Some people are systemically excluded from jobs, professions, activities, opportunities, etc., simply because they are X, Y and Z. The fact is that a company will generally, for instance, hire a white accountant over a black accountant, because they view the white accountant as more capable. Whether this is actually the case...

Studies have been done where a CV was sent out with a typically "white" name and a typically "black" name. Guess which CV received more call-backs?

It's not too much of a stretch to posit that the same thing happens for women. As I pointed out in the first post of this thread, though, there are certain sectors that are biased toward women, when there is no reason for this bias to exist -- and yet it's difficult for men to be taken seriously when they take issue with this. The problem with affirmative action is that it needs constant tweaking and re-evaluation, and the people responsible for it just don't properly manage the situation because of a fear of backlash, laziness, stupidity or just plain incompetence.

To my mind, affirmative action is government supported discrimination. Would you please critique the points I made against it earlier?

I've been offered numerous unfair advantages as a person of English-Japanese (with a hint of irish) descent. None of which I have taken, because it would violate my principles of fairness.

I'd even argue that affirmative action is inherently bigoted against the people it's claiming to help. It implies that you lack the necessary qualities to get ahead by yourself without assistance.

I did. You said that businesses want to hire the best people for the job. They assume that the best people for the job are white, often, whether that's the case or not.

You're proceeding on the false assumption that companies always act logically. It would be great if people (the agents of the company) acted completely rationally and only hired the most competent people, but that's often not the case. In other words, your argument isn't sound. I can't argue against an unsound argument.


Well, good for you. I assume that means you had a roof over your head and food on the table, and weren't so desperate that you had to swallow your pride and accept help. Am I wrong?

Plus, one of the Asian stereotypes is that all Asians are uber-capable. That's not exactly a stereotype that reduces your chances of getting hired.


I used to think like you do. You have to realise that affirmative action isn't really about anyone in particular -- it's just about rebalancing the playing field. It's not about value. It's about recalibrating, if you will, principles. Healthier principles produce a better outcome in the long run than do unhealthy principles, for everyone involved.

These are the ones I meant.

That is so true, you have no idea how many times I have been discriminated against for being an alphabet.

Really? Most of the businesses I see around here have black employees (And other varying races that aren't white) outnumbering whites by over half. You're running by stereotypes, ironically enough.

If anyone hires an Asian soley on the priniciple of their race, I hope they got the daftest airhead you could get. Believing in stereotypes is just silly, corporate or real world.

But how is it rebalancing if you turn down a black hiree for a position as chief engineer of some power plant, not on their race, but because they just don't have the qualifications required, only to be forced into hiring them because they couldnt accept they didnt meet needed balance? AA isn't about fairness, it's about appeasing big babies who won't svck it up and go try to get hired elsewhere. Does bigotry happen in business? Undeniably so. But I feel AA isn't so much about rebalancing as it is catering. Say I run a corporate business and was given the choice of hiring a (Race), clean cut white collar person, or some white kid in all goth attire with hoops and tatoos, I'd hire the former, to me, it isn't about race, it's about how you present yourself that matters in my book. I feel AA is much like welfare and other 'for the people' aids. It's intention is noble, but it's often abused by others just as well.

As I pointed out, companies usually end up with the not-optimal person anyway, so this point is moot. Apart from hiring on the grounds of skin colour or gender, businesses also hire more attractive people more often, more gregarious people more often, taller people more often, etc., whether that person is capable or not.

At least, with AA, communities that are traditionally denied opportunities across the board are allowed an in.


The other side of this is that their merit is usually undermined by their skin colour, anyway, regardless of whether they got the job because of AA or not, so... Again, moot.


See above.


This makes the least amount of sense. Whether a person is a minority or not, doesn't make any difference to unemployment figures. If a person doesn't have a job, that adds to unemployment figures. If a person does have a job, that adds to employment figures. Unemployment figures have nothing to do with race.


Addressed.


Sometimes I'm fed up with the double gender standard that society foists on me. Life isn't fair, but we can try to make it as fair as possible. It takes a united effort.

No, I'm basing my argument on studies. Studies show that (in America, anyway) white people are assumed to be more competent than black people.


And yet it happens.


Like I said above, the implementation of AA is the problem, not AA itself. Instead of forcing a company to hire the specific person that made the complaint, I'd just force them to hire a minority. There must be at least one person of a minority, after all, who is just as qualified as anyone else you'll find.


That's a bit of an uneven example. Let's say the choice was between two people who were exactly identical but for their race. The white person will often win out.

The problem is that, while there may well be many people who aren't racist, there are a lot more people who are, consciously or not. We all know someone who says, "I'm not racist, but... ", but there's also the even more insidious kind of racism that is so innocuous it isn't easily recognised.

Except, studies recognise it, such as the example above of a CV sent out with a "black" and a "white" name.

AA is necessary.


Sure, it is abused by some people. You have to weigh up the consequences of helping and not helping, and decide which one fosters more good. I happen to think AA is worth it (but only if that AA is well-implemented, which it unfortunately usually isn't).

If the six is not consensual, then it is sixual assault, no matter the gender of the perpetrator, or the condition the victim is in, be they impaired from medications, illegal substances, alcohol, illness, or injury, or not impaired at all. There is no excuse nor justification whatsoever for sixual assault. Ever.

Saying that women who attend parties and imbibe deserve sixual assualt is ridiculous.

The man in my profile pic is BB King. He grew up in the deep south during the 30's, worked through the 40's and through his own effort, has become a world renowned musician, and he still is touring today.
He has come out on top despite the fact he grew up in an area where lynchings where common.

There wasn't any PC or Equality, let alone AA in his time. He got to the top through sheer will and effort. Of course his case is exceptional but I think it's a long shot to say AA is required to be successful as a minority.

I didn't say it was. I'm saying that as a whole minorities have to work a lot harder just to be on equal footing with the majority. That's the discrepancy that AA seeks to redress.

Am I correct in assuming that you feel that people can't consent to six while intoxicated? If so, my argument is still stronger than yours, because people start off sober, and then get intoxicated as they consume alcohol. Not the other way around. As I said, when no one's forcing you to consume that alcohol, it is your responsibility to exercise restraint in your consumption. If you're not capable of that even while sober, you probably have a drinking problem. It doesn't matter if you can reasonably consent while you're drunk (and still conscious), because when you were sober, you consented to getting drunk and accepting the possible consequences.

People already know that drinking can lead to car accidents, vomiting, ruined clothing, getting arrested, fights, six with strangers, and any number of other things that generally aren't as likely to occur to people while they're sober. This isn't new information. You get drunk, you do something embarrassing or unpleasant. Pretty common knowledge. No one has ground to stand on when they argue that they were drunk and didn't know what they were doing, because they knew that plowing into someone's house was a possibility before they started drinking. The fact that they didn't think about it is no excuse.

As I said, I'm not talking about someone who gets drunk at a party, and becomes the victim of another human being who has no qualms about having six with an unconscious person, or physically forcing themselves onto another person, drunk or no. In those cases, the victim is indeed a victim, regardless of BAC. But I'm not talking about those cases. I'm talking about the women who get drunk at parties and bars, and, in their drunken state, joyously jump right into bed with men they've never met before, and might not have found attractive without wearing beer goggles. Women who are consciously compromising their judgement with a well known intoxicant and voluntarily engaging in behavior they might not find to be a good idea while sober. What you keep bringing up is an entirely different matter.

I live in America, and a majority of the places I go to are populated with black employees, which is an inherent contradiction of the study you are using. Studies only show a select slice of the population, a population that can, will, and does change rather frequently. Am I saying that study is inherently wrong? Not really, just that it is only speaking for one place, not an entire nation.

Eh, stupidity can't be fixed I guess. Anyone hiring someone on race clearly isnt competent.

Of course you could, but then the situation is why would you make someone wait 3-4 weeks just to hire some minority person just because they're qualified and there's a qualified white guy right down the road? To me, time is money. Wasting time on such a trivial issue is ridiculous. Racial balance isn't important, quality of the individual employee is. (As well as how well said employees function as a team)

I guess it depends. To me it's how the person rubs me, if they come off as to loose and lounged in the chair, I can feel they would likely be a Watercooler lurker.

Eh, I don't know. I'm not racist by any means, I just am far from politically correct.

Many companies to 'racist' things. Is AA acceptable in a case when it's a studio revolving around black culture? Say a white guy knows black culture just as well as a black guy, but isn't hired because he's white. Is it still fair they didn't hire him simply 'for the company image'?

Stating subjective opinions as fact isnt a good thing.



I personally see it as not working personally. But to each their own I suppose.

Yes and things aren't better off for the US, and I doubt it would have been because he's black even if the US were better off.

As far as slavery goes and the history of blacks in the US, they've been considered human beings for 144 years now. That may be not too long ago to you, but that's nearly 5 times my age, so guilt I shall not feel.

And lastly, I use guys because that's how it's used in common language. It's hardly at all sixist, nor does it teach females men are dominant. This is far too much political correctness for nothing. People have their equality, there will always be bias, there will always be mistreatment or favouritism based on gender, sixuality, race, etc., as long as it's kept to a reasonable minimum things are fine, that's how it is now. The continuous barrage of PC suggesting women are really not that equal when talking about the two main North American countries has only a minimal amount of substance, and by in large most people already have the common sense and decency to understand a more qualified person should get a job regardless of gender. Nonetheless, women get favoured for certain jobs, it happens. Men get favoured for certain jobs, it happens. The attempt to force an even further equality in an element that inherently has biases (your suggestion to stop using "guys" for example as a perfect example of how over the top it is) is ridiculous and is counter-productive to it's goals. The women empowerment / feminist movement today is hardly about equality, it's about special treatment in futile attempt to remove any bias, yet at the same time allow exclusion. Treating people like they're special to this degree does not show them that they're equal -- counter-productive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeHUQAnzpF0

Guy is gender neutral, its etymology is thus:

Guy "fellow," 1847, originally Amer.Eng.; earlier (1836) "grotesquely or poorly dressed person"

I'm not sure what this topic is about anymore.

But I wouldn't be admiring them if I didn't think they were a great species. And that still stands even after being hurt so badly by a few of them.

Topic was about women. Now it's about European societies not bending over enough.

Again, how many of those black employees are higher-ups?


Fair enough.


Yes, and imagine how much worse it is for minorities that have to job search longer for an appropriate position and pay, just because of their skin colour.


Racial balance isn't important on a granular level, but it is on a state-wide or national level. Are you saying that, for instance, if only 30% of the black population is employed, but 90% of the white population is employed, that scenario doesn't strike you as a little bit... wrong?


I wasn't suggesting you were. There are quite a few angles to this.


See Eminem.

More seriously... If you look at the situation from the perspective that America is predominantly WASP-y, as is its culture, then black-/gay-/whatever-only organisations don't seem so weird. The idea is that, since every day is white-/straight-/whatever day, there should be places that cater for specific cultures. I don't have a problem with that. I've been an immigrant in a lot of countries, and while I've enjoyed every culture I've stepped into, you do feel like an outsider a lot of the time. You might say, "They're in America! They're American!" but that's not quite right. Minorities in America are in white America.

To bring it back to the topic at hand, though, I don't think female-only businesses are appropriate -- at least not for first-world countries. Because women are already on a roughly even keel with men, there is no need for female-only businesses, and they would probably only disrupt what is now a fairly even distribution of the sixes. And I'm totally against the idea of community-specific insurance/healthcare/whatever. That just leads to the same old splintering that existed in the 20th century and before.


I'll amend that to, "Something has to be done about pervasive prejudice. AA is the most effective method we've come up with yet. Therefore, we should use it."

I got this.

So, this day should be called: "Get back in the kitchen and make me a sammich!!! Day"?

On a semi-related note I don't believe there should be "National so-and-so day" because they are stupid.

Honestly, there's a "National Boss' Day" WTF? Seriously, what the [censored] does a boss actually do other than piss me off with their stupid demands and lack of knowledge about the task at hand?

Men should worship women everyday. They're the most beautiful(on the outside) creatures on the planet.

I hate all holidays. Except New Years Eve. And Boxing Day... All other holidays? Yep. They're all dumb.

I disagree on both points. No one deserves to be worshiped, and I've seen cars more beautiful than some women. The fact that worship of women has been so common in American society is the reason women here have such huge egos.

Is it me or is the idea of giving women their own special day monumentally patronising?

We can all be glad that no one stated anything like that.

It's not you -- it is monumentally patronising.