Quote:
Originally Posted by chezlaw
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I don't have your fear that people are going to systemically lie about their ethnicity. I explained some appraoches, not sure which bit you don't understand. If, say, African Americans are underrepresented in senior roles in the public sector then from the shortlist of those suitable for the job, there would be positive discrimination in their favour. Ethnicity data would be published to put pressure on private companies (and the public sector when it comes down to it). I'm not dogmatic about the methods, there may be other or better approaches.
You may not agree it's a good idea but I'm struggling to see which part of it is complicated to understand.
This is exactly backwards thinking. Everyone gets hurt in this situation except for the African American persons bank account. If you put a person who shouldn't be in a position in that position the company and the person are at risk. I'd like to think I'm pretty good at my job. Do you? Now, do you think you should be thrust into a higher role if it's unwarranted? Do you think you'd thrive in an environment if you weren't prepared for it?
Let's use another example. I'd like to think I'm pretty smart, but I can't make it to a top 10 school. I could do fine in a tier 3 college, or maybe even a tier 2 college, but if you put me in Harvard or Princeton I'm dead.
Do you think it's advantageous for me to be unfairly placed into Harvard? Do you think I'd thrive there? There are many perfectly fine colleges I'd do well at, and some I might even exceed at, developing my skill set and knowledge. I'd be a lost soul at a top university. I say that being one of the most egotistical bastards here.
Your line of thinking is backwards. You aren't looking at the situations for what they are, you are looking at it from a perspective of feelings. Your line of thought is "Well, a black person was helped, so it can't be that bad". It's absurd.
On top of that, you have situations where when your sole purpose is to increase "diversity" you wind up getting a minority from the same socio-economic group as the rich white kid. You're getting a minority kid who's dad is a doctor who grew up in the same neighborhood as the white kid who's dad is a doctor.
You really need to rethink these things. You want to put everyone in these categories and change things so you feel better about outcomes. That's an awful, unfair, and frankly immoral way of thinking.