George Floyd/Black Lives Matter Protests

[Joey Jo Jo Junior Shabadoo]

2 minutes ago, Mr Waldo said:

Now remember children, I am only quoting specific races because this is BLM thread, swap for male/female if you want.  Possitive discrimination'. We need more black people in 'x' role

1. My qualifications, attitude, everything scores 9/10. I am white.
2. My qualifications, attitude, everything scores 8/10. I am black

Number 2 gets the job to 'fill the quota'. No its or buts.  Discrimination is discrimination.

Usually 1 & 2 turn out more like 5/10 anyway. Pick number 3 who has claimed they are about 6/10 because they are probably telling the truth.

[NotThePars]

7 minutes ago, Mr Waldo said:

Now remember children, I am only quoting specific races because this is BLM thread, swap for male/female if you want.  Possitive discrimination'. We need more black people in 'x' role

1. My qualifications, attitude, everything scores 9/10. I am white.
2. My qualifications, attitude, everything scores 8/10. I am black

Number 2 gets the job to 'fill the quota'. No its or buts.  Discrimination is discrimination.

What's the alternative to positive discrimination?  

[philpy]

53 minutes ago, Tynierose said:

I've given him a couple of days off to try and regroup.

Hopefully a break will bring a benefit.

I'm very conscious of mental health and sometimes being on here can be difficult if struggling.  Continuing to argue with all and sundry isn't going to benefit him I feel.

On the subject of mental health there is some great help and advice available in the depression thread that may assist anyone struggling.

Websites such as mood juice and breathing space are helpful and I often suggest to patients to have a look at them.

Anyway I may have read it all completely wrong but I feel sometimes a rest is needed.

 

Good stuff, well done. I think in general people's mental health has suffered really badly during lockdown. 

[Mr Waldo]

13 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

What's the alternative to positive discrimination?  

I genuinely do not know. We can get so far with annonimising applications, but as soon as interviews happen, then we are gubbed.  

Get me to interview?  

Seriously, I think 'positive discrimination' may cause resentment and end up being counter productive. It opens up the argument of 'aye but you're only here because.........'

[Shotgun]

Yep. We’re well into “I’m only racist because the leftists made me so” territory now. 
 

See also: Trump voters. 

[NotThePars]

5 minutes ago, Mr Waldo said:

Seriously, I think 'positive discrimination' may cause resentment and end up being counter productive. It opens up the argument of 'aye but you're only here because.........'

Probably but if anyone hit out with the latter they'd be on the fast track to a disciplinary and potentially being punted out the door. The implicit statement in that as well is that all the white people are presumably qualified but the black candidates aren't which is an interesting position to take.

[Bairnardo]

I have never heard wven anecdotal evidence of a company with self imposed quotas being so badly organised that they have it boiled down to one black guy and one white guy going for a job and having to hire the inferior black guy.

It's a very popular scenario to be cited in this arguement but it's one I have a hard time believing ever transpires.

I can belive if a company is on a recruitment campaign with say 10 jobs over a 3 month period they might say make sure one of these is BAME. But the above scenario reeks of framing the argument in an unrealistic way to claim positive discrimination, and stymie the move towards diversity.

[Mr Waldo]

1 minute ago, ali_91 said:

Not making positive changes to improve representation of minority groups because it might make racists more racist is some take, even for you. 

No. I am pointing out, in my opinion, descrimination is always wrong. Helping people (regardless of their 'minority status') is always right.

Are you suggesting every job / role needs an even representation of 'minorities'?   In my opinion, that is a silly proposal.

[Moomintroll]

31 minutes ago, Mr Waldo said:

Now remember children, I am only quoting specific races because this is BLM thread, swap for male/female if you want.  Possitive discrimination'. We need more black people in 'x' role

1. My qualifications, attitude, everything scores 9/10. I am white.
2. My qualifications, attitude, everything scores 8/10. I am black

Number 2 gets the job to 'fill the quota'. No its or buts.  Discrimination is discrimination.

The issue is in a lot of cases if 1 was a 6 & 2 was an 8, 1 is still getting the job as it stands. The pendulum needs to swing the other way for the balance to be redressed. It isn't ideal but neither is what has gone before.

[Gordon EF]

7 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

I have never heard wven anecdotal evidence of a company with self imposed quotas being so badly organised that they have it boiled down to one black guy and one white guy going for a job and having to hire the inferior black guy.

It's a very popular scenario to be cited in this arguement but it's one I have a hard time believing ever transpires.

I can belive if a company is on a recruitment campaign with say 10 jobs over a 3 month period they might say make sure one of these is BAME. But the above scenario reeks of framing the argument in an unrealistic way to claim positive discrimination, and stymie the move towards diversity.

I think this is a big part of the problem with quotas to me. If you're never getting into the position where race is coming into the decision then you, as a company, don't need quotas. Of course that's overly simplistic because of unconscious bias, etc, etc.

[Todd_is_God]

I see Sky Sports are banning the phrase "nitty gritty" as it is apparantly racist and offensive.

I wouldn't say I use the phrase very often, but have only ever known it to mean getting down to fine details of something. Never heard anyone be offended by it.

Should we be combing through the origins of every single phrase now to find if they may have tenuous, centuries old, unsavoury undertones, despite the accepted modern day definition being entirely different?

I'm not black so I don't wish to come across as speaking for black people here, but I'm not convinced banning phrases such as "nitty gritty" is high up the list of concerns they are trying to highlight.

Edited July 5, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[MSU]

5 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

I see Sky Sports are banning the phrase "nitty gritty" as it is apparantly racist and offensive.

I wouldn't say I use the phrase very often, but have only ever known it to mean getting down to fine details of something. Never heard anyone be offended by it.

Should we be combing through the origins of every single phrase now to find if they may have centuries old unsavoury undertones, despite the accepted modern day definition being entirely different?

I'm not black so I don't wish to come across as speaking for black people here, but I'm not convinced banning phrases such as "nitty gritty" is high up the list of concerns they are trying to highlight.

Shortly after moving to the US, I used the phrase in a meeting and although I'd never considered it before, I wondered if the phrase had some questionable origins. I looked it up when I got back to my desk, and sure enough, the etymology does seem to come from the name for the detritus found on the bottom of slave transporter ships. So I decided to stop saying it. It's probably not high on anyone's list, but maybe it's just a quick win to use different language.

31 minutes ago, Perkin Flump said:

The issue is in a lot of cases if 1 was a 6 & 2 was an 8, 1 is still getting the job as it stands. The pendulum needs to swing the other way for the balance to be redressed. It isn't ideal but neither is what has gone before.

This is on the money for me. It's the either conscious or unconscious decision to reject candidates who come from a minority group who may well be qualified for the position or at least deserving of an interview, which leads to a perception within the minority group that there's no point applying for a job at Company A because they're 85% White Male.

[MSU]

"Rule of thumb" is another phrase with a dodgy past, as it apparently dates back to a law that said you couldn't beat your wife with anything thicker than the width of your thumb.

[Dee Man]

4 minutes ago, MSU said:

"Rule of thumb" is another phrase with a dodgy past, as it apparently dates back to a law that said you couldn't beat your wife with anything thicker than the width of your thumb.

Were you allowed to shoot them with a thin bullet?

[Sergeant Wilson]

6 minutes ago, MSU said:

"Rule of thumb" is another phrase with a dodgy past, as it apparently dates back to a law that said you couldn't beat your wife with anything thicker than the width of your thumb.

Oh fūck! Is that written down anywhere, surely it's a guideline rather than a rule?

[BFTD]

Wow, I’d no idea about the nitty gritty thing. How on Earth did these phrases end up in such common use? It sounds like such an obscure origin.

Wasn’t that ‘rule of thumb’ origin a myth?

[Todd_is_God]

6 minutes ago, BigFatTabbyDave said:

Wow, I’d no idea about the nitty gritty thing. How on Earth did these phrases end up in such common use? It sounds like such an obscure origin.

This is from https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/nitty-gritty.html

There is no evidence to support the suggestion that 'nitty-gritty' has any connection with slave ships. It may have originated in the USA as an African-American expression, but that's as near as it gets to slavery. It isn't even recorded in print until the 1930s, long after slave ships had disappeared, and none of the early references make any link to slavery.

I suppose it often may have a lot to do with the obvious stigma attached to racism, and the natural desire to distance ourselves from that.

Particularly now in the internet age there is an opportunity for things like this to become 'fact' as it is easily shared among large numbers of people. Once there is a perception something may be racist among a large enough group of people, then it becomes impossible to reverse this.

I thought this was quite interesting, and even the humble picnic has been thoroughly examimed in the past.

[Mr Waldo]

1 hour ago, Perkin Flump said:

The issue is in a lot of cases if 1 was a 6 & 2 was an 8, 1 is still getting the job as it stands. The pendulum needs to swing the other way for the balance to be redressed. It isn't ideal but neither is what has gone before.

And if the issue is 1 was a 6 and 2 was an 8, then that is disgraceful. But two wrongs don't  make a right. And no, I don't know what the answer is.

 

54 minutes ago, ali_91 said:

There is an issue with companies being overly careful which (at the risk of sounding like Mr Waldo and what I just criticised) plays in to the racists hands. I am all for language being moderated, statues being torn down and places renamed, but innocuous things being moderated by white owned companies with no knowledge behind what they are doing as an easy PR exercise (or as in this case, a risk mitigation exercise) needlessly gives the PC gone mad brigade extra ammo. 

That is also  partly one of my points.   I remember the hokey jokey being described as 'secterian'.  Things like this allow cretins to deflect away from the real issue. 

One of my questions/fears is at what point, and who decides, what is  'innocuous' and what is not.  And 'no' it is not obvious.

[Silvio Tattiescone]

Lots of phrases might need to be dropped. "No can do" was a way of mocking Chinese people struggling to speak English.  "Long time no see" was mocking Native Americans for the same reason. To be "sold down the river" was literally to be sold down the river. Software developers are dropping the terms "master" and "slave" in their software packages. Ford have renamed their master brake cylinders and caliper pistons as "primary" cylinders and "Dae as yer telt" pistons.

[Joey Jo Jo Junior Shabadoo]

5 minutes ago, NewBornBairn said:

Lots of phrases might need to be dropped. "No can do" was a way of mocking Chinese people struggling to speak English.  "Long time no see" was mocking Native Americans for the same reason. To be "sold down the river" was literally to be sold down the river. Software developers are dropping the terms "master" and "slave" in their software packages. Ford have renamed their master brake cylinders and caliper pistons as "primary" cylinders and "Dae as yer telt" pistons.

Edited July 5, 2020 by Joey Jo Jo Junior Shabadoo