into jobs unavailable to them just 40 years ago. Is it a perfect system? Of course not, but no system is.

Should we do away with it? There is an unexamined assumption behind these proposals that assumes - without offering any evidence to support it - racial bias in hiring and college admissions has been bred or educated out of those doing the hiring and accepting admission applications.

Anyone advocating the elimination of AA care to offer any evidence that the old racist hiring practices of the last century wouldn't rear its head again?

Maybe it wouldn't, but I've seen no evidence to show that true.

Eric

First off, no one would argue about the discrimination of the past. That was or should have been taken care of by anti-discrimination laws. It should be pretty obvious that a company is discriminating if they have qualified minority applicants, but no minorities or a very small amount of minorities on the payroll, or advancing to management positions. These existing laws should be rigorously enforced. And, if new legislation is required it should be enacted.

But, the idea of a "level playing field" and giving preference to minorities does not correct the discrimination their parents and grandparents suffered. Nothing will correct that. The very idea that minorities are owed something by current society for the sins of their fathers is insulting and inflamatory, particularly to those whites who come from low socio economic backgrounds, and have had to struggle for everything they have achieved in life. Lower standards, preferential hiring, and admissions just propogates the idea that minorities are somehow less capable/ambitious. Or are somehow entitled to privilages not available to non minorities on the basis of something that happened before their lifetime.

I can see extra $$$ and attention being devoted to schooling those from lower socio economic backgrounds. This is justified because our educational system is discriminatory in that wealthy districts have more $$$ to spend on education than the poorer ones. But, this is not a racial, ethnic issue. It is socio economic.

The children of high achieving minority business and government leaders certainly don't need special consideration because they are minorities. While conversely the children of impoverished whites (ie; Appalacia) shouldn't be relegated to working in coal mines for subsistance.
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ngc1514
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Too much to do today to reply with any meaningful response. (Yeah, yeah, I hear you saying... "So what else is new?"

See y'all in a week when we return from Florida.

Posted ImageEric
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bikemanb
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In my former professional life before retirement, I dealt with VP’s, plant managers, engineering managers and engineers on a regular basis, of the several hundred people in my contact database less than three percent were black/female/Hispanic. If there is this huge government conspiracy against white males, I guess they skipped over the Midwest, at least in the technical and managerial ranks.
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For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

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tomdrobin
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bikemanb
Jun 17 2006, 12:45 PM
In my former professional life before retirement, I dealt with VP’s, plant managers, engineering managers and engineers on a regular basis, of the several hundred people in my contact database less than three percent were black/female/Hispanic. If there is this huge government conspiracy against white males, I guess they skipped over the Midwest, at least in the technical and managerial ranks.

bikeman

I have a similar background. Worked for 25 years in product engineering for a major vehicle manufacturer.

My experience differs from yours. I saw particularly in the middle management ranks, definite and overt preference given to minorities, when there were better qualified white males. Even in lower ranks, women and minorities were given special consideration for promotion, even when academic and performance ratings of white males were higher.
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
Keep in mind, affirmative action was imposed only on government and some contractors. Private companies made their own choices.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
Republican Party seems to be struggling with this question: To Rescue the Party of Lincoln.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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teryt
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My perception is that it is less, but I am a WASP, so take it for what it's worth.

I grew up in my grandparents home, and my grandfather had been a member of the KKK, and was not at all shy about calling black people niggers - accept to their face. (On the other hand, he often took used toys to the poorer, black neighborhoods - a dichotomy I still wonder about!) But then again, he was pretty much bigoted against everyone who wasn't a WASP (with short hair) it seemed.

When I left home, I lived with a couple black families. I was real proud of myself the day that I was at a party, and it was an hour or so before I realized I was the only light skinned person there. My best friend, who was black, was my best man.

Back then (early 1970's), I was aware of strong racism. Now I see less and less of it.

I work with a nonprofit that is ran by several black people, and through it teach a business plan course to fledgling entrepreneurs, who are generally economically disadvantaged women & minorities. We have a great time of it all, and I see next to no racism there.

So my very subjective personal perception is that it's much ado about nothing - or at least should be. Sure, I hear a lot of race-baiting going on in the media, from people who seem to gain from perpetuating the race card, but not much personally.

(It might also be interesting to explore the whole Hip Hop culture thing, as I see what looks like a lot of racism there!)
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spikefish
Spike-Gulf of Texas
If anyone thinks that there is no quota system in hiring practices, they had better take their blinders off.

I worked for a very large corporation for more than 25 years, and it was standard procedure to "screen" by race. No applications for openings were mailed out, one had to show up in person. The HR person would give the applicant an application and have them sign a sheet, acknowledging receipt. Then the HR person would make a small notation next to the name: bf, bm, wm, wf, am, af, lm, lf, etc. The notations indicated race and gender. If the company was not up to "quota" in minority employees, the "wm's" were immediately tossed; wm stood for white-male.

A similar procedure was used for promotions.

I was personally involved in these practices, much to my disgust. And, no, there was no written procedure; it was strongly implied, and thoroughly understood. Being a wm, I knew damn well I had better go along.
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
It was big corporations who backed the universities in their admissions practices in the SCOTUS case a year or so ago.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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teryt
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I don't doubt quotas are still going strong. What I don't see as much of, personally, is racism. Then again, I'm WASP. I would be all for dropping all quotas, and seeing what the free market would do. I think the time for the adjustment should be over, and let people do what they can soley on their own merit. To do otherwise is racist by definition, and helps no one in the long run.

Another area governemnt needs to get their germy hands out of - But it's hard to disolve something that's become institutionalized like this one. Many people growing up under the system seem to just think that's they way things are & should stay.
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