No they're not. This is more of that right leaning fearmongering nonsense. Find me the mandate. Show me the law. It's as if people expect to say this stuff and no one will actually ever call them on it. Sadly a lot of people don't. My company, a large multi-national news and finance agency, has no idea officially what race I am. It isn't written down anywhere as I've never submitted it. No one has ever asked. What gets me about the people who swallow this crap is they never stop and say "hang about, has anyone here at my job ever asked me to fill in my race/religion/sexual orientation on an official form?" because for the majority the answer will be...no. Don't get the voluntary diversity "surveys" that some companies carry out for anything official. There is no law making any company keep such data and therefore no way to enforce these fictional but bizarrely popular "quotas" some people seem to cling to.
Also everyone in thsi thread seems to be ignoring the "old boys" factor in this. Football clubs are very cliquey (sp?) and they like to have there own guys in the positions of power. Alot of it is about who you know, rather than who you are. There are very few managing positions as opposed to other positions in football and being in there with the board or being a club hero is often what gets someone a job.
My view is that one of the largest white middle class cliques in Britain is the last place that should be lecturing about racism. Our MP's may well be voted in by members of the public but they are chosen as candidates by members of the respective political parties.I think that you'll find that there could well be some inherent racism with members of certain parties
And what job was this? I'd report them. Have a read here: http://www.prospects.ac.uk/equal_opportunities_religion_and_belief.htm Again, it seems a lot are mistaking actual job applications for voluntary equal opportunities monitoring forms which you're in no way inclined to fill in.
I can't find an article right now from around 10 years ago or so about black managers in the NBA and NFL. These are sports which are dominated by black athletes almost completely but until recently there were very few black managers. The jist of it was that clubs were absolutely open to the idea but there was a clear lack of viable non-white candidates compared to the proportion of players. Retiring black athletes just weren't as interested to take the paths and make the choices that would give them a chance to manage clubs. And I don't see what's wrong with that, if there is lower interest by a sub-group to be involved in an activity there is absolutely no reason to 'artificially' create a more favorable situation for them which would only end up in less qualified and less interested candidates.
HigburyGhost for someone who says others try to dismiss and ignore things you do a great job of it yourself. The fact is i work in sales, mainly in the public sector, for a large services company which due to the industry means the vast majority of employees are of ethnic minorities. I am very regularly filling in documents which require a breakdown of both the management and work force by ethnic origin. I am a Manager and have been involved in both the recruitment/interview process and the hiring process. When signing your contract with the firm there is a section to fill in your race. This is standard practice across the entire industry. The company keeps track of the overall ethnic make-up of the company and are encouraged to keep management levels in proportion to the overall levels within the company. So do not try to tell me that race is not taken into acount when hiring people and do not try and say companies are not expected to try and keep a break-down of the ethnic minorites working for them. Because your quite simply wrong. This may not be across all industires and it is not like some kind of nazi vetting scheme by which we must know what ethnicity everyone is. But it is done so that "positive" discrimination can take place. I personaly hate it and think its ridiculous. But when a high % of your work is through local government you'd be surprised how much positive discrimination is encouraged!
Apart from citing actual sources. I dismiss that which I believe to be wrong. If your company *forces* people to fill in the race box, then they are breaking the law. Sitting proudly proclaiming that indeed your firm does break the law by requiring their employees to submit their racial and religious background doesn't make your points any more valid. Go look at the law and come back to me. Ta.
@goonercym - im not for a second going to try and pretend like non of the old boy conservatives have some questionable views on race But the fact is if they thought a black candidate was more likely to win votes that who they would use to cling onto power. Also if there is a good enough black candidate who wants to stand in an areaa but isn't selected by oen of the main aprties they have the option to run as an indipendant. If they are of such a high quality of candidate then they will be voted in. I do not think that just because they are cliquey and white that they should be banned from the argument on race.
Did i at any point suggest that we force people into giving us this information? No. I simply stated what is truth. That it is on the contract of employment and as a company we are encouraged by the government to keep track of the race of our employees and management. And that this is standard practice across the industry. And considering i work in an industry which is far more populated by ethnic minorities than the finanace and news sectors i'd say my experience on this is far more relevant than yours. Edit: removed profanity as requested.
@goonercym - it is not a choice of our company but rather standard for the industry due to the fact most companies in the industry have large % of public sector work.
Are you guys seriously trying to suggest that positive racism isn't real? You bang on about how aweful racism is yet ignore the positive racism that gets everyone so pissed off about the subject. If you want people to listen and engage on a discussion about race then you have to be open to understanding all angles of the subject. You say others have a "la la la£ attitude yet this is all i have seen displayed from you on this thread. (highburyghost)
What!? Are you saying there is some kind of consensus that white managers are chosen over higher qualified black managers? People that don't "make it" thinking they are better than those who do isn't something new. Not limited to managers or any particular races either. I found that sentence to be hilarious btw... wow. I don't really think you got what my point was. Clubs are willing to get the talent that will help them progress no matter what. Nothing you have said here has shown why they wouldn't have the same attitude about managers. People are too quick to see racism in anything IMO.
I never mentioned anything about old boy conservatives I don't know if you've ever been involved in politics but rightly or wrongly you could put a red or blue rosette on a donkey in certain constituencies and they would still be voted in.It's a fact that it's only approx 100 constituencies that have any bearing on a General Election result in this country.
I looked at standing as an independant in the last elections due to my constituency being one which is a nailed on red/blue (i won't say which ) - mainly just to create options in a constituency which is in need of more options! I was persuaded not to though due to the time i would have to put in and i had other commitments which had to take my priority. I know that in this country the majority of seats are safe seats for there parties due to long standing political loyalties. But does that mean then that we can lay the blame for any inequality we see in our government on them? No ofcourse not. It's the people who decide and at the end of the day if enough people want change it happens. I really couldn't care less if the entire government is white, black, yellow or green, they should be therep urely based on how good they are for the job and race shouldn't come into it. Neither should gener, disability or anything else. This thinking that we have to have ethnic minorities and women and this and that in positions of power really frustrates me - let people make there own minds up about who is best for what position! There should be no positive discrimination and no regular discrimination! Both are as bad as each other!
Your right Cym - i'm sorry for my use of bad language! It was provoked out of me by the rude and patronising way i was spoken to by HighburyGhost. A little bit of politeness and i'm happy to sit and chat all day - but he was clearly rude and dismissive and probably deserved to be spoken to like a bit of a plonker....
