Racial Preferences for Britain?

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Spiffor

When the cousin of the boss' wife gets the job (assuming he is acceptably qualified), instead of some unknown person who should be better, is it racism?

I'm not talking about nepotism ffs, or course that's wrong too. I'm talking about racism.

I'm talking about someone who does not deserve to have the job being given a job over the best candidate because of racist laws.

[Provost Harrison]

Yeah, I have seen some shocking examples of bossf**king where I work to get ahead, and it is going on in my lab so blatantly that everyone sees it and everyone is alarmed by it...some people are so damn crooked.

[Havak]

They were doing a hard work that the nationals wouldn't touch with a 10 metre pole

I never claimed they were generically lazy workers. Far from it from all accounts I have heard (those in work are often described as ‘grafters’ to me). What has that got to do with those arriving in the UK immediately looking for housing and subsistence help however? Go to any local DSS office in the UK and my meaning will become much clearer.

They have not been taking the social housing but the rented housing

Beg to differ – in my borough they have hit the Registered Social Housing very heavily indeed. As in private landlord properties that accept accommodation placement from Councils. I would suggest if you count only council owned housing as social that you are actually missing the majority of such housing.

You are quite right about the Government – they are massively culpable for the national housing situation. The Government were also recklessly naeive in allowing unlimited immigration from the expanded EU IMO. The majority of member states did impose limits as it did not take a genius to realise that Eastern European migrants would flock west after the expansion of May 2004.

We simply cannot cope with it and it is rapidly changing the nature of our towns and cities – not necessarily for the better I might add because it is simply too much too quickly.

The is not a hatchet job on Poles by the way – I am happy to see them as well as Latvians, Lithuanians, Slovakians et al arrive here and contribute to the UK, I simply want immigration at manageable levels that are not so actively detrimental to the existing UK inhabitants. As it stands the huge hit on housing is causing considerable resentment in some areas.

And that’s my view – take it or leave it. Does it relate to the thread topic – well not really but I don’t want to change the habits of a lifetime.

[Arrian]

there are over 800,000 empty and abandoned houses in Britain.

How can that be? I wonder if there are millions here in the US... never occurred to me.

-Arrian

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

There probably is. It's particularly rife in inner-cities, and more despressed semi-rural areas. People just walk away from them.

For about 10 grand, you can repair the roof, inject a chemical damp-proof course, strip out and replace the old wiring, treat the joists for wood-boring insects. Then you're left with a property that just needs cosmetic renovation. And yet they just sit there and rot.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Dis
And Asians should definately not get special treatment. They are already superior to whites. They have no problem finding jobs.

I'm kidding of course. But generally you don't find a problem with Asians being oppressed.

Missed this one.

That's not true of Britain. The biggest wave of prejudice in recent years has been against Asians- particularly Moslems. Moslems are now more likely to be unemployed or in low-paid jobs than any other sector of the community. They have also been the prime focus of BNP action over the past few years.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp



Missed this one.

That's not true of Britain. The biggest wave of prejudice in recent years has been against Asians- particularly Moslems. Moslems are now more likely to be unemployed or in low-paid jobs than any other sector of the community. They have also been the prime focus of BNP action over the past few years.

Actually, this is a bit of a terminology issue. In North America, "Asian" almost always means Oriental, while South Asians tend to be referred to more generically as "Indians". While there is a sizeable "Indian" population in N. America (particularly on the west coast), there are far more Orientals. From what I understand, the reverse is true in Britain, for obvious reasons.

[Cort Haus]

This article argues that forcing private contractors to monitor ethnic quotas will be an affront to meritocracy, universalism and, above all, genuine equality.

Not-so-positive discrimination
The UK government’s plan to monitor the number of black and Asian people employed by private companies is an affront to meritocracy, universalism and genuine equality.
Neil Davenport

The UK government is considering denying multimillion-pound contracts to companies that fail to employ enough black and Asian workers, it emerged this week. The Department of Work and Pensions confirmed that three pilot schemes have been approved which will see companies questioned on their workforce diversity before the government decides on the winning bid (1).

As in race-torn America in the Sixties and Seventies, the idea of ‘affirmative action’ – or positive discrimination – is being put forward as social policy. At a time when culture always appears to be the solution to New Labour’s bugbear, ‘social exclusion’, it’s rather surprising to see economic issues being raised at all. It is all the more surprising when there aren’t any campaigns from ethnic minorities demanding preferential treatment for jobs in Britain.

The idea to monitor companies seeking big government contracts was first proposed by an organisation called the Ethnic Minority Advisory Group (Emag). As an indication of how unrepresentative these ‘governmental advisers’ appear to be, Emag was only launched last month. Already their recommendations for ‘affirmative measures’ – to bring black and minority ethnic employment rates in line with the national population rate - have been backed all the way by powerful sections of the state and government, such as Jobcentre Plus, the Identity and Passport Agency and the Department for Education and Skills.

Under these plans, firms could be asked to provide figures showing the numbers of black and Asian employees on their payroll. This would then be compared with the proportion of people living in a surrounding area. But how feasible are such initiatives? The idea of job quotas based on physical appearance, rather than on skills and experience, goes against how the labour market operates. For example, is it possible to ensure that ‘correct’ percentages of ethnic minorities in a company correlates with allocation of job roles? Would particular sectors that have higher percentages of black and Asian employees, such as the London Underground or the postal service, be replacing them with, say, Chinese or Polish workers? Will Premiership football teams be forced to sign Asian footballers in order to fit in with the national rate of employment elsewhere?

There is no doubt that some companies in the UK discriminate against job applicants on racial grounds. But it’s also true to say that PR-savvy companies, such as, say, the Halifax building society, will promote their ‘multicultural’ workforce as a selling point, a signifier that a staid company isn’t quite as conservative or behind-the-times as you thought. Besides, when there are clear cases of racial or sexual discrimination, there is already existing legislation in place to deal with it. So apart from introducing even more bureaucratic red tape for private companies, what will these proposals actually achieve?

First of all, the ‘affirmative action’ proposals are less about tackling racial discrimination per se than they are a mechanism to bring the private sector within government control. This doesn’t mean a return to state-owned or state-run industries as such; rather the interference will attempt to bring public sector etiquette and codes of conduct into the private sector. As pointed out previously on spiked, the atomised character of British society compels the political class to use bureaucratic mechanisms to compensate for the weakening of social ties and social institutions. In the past, the existence of active trade unions provided mediating links between Whitehall and the world of work. Now, at a time when even union officials don’t have much connection with workplaces, the political class feels its sense of isolation even more acutely – especially in relation to the private sector.

In this context, official ‘anti-racism’ and ‘diversity’ quotas provide the political justification for strong-armed points of connection at every level in British society. As racism is now the equivalent of original sin, no individual, no institution and certainly no private company can afford to be tarred with the racist brush. In an insightful episode of The Office, employees who wanted to put David Brent on the back foot implied he was racist due to the lack of black and Asian faces at Wernham Hogg. In the real world, it seems the government wants to do the same with private companies. So while hardboiled businesspeople may publicly baulk at the government’s race quotas, the pressures to conform will undoubtedly give way.

Even without the contemporary use of ‘affirmative action’, such measures have always been bad news – particularly for racial minorities. During anti-racist struggles in Britain in the Seventies and Eighties, it was equality rather than ‘special treatment’ that campaigners fought for. To accept notions of ‘positive discrimination’ was to accept that blacks and Asians didn’t really have the aptitude to hold down skilled jobs and thus needed the patronage of white do-gooders. In America, no matter how many black lawyers and doctors could be recruited, such policies only reinforced ideas of innate superiority and inferiority through the backdoor. The American comedian Larry David played on this duality in Curb Your Enthusiasm, when he jested that he didn’t trust a black doctor’s opinion because of ‘the whole affirmative action thing’. David was making a joke, but the serious point was that affirmative action enforces rather than overcomes notions of unequal racial abilities.

In today’s climate, though, it’s a different matter. While there is no longer an old racial hierarchy to maintain, the promotion of affirmative action will inevitably exacerbate all kinds of tensions and divisions in British society. It will arouse suspicions that black and Asian workers are only employed to ‘keep the quotas up’, while any such mutterings will be used by officials as examples of ‘racism in Britain’s workforce’, and thus used to justify even more diversity-training days. So while affirmative action creates new divisions and nurtures new grievances, it also invites officialdom to act as benign referees between the potentially warring factions.

Affirmative action is problematic on a bigger scale, too. It systematically attacks a key tenet of modernity: universalism. Whereas in tradition-based societies individuals were judged on particularistic criteria, such as family background and family networks, the expansion of a social division of labour meant that only a universal standard could effectively allocate employment roles and positions. For the French sociologist Emile Durkheim, such a meritocratic system was a sign of modernity’s historically progressive character. Of course, the maintenance of class privilege and racial discrimination called into question such claims of equality and meritocracy. Nevertheless the solution was always to argue for consistent universal treatment - for equality, not difference.

Forcing private contractors to monitor ethnic quotas will be an affront to meritocracy, universalism and, above all, genuine equality. Far from affirmative action being one of those ‘well-meaning but misguided’ attempts at racial integration, in this instance it will not only fuel tensions and foster divisions, but also legitimise even more official control of workplaces every inch of the way.

Neil Davenport is a writer and lecturer based in London.

(1) ‘Companies face diversity tests for government contracts’, Guardian, 7 August 2006

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/1438/

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian




How can that be? I wonder if there are millions here in the US... never occurred to me.

-Arrian

Ever been to east baltimore?

Empty and abandoned doesnt mean habitable, of course. A house can reach the point where bringing it up to code can cost too much to be justified by any conceivable rent. back taxes can complicate things.
Back in the 70s to get the inner harbor area going, the City handed out abandoned house to urban pioneers, for one dollar and a promise to bring the house up to code with a set time limit. Worked pretty well, but that was in select areas near the water.

I knew a couple in Baltimore who made a business (this was in the late "80s) of buying slum houses for a few thousand dollas, rehabbing them, and then selling them for 30 or 40 grand. They made a living, but they were very careful in checking the physical charecteristics of the property, and making sure it was in an area where they could get say 40 grand for it. The numbers didnt work everywhere, IIRC.

I doubt youve got many example in Conn - ive been in downtown New Haven, and drove in the worser neighborhoods (wrong turn) and didnt see anything like that. Maybe Bridgeport, but given the economics there maybe not. I dont even know if the Bronx still has any large number of abandoned residences. You might have to go as far away as Philly to see some in urban settings.

You also see rural ones occasionally as well.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian




How can that be? I wonder if there are millions here in the US... never occurred to me.

-Arrian

"Waterbury starts clearing abandoned homes

(Waterbury-WTNH, Dec. 10, 2003 6:00 PM) _ Since the arrest of former Waterbury mayor Philip Giordano efforts to tear down dangerous buildings in the Brass City have been 'on hold'.

Now, more than two years later the plans are back on and contractors are getting back to business.

by News Channel 8's Erin Cox

It's hard to live next to a house like this. Parents tell their kids not to go in there.

There are dozens of abandoned houses in Waterbury with broken windows and open doors.

"Kids like to play in there. One day something could happen a kid could stuck in there. Ya know it's dangerous."

The city is demolishing this house and eight others including one on Baldwin Street known to attract drug addicts.

Waterbury's effort to tear down nuisance properties was put on hold in 2001 when then Mayor Philip Giordano was arrested as part of an FBI corruption probe.

He was later convicted on child sex charges but the way Giordano awarded contracts is still under a cloud of suspicion.

Waterbury has since re-designed the bidding process -and just now is getting back to the business of demolition.

Most of the houses on the demolition list are owned by absentee landlords who had to approve tearing down the properties and most of the older houses are loaded with asbestos."

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
There probably is. It's particularly rife in inner-cities, and more despressed semi-rural areas. People just walk away from them.

For about 10 grand, you can repair the roof, inject a chemical damp-proof course, strip out and replace the old wiring, treat the joists for wood-boring insects. Then you're left with a property that just needs cosmetic renovation. And yet they just sit there and rot.

IIUC, here in the states, many abandoned houses need far more than that. Many cities have programs to deal with abandoned houses (which the cities typically end up owning, when the owners default on property taxes). Its not particularly an easy problem to solve.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
This article argues that forcing private contractors to monitor ethnic quotas will be an affront to meritocracy, universalism and, above all, genuine equality.

Interesting stance. The writer appears to be under the impression that these companies have some sort of right to be awarded multi-million pound state contracts without the customer calling the shots.

[Kuciwalker]

Or maybe he's just advocating that the customer actually buy the best product?

And that the government not act in ways that end up spreading racism.

[Arrian]

It would appear that my.... sheltered... life experience has been displayed in this thread.

Thanks for the info, LotM (and Laz).

-Arrian

[Kuciwalker]

And laz, what if the customer called the shots as "if you employ darkies, no business"?