Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Discrimination in the Heartland
I personally have not witnessed an overabundance of discrimination towards minorities. In the small town that I grew up in there was very few people who were not white. Finally once I was in High school we had three people that were not white if you did not include the foreign exchange students and these kids were not treated any differently as far as I could tell. However in my work place I have witness reverse discrimination on a daily basis. The company I work for has taken so much flack over the years because of their employees being white and the image that they portray in their marketing as being white based. Because of law suits and the company wanting to conform with the politically correct image of the twenty first century they force us to hire a certain percentage of minorities qualified or not. When the executives analyze our hiring information and we haven't hired 20% (as an example) of the minorities that we've interviewed then we get into trouble. I have heard my managers say that we are overstaffed and can not hire any more white people but if someone of a different ethnicity were to apply they would be hired. Yes, I believe that prejudice does still occur in this country but being unfair in the work place isn't the way to fix it. People should be receiving employment because of their credentials and not because of their heritage. Discrimination is occurring but so is reverse discrimination which is an issue that I believe needs to be made aware to the general public and law makers to ensure that we are all treated as equals in the future no matter what our skin color may be.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Affirmative action and equal opportunity in the workplace were and are necessary, however, I believe that some of what they were intended to do is antiquated. Everyone should have the same chance at a job and that is what the laws were put into place to do. In the modern workforce we don't see as much racial discrimination in the hirings that occure. So now that these laws are still in place we are stuck wiht hiring a certain minority quota. It doesn't make much sense to me to have these requirments any more. I am glad that they were instituted in the 60's, but now we have moved away from that level of discrimination.
ReplyDeleteI think one major issue with job applications is the fact that they still have race/ethnicity on the application forms! If we are trying to make equal opportunites and break down barriers, why are we still forced to identify what our ethnicity is if it's not supposed to matter? Even though the way things are now are beneficial for me when applying for a job or a slot in a university (as a female with some African-American heritage who wants to study art history, I'm considered "rare"), I don't want to be judged by what box I check on some form. I would rather be considered for what I say, write, or how I perform in school or on the job. That way, I know that I am getting what I deserve just as much as the person standing next to me.
ReplyDeleteIt bothers me that affirmative action bothers people. It doesn't make sense to me that white people find affirmative action racist. Is it really a big deal if a company is expected to hire 10% (for the sake of argument) minorities? That still means that 90 out of every 100 people hired are white (in theory). Still seems to be giving whites much more of an advantage, especially when there are still many racist employers who refuse to hire minorities. I personally witnessed a store manager shred applications filled out by anyone who wasn't white. He hired one black man, so he could say he wasn't discriminating. This was in the last ten years. The fact is that there are still a lot of racist people in positions of power who prevent people of color from getting jobs based on their racist ideologies. Affirmative Action is meant to combat this.
ReplyDeleteOf course, my opinions are just that, my opinions. Many people of all ethnicities argue both sides of the issue. Personally, I would not want to be hired just because I was a woman and a company had too many male employees. I would hope that I would be hired because I was qualified for the job. The problem is many employers will hire a man over a woman even if she is more qualified. Between 60-70% of employees at many large companies are male. That seems odd to me when 60% of the population is female.
On a side note, can discrimination ever be "reverse?" Isn't discrimination just discrimination?
ReplyDelete