Racial Preferences for Britain?

[Gibsie]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Unless the idea is inherently flawed, which I contend it is. Reverse discrimination inevitably results in resentment of the benefitted minority and thus racism. I've witnessed it happen and it's not pretty. And quotas inevitably result in people being pressured to hire some darkies, regardless of qualifications, because otherwise the company loses its largest customer and goes out of business.

What was the point of saying, "It hasn't worked in the US" in the first place? If your original thought was that it is inherently flawed and doomed to fail, just say that instead of pointing to the US, where things do go wrong that might not go wrong where tried elsewhere...

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
A better question would be 'Who thinks they should lose their job to someone less qualified and able than they?'.

Anyone who's lost out on a position due to the old school tie system, or Masonic links, or the Old Boy's network, or any of the other unofficial systems that have been in place since time immemorial to maintain the status quo.


The idea that even modern businesses always or mostly seek out the 'best' applicants is nice and idealistic; however it ignores the effects of what having been to the 'right' school, the right college, the right club and what belonging to the right out of hours grouping can have on your future employment prospects.

Sometimes it ain't what you know, but who you know that counts.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
And what might those be?

See OP.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Gibsie
What was the point of saying, "It hasn't worked in the US" in the first place? If your original thought was that it is inherently flawed and doomed to fail, just say that instead of pointing to the US, where things do go wrong that might not go wrong where tried elsewhere...

You can demonstrate that an idea is flawed by pointing to real-life examples of it not working.

[Gibsie]

You keep switching between the two arguments, and then whenever one is countered or questioned, you switch back to the other. You're making me dizzy!

Thanks for making me look back at this thread though, the following quote amuses me greatly:

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Similarly, Paris has always been noted as treating African Americans much better than America did, which somehow hasnt kept the cites quiet. Perhaps because there arent any african americans in the cites.

Now there's one of the most superest tautologies I've ever had the pleasure of reading. In European countries we don't tend to have that many African-Americans, on account of the fact that we're in EUROPE, not AMERICA. We do have quiet a few black people though!

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


See OP.

Congratulations. Rather than advancing the discussion, you've just turned back to the beginning. Well done

It also means that what you refer to as "all our problems with darkies" amounts to the government reserving the right to exercise consumer choice on ethical grounds, and some vague squeaking from a pressure group nobody pays much attention to. If this is the sum total of our problems, we're doing really well.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by molly bloom
Anyone who's lost out on a position due to the old school tie system, or Masonic links, or the Old Boy's network, or any of the other unofficial systems that have been in place since time immemorial to maintain the status quo.

Like the Nepotism instances discussed above, what you describe is and has always been an injustice, but adding, institutionalising and legalising further injustices is not progressive IMO.

Getting a job just because of your background is wrong, whether that background is a traditionally priviledged class, or a specific ethnicity.

Interestingly, there is one demographic that it's socially acceptable to spit on these days - and its the white working class, who even have a special socially-approved pejorative ('Chav') that everyone is allowed to insult them with.

In the light of the evident prejudice experienced by this demographic, should white working class people be given special employment priviledges?

The idea that even modern businesses always or mostly seek out the 'best' applicants is nice and idealistic; however it ignores the effects of what having been to the 'right' school, the right college, the right club and what belonging to the right out of hours grouping can have on your future employment prospects.

I've worked as a techie in a a major retail outfit - a sales-lead organisation where only salesmen ever get promoted, and the entire management structure came from their sales staff. Techies had as good a prospects as the warehousemen (and shared a canteen with them), so I know all about this.

Sometimes it ain't what you know, but who you know that counts.

Of course, and you're preaching to the choir on that point. Having spent nearly twenty years playing in good bands (ask the hundreds of sound engineers I've worked with) but without the connections, watching good bands without connections, and watching rubbish bands with the connections get given careers that they don't know what to do with, I know this only too well.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Interestingly, there is one demographic that it's socially acceptable to spit on these days - and its the white working class, who even have a special socially-approved pejorative ('Chav') that everyone is allowed to insult them with.

In the light of the evident prejudice experienced by this demographic, should white working class people be given special employment priviledges?

You will notice that one of the most outspoken supports of the decisions discussed in the OP (Laz) is also an outspoken opponent of the chav-bashers

And another advocate of the government's decision (me) states that social problems are generally more hampering than racial problems. As a result, I'm all for empowering the working class, darkie or white (but I say that the darkies have even a harder time, and specific problems related to race to contend with)

[Kontiki]

I was under the impression that "Chav" did not encompass even a large fraction of white working class people in England, and that the lifestyle that gets you labelled as such was voluntary. Perhaps I'm wrong, though, in which case I weep for Britain.

[Cort Haus]

In the old days, Spiff, you'd have argued for the working class to liberate themselves, rather than waiting for governments to give them a leg up. How the left has lowered its sights.

The contemporary trend for identity-politics (rather than the historical leftist position of universalism) is not progressive, imo. Constantly telling ethnic groups that they are victims and awarding special priviledge ultimately entrenches divisions, fosters grievances, and fragments society, however well-intentioned the social engineering was.

Leftist internationalism used to be about workers of different nationalities finding what they had in common, rather than what set them apart. From a Marxist perspective, they have something huge in common, which is their position in the labour market relative to Capital. Some chance of finding common cause when they are being encouraged to present themselves as 'elite victims' worthy of the status and priviledge that official victimhood can bring these days.

Making groups 'designated victims' does little to bring people together, but it does encourage calls for things like Sharia law. As Mick Hume, Libertarian Marxist, explains in the Times, in connection with the latest terror scare :

ONCE UPON A time, I went to bed in our dull outer London suburb and woke up to find myself on “the frontline of the War on Terror”. One week after those arrests of British-born Muslims, here is the shock news from Walthamstow. There is no noticeably increased tension on the streets, no Islamophobic pogroms are in progress, and Muslim riots have not broken out.

Despite the headlines in London’s evening paper, I do not live in an outpost of Pakistan known as “Walthamstan”. The 2001 Census records some 33,000 Muslims in the borough of Waltham Forest — around 15 per cent of the population, mostly British-born of Pakistani origin. They are a growing minority and hardly a downtrodden one — Pakistanis are prominent among local professions and businesses, and include both our Liberal Democrat mayor and his Labour deputy.

Nobody in Walthamstow is “at war” with the Muslim community. But there is something odd in E17. We tend to live parallel lives. Our children are friendly with Muslim classmates, but rarely best friends. We are happy to be neighbours, but not particularly neighbourly to each other.

And whatever the truth of the current allegations against the suspects, there is undoubtedly an antagonistic attitude towards British society among some Muslims, particularly the younger generation. They are thoroughly Westernised, yet anti-Western. As one Islamic group said this week, “some of the grievances that [the London bombers] claim was their motivation are the grievances that many Muslims feel”.

Of course those few who plot to plant bombs are responsible for their own actions — don’t try to blame Tony Blair or Abu Hamza. But what shapes this wider grievance-obsessed attitude? Some blame British or US foreign policy. Others claim it is all about Islam. But that cannot explain why young people appear more zealous than parents who came from traditional Muslim countries.

I think the big factor comes from closer to home — the multicultural identity politics that is institutionalised in Britain from the top down. The distinctive identity promoted by multiculturalism is that of the victim. Each identity group vies to win prestige and grants by parading its sufferings. Thus Muslim community leaders elevate any perceived slight into evidence of a wave of Islamophobia, and depict foreign policy as proof of persecution.

This sort of victim identity feeds the emotions of pity and outrage rather than any political understanding. And it can lead some to lash out like sullen adolescents.

The authorities have tried hard to deal with Muslim concerns, from the Government’s Preventing Extremism Together working groups to our local council’s Community Cohesion Task Force. After the London bombings the Met sent the deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick to the local mosque to reassure imams that he had “told the media that Islam and terrorism are two words that do not go together”. The council and police have encouraged more reporting of “faith-hate crimes”.

The irony is that all of this can only encourage more grievance-mongering, by reinforcing the notion that the Muslim community has a growing list of legitimate gripes. There is no satisfying a self-styled victim’s appetite for redress. Thus one Muslim leader this week told Ruth Kelly, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, to introduce Islamic law to cover family matters, for Muslims only.

There seem to be two views on how to deal with “the Muslim problem”: either we should feel their pain, or feel their collars. Instead, we should stop obsessing about Muslims. They are neither the big problem facing Britain, nor the solution. We would be better off sorting out what sort of society we want to live in together that others might aspire to integrate into. Strong universal liberties and values are the best antidote to divisive victim identities. And let us try to get terrorism in perspective. Islamic terrorism is real, whatever Mr Paddick may say. But the notion that it is a mortal threat to our society is a product of our insecure imaginations.

The “War on Terror” may be raging in “Walthamstan”. Back in dull old Walthamstow, multiethnic London life goes on.

[Spiffor]

Cort Haus, I'm no ideologue. While I want a system which actually empowers the workers, I'm not the kind who opposes any decision within the current capitalistic frame. If it can lead to a better daily life, then why not.

It certainly won't count against my aim of reaching an emancipative society.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Kontiki
I was under the impression that "Chav" did not encompass even a large fraction of white working class people in England, and that the lifestyle that gets you labelled as such was voluntary. Perhaps I'm wrong, though, in which case I weep for Britain.

Depends.

A lot if not most of the 'chavs' round my way are from middle class backgrounds and tend to be between their mid teens and early twenties. The lack of 'working class' population or jobs near where I live also tends to suggest to me that they grow out of their chav persona and end up doing the many local office and service based industries, or the fairly well paid higher skill manufacturing that does still exist, when they want to leave home.

Whether this can be said of the more traditionally working class areas of the country is another matter.

[RGBVideo]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
But the argument against AA has two components: it's ridiculously inefficient and it's largely ineffective or even counterproductive.

Yeah, and let's not forget that it's also racist in the actual meaning of the word: it's racial discrimination on the group defined as "caucasians". Fighting presumed racism with pre-emptive government-funded counter-racism

Racism is wrong so AA is wrong. It's really that simple.

Racism <==> "Affirmative Action"

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Spiffor

You will notice that one of the most outspoken supports of the decisions discussed in the OP (Laz) is also an outspoken opponent of the chav-bashers

Absolutely. Chav-bashing is just the latest example of prole-fear, and ridiculing any movement that largely encompasses what's perceived to be "the great unwashed".