Police equality?

---

"African Americans are taken from their home country and then economically raped"First of all, I think anybody with half a wit knows that what was done to the ancestors of modern day African Americans was one of the greatest blights in the history of humanity, and you don’t have to be American to know it either."If something was to happen like that nowadays there would be HELL to pay"I don’t think that statement reflects much global consciousness on your part. There is great genocide, war and economic enslavement raging all over the world as we type; it seems you hadn’t noticed. Have you forgotten about Rwanda? The enslavement of African Americans was economic exploitation in probably the most overt form the world has ever seen, but that does not mean to say it does not continue, right now, in a variety of other forms. What about the Nicaraguan children of five and six years old who spend all day, every day, humping lumps of granite in quarries for a few cents a day? Or the Bangladeshi children who expend similar energy sewing together Nike trainers which are so greedily consumed by the markets of the Western world? Are they not suffering economic enslavement?"I'm sorry, but don't you think you should fix the damage which your ancestors caused?"Certainly I'd agree that many economic and educational concessions should be made to right the wrongs minorities in America must live with as a legacy of the iniquities of the past, I just don’t think opening up direct employment avenues to people on the basis of race or gender is the way to go about it, as it is discriminatory in a manner which can only fan the flames of racism, the very evil it purports to dispel. I think a far better route to righting these wrongs is to make educational opportunities more widely available amongst minority groups, so that people are educated to a degree where they can be successful in sourcing employment on their merits, which should have no basis in race or gender."Maybe instead you could make a deal. How about you wipe 40% of your parents income and start life over again. You can grow up in the household struggling to get by. Or instead, if you don't want to grow up like the average black person, then keep your 40% and work just a little bit harder, you'll get into the school/police/whatever anyway"This statement serves to demonstrate that you assume anybody who has an issue with this 'affirmative action' to be middle or upper-middle class. That would probably be insulting if it wasn’t so clearly presumptuous. You are simply wrong to assume that. I am from a fairly impoverished working class background and certainly wouldn’t be comfortable with my socio-economic background being taken into account in a job interview situation.The term affirmative action isn’t one that we use here, but now that I know what you are all talking about I can tell you the same system has recently been put in place in Northern Ireland and it is, unsurprising, causing big problems there. The PSNI (police service of northern Ireland) has been given directions to make joining its ranks more accessible for Catholics. (Formerly a crazy disparity existed, something like 98% majority of officers were protestant) The PSNI has started to lower the bar of what is required for a person to join (as long as that person is Catholic, the former rules apply for Protestants) Protestants are quite predictably aggrieved about this, and why shouldn’t they be? I’m a Nationalist, and for those who don’t know what that means in the Irish context, it means that I am diametrically ideologically opposed to Unionism, the political stance of most northern Protestants; but I can totally understand where they are coming from here. Yes the force needs more Catholics, but this requirement, in my opinion, should be met with the provision of training facilities directed at Catholics so that they can take a place in the PSNI which is earned, not gifted. All the fools who are in a policy making position here are doing is managing to aggravate the tensions that have existed between these two groups for so long.

LOL...what an attitude!Anytime you take somebody less capable and accept them in place of somebody more capable, you have taken one step further in decreasing the overall condition of the human race. Instead of the best health care (in the case of doctors), you get something less...all other things being equal. Less than the best effort, product, interest, attitude...whatever you want to measure, less than the best possible creates a downword trend.If you accept that two wrongs don't make a right, then you must see affirmative action for what it is: Discrimination on the basis of race, creed or color. The government has quotas with regards to this to keep stupid special-interest groups of their back. My ancestors weren't even in the country when all the slavery and ripping people from their homes was going on. Why should I, being a white male (the most expendable group), be expected to pay for it? My ancestors had nothing to do with it...much less me.I'm not whining...I'm doing just fine regardless of all this. I'd just like to hear how some people who buy into affirmative action explain this away.

"Your gender doesn't fast track you anywhere. Affirmative action gives them the opprotunity to take your race/gender into account in hiring you"I'm sorry sexpot, but that statement is oxymoronic in nature. If race and gender are taken into account under affirmative action then of course being the 'right' colour or gender is a bonus for the potential employee it extends to, and for that reason is certain to fast-track their route to employment in that particular job. Isn’t that the very function of affirmative action?In the Republic of Ireland it is actually illegal to take factors such as these into account when employing people. Equal opportunities employment is actually enshrined in Irish law, and it is a good thing that it is, otherwise we'd be facing the sort of fiascos now seen in northern Ireland that I earlier described.

"So why can't men start at the same point as women? I doubt that the average 5'2" man is any weaker than the average 5'2" woman"I hadn’t spotted that post Steve, so am only responding to it now. If the above is true than you'd also have to assume that a 6ft man was no stronger than a 6ft woman. I think it's pretty well accepted that pound for pound and inch for inch, men are generally physically stronger than women. If I had to choose which to get into a physical confrontation with, a 5.2 woman or a 5.2 man, there wouldn’t be much debating to do!

I don't know, I am 5'2 and I can definately hold my own in a fight.

Hey I'm not going to start on you so honey ha ha, you'd probably kick my 5.7 arse!

oh no... you've wrestled me to the ground... again

In reply to: Possum, have you ever smoked weed? Done other street drugs?Here in San Diego, even though we are in desperate need of more cops, the testing ritual and requirements to get in are so far above what us "normal" people would think acceptable, it's pretty much out-of-the-question to even think of trying to join - which is a good thing in a way I supose, as the other's have mentioned.I think that piercings are not acceptable, and know that tatoos have to be fully covered - at least in this city. Yeah I tried drugs a long time ago, I dont wish to ever do them again though so thats not much of a problem for me. The only drug I use is alcohol which is luckly legal.Dont remember who said this:"I'm sorry, but don't you think you should fix the damage which your ancestors caused?" That is the biggest pile of shit I have have ever heared. Everyone who was involved in the "damage which your ancestors caused?" is dead. Theyre gone, its too late to amend it. Its not even logical giving to money because somone if their blood line was persecuted at some point in the past. Im sure at some point my ancestors were persecuted for somthing, maybe I should do a bunch or research and go ask the persecutors great great great great great grandon for some reperations.You wanna make ammends? Make a fucking time machine. I am so sick of hearing this reperations shit, its just a way to get "free money" because somones ancestors who they never even met got persecuted in some way. Complete and utter bollocks, I bet if those ancestors could see the people asking for reporations they would shit in their face for being such a little bitch after they worked their asses off to get by.

SteveA> So why can't men start at the same point as women? I doubt that the average 5'2" man is any weaker than the average 5'2" womanStarfish> If the above is true than you'd also have to assume that a 6ft man was no stronger than a 6ft woman.I'm saying that a man of some height is at least as strong as a woman of that height.Starfish> I think it's pretty well accepted that pound for pound and inch for inch, men are generally physically stronger than women.Yes, that is what I'm saying, that if you want to put things on an even footing with respect to physical strength (i.e., policing ability), then you'd want to have a higher minimum height requirement for women, rather than for men. A lower height requirement for women implies affirmative action.Of course, that begs the idea that a test of physical strength would be more meaningful than a height requirement, if physical strength is the underlying criterion.

In reply to: If race and gender are taken into account under affirmative action then of course being the 'right' colour or gender is a bonus for the potential employee it extends to, and for that reason is certain to fast-track their route to employment in that particular job. Isn’t that the very function of affirmative action? Not necessarily. Let me explain.I am in a job that has very few minorities, and I am not certain if I was hired as a result of affirmative action or not, but it really doesn't matter, since I am qualified to do the job. There is a minimum standard required for any job, and as we used to say in college, "If the minimum wasn't good enough, it wouldn't be the minimum." If you qualify, then you qualify. Saying that you are MORE qualified isn't really relevant in the grand scheme of things since there is always someone MORE qualified. For instance, if you are hired and then your employer finds a more qualified person the next day, should you be fired to make room for them? Of course not, because you met or exceeded the required standard when you were hired. In the specific case of police, diversity after qualifications are met makes sense to me, for the reasons that no1sexpot gave. We each bring something different to the job, and once the basic qualifications are met or exceeded those differences become more significant than the degree by which one person's qualifications are greater than another person who also qualifies. I am reminded of a rather bizarre article I saw regarding a lawsuit over police hiring a few years back. HERE is a link to one version of the story, but it is all over the 'net. Apparently, the police have hiring issues that are far more significant than diversity...

About discrimination...
> In reply to:
>
> ---
>
>
> Yes! Anyone one can tell you that ^.^. Once you experience it, youll see its bad! >
> ---
>
>
Not necessarily. Some types of discrimination are necessary, like being able to discriminate between red and green when you are driving. Racial and gender discrimination are real hotspots though. It's difficult to draw that line, because there is always someone who ends up on the wrong side of it. With gender the intangibles are more apparent, but they are there with race as well.
With a choice between two qualified applicants, do you choose the most qualified, or do you chose the one who is most likely to be an asset within the community? They aren't necessarily the same one...

"Of course, that begs the idea that a test of physical strength would be more meaningful than a height requirement, if physical strength is the underlying criterion"

Yes, that would make altogether more sense actually, since taking the guide from height obviously cannot always be accurate. I'm sure there are many exceptions to that 'rule'; a large physical stature doesn't always reflect greater physical strength, so no doubt there'll be big variants there.

This reminds me of a situation many years ago where I was being bullied by a girl a fair bit taller and heavier than me in a hostel I used to live in. I was intimidated by her size and held off getting into a physical confrontation for that reason. When I eventually snapped and beat the shit out of her I think I surprised myself more then her!

Hi Lanky, I'm glad you joined this discussion, it is rather rare around here to anticipate enjoying an oncoming debate!You said it wasn’t necessarily the case that a persons race or gender would certainly fast-track their work opportunities, but I don’t think that's really the point. I feel that, as far as taking race and gender into consideration in job allocations, it is unacceptable for any structure to be in place which would deem it a possibility, concrete certainly, or any other level of likelihood on the spectrum in between. I think that jobs should be allocated simply on the basis of who is best educated and/or experienced to perform those duties and that race and gender should never be considered. Why do I feel this way? Because I think that this bias does more harm than good. Yes it will promote ethnic diversity and a more balanced gender quota in certain workplaces, but at what cost? It is unjust in structure and being so, (and you can be sure, being perceived to be so) what will it do for race relations, or the age old battle of the sexes in modern America? It is constructed around a perceived positivity of preferential treatment and I honestly cannot see anything positive in that at all.Some people on here have expressed displeasure with university funding being made available to minority groups, I certainly don’t hold or condone that view. I think that the individuals of any group which has been marginalised deserve the full backing (financial and otherwise) of the government to educate themselves so that social mobility is possible and achievable and not simply the pipe dream that it unfortunately is for many. If this makes up any strand of the 'affirmative action' people are talking about here my problem is not with affirmative action as a whole, but simply one element of it; the element which deems it acceptable to take race and gender into consideration in the allocation of employment. If I have been mistaken on that point please excuse me, I am not familiar with the term.Sexpot asked "What threat does affirmative action pose to anyone?"It poses the threat of discrimination, which in some cases is a merely threat and in others is an assurance. How is that acceptable?Sexpot also made the following statement, which I will divide into two here in order to deal with its elements separately:"Also, I would like to point out how hipocritical the opponents of affirmative action are. We all say that we want to look past race, gender, etc. But, what affirmative action does it allow people to look at a person's race, gender, etc. in consideration for a job"Looking at a persons gender or race in consideration for a job is not looking past our differences, but rather looking directly at them and taking them into consideration when allocating employment. Again, how is that acceptable? "People don't get hired because of their race or gender; they get hired because of their ability to do the job. Employers may take race and gender into account, but it isn't the sole reason why someone is hired"I don’t imagine it is often the sole reason, but that is really besides the point. It shouldn’t be any part of the reason. You said; "Saying that you are MORE qualified isn't really relevant in the grand scheme of things since there is always someone MORE qualified. For instance, if you are hired and then your employer finds a more qualified person the next day, should you be fired to make room for them?"Well, when any employer is considering applicants for a job of course he deals with the applications that have been processed for that job, so naturally this is the pool of people he is dealing with and he (assuming it is a he!) has to make his decision on that basis. Qualifications and prior experience have always been the barometers of measurement that work for (or against, in the case of the lack of them) people when applying for a job. What affirmative action seems to have done is to have taken those measurements of competence and reduced their relevance in order to make room for a racial and gender based bias, and that is totally inappropriate in my opinion.What I find really disconcerting is that this practice is deemed fair and legal. It may be legal, but I can’t imagine anybody successfully arguing that it's fair. (Though I've no doubt you'll give it a good shot Lanky, ha ha!)By the way I read that article and it truly was bizarre!To make my final point (for the moment!), how would the people who are arguing for affirmative action on here feel if, on applying for a new job, they were told there were better qualified than the person who’d gotten it but that that person had been successful because they’d been the 'right' colour/gender? Would affirmative action feel as acceptable to you then? I would appreciate anybody responding with an argument for affirmative action to answer that question please, because I can tell you, if I lost out on a job on racial or gender grounds I would take myself straight from that job interview to my solicitors office and I'm pretty sure most people with any sense of justice would feel cheated enough to do the same.

Hello Starfish, and thanks for the welcome! In reply to: I feel that, as far as taking race and gender into consideration in job allocations, it is unacceptable for any structure to be in place which would deem it a possibility, concrete certainly, or any other level of likelihood on the spectrum in between. I think that jobs should be allocated simply on the basis of who is best educated and/or experienced to perform those duties and that race and gender should never be considered. I believe you are correct about what is fair here, and in a perfect world, this would be the case. Sadly, we don't live in a perfect world. Given that reality, how do we deal with these issues?When two applicants are both qualified for the job, who does the employer pick? The one who needs it the most? The one who, even though they are both qualified, might do a bit better? The one who is younger and will likely have a longer working career with the company? The one who is more experienced, but then might sooner expect more pay for that experience? The one who lives a healthier lifestyle and is likely to use less sick days? The one who is just more fun to be around and makes everyone in the office feel good when they are there?As you can see, there are a host of intangibles that can factor into an employer's decision on who to hire for a job, often things that cannot be tested for or clearly delineated on a job application. Now here is another one - should he or she choose the one who is most similar to and compatible with him/herself in gender, or in ethnic or racial background?This is simply another issue that rattles around in the mind of a prospective employer, and though you and I agree that it should not be an issue, the simple fact is that this isn't a perfect world, and these things get factored into such decisions every day. Sadly, racial and gender discrimination are a part of our world. That is why we need affirmative action - to prevent employers from using factors they shouldn't, even unconsciously. In reply to: Why do I feel this way? Because I think that this bias does more harm than good. Yes it will promote ethnic diversity and a more balanced gender quota in certain workplaces, but at what cost? We all do our cost/benefit analysis, and in mine this comes out better if we DO use affirmative action. I'm not for quotas as such, and I think a fair degree of flexibility is important, but by the same token we cannot permit unfair biases in either direction. In my experience there has never been a naturally occurring social bias in favor of a minority, and so minorities need protection from such biases. It's not perfect, but it's all we have. In reply to: Sexpot asked "What threat does affirmative action pose to anyone?"It poses the threat of discrimination, which in some cases is a merely threat and in others is an assurance. How is that acceptable? We have had reverse-discrimination cases in courts here, and it is certainly a valid issue. That is one of the reasons I am opposed to quotas. It is of critical importance that all prospective choices be fully qualified first to avoid to issue of unqualified individuals being chosen ahead of qualified ones. That is NOT what affirmative action is about. In reply to: It shouldn’t be any part of the reason (someone is hired). I agree, but how do you make sure that happens? Qualifications alone cannot make that decision, because for any job there is only one person who is best qualified but dozens of others who are qualified. If you cannot dump a lesser qualified person for a more qualified one after the fact, what is the reasoning behind saying that an employer must hire the most qualified applicant in the first place? Most qualified doesn't always translate to "best". In reply to: Qualifications and prior experience have always been the barometers of measurement that work for (or against, in the case of the lack of them) people when applying for a job. I disagree here. There is far more involved in choosing an employee than just these two factors. That case I gave a link to in my earlier post was an example of how complicated it gets, and the types of reasoning that frequently take place. Affirmative action keeps this reasoning out of area where it doesn't belong, but there remains a huge lattitude of areas to consider beyond qualifications and experience. In reply to: What I find really disconcerting is that this practice is deemed fair and legal. It may be legal, but I can’t imagine anybody successfully arguing that it's fair. (Though I've no doubt you'll give it a good shot Lanky, ha ha!) I'd have a hard time arguing that it's perfectly fair, true, but I don't think that is the issue. It's more fair than letting anti-minority biases run rampant, and that is what makes it the better choice. In reply to: how would the people who are arguing for affirmative action on here feel if, on applying for a new job, they were told there were better qualified than the person who’d gotten it but that that person had been successful because they’d been the 'right' colour/gender? Would affirmative action feel as acceptable to you then? I don't associate "better qualified" with "best person for the job", so this as stated wouldn't bother me. If I was told that I was the best choice, but I wasn't chosen, THAT would bother me. "Best person for the job" includes issues that qualifications cannot. How do you choose between a 23 year old genius straight out of MIT with a straight-A grade average who will work for $45K a year, and 33 year old candidate who graduated from a state school with a B average but who has a decade of experience in exactly the field you are looking for, who wants $60K a year? It's a hard decision no matter how you look at it, but affirmative action sees to it that the fact that the MIT grad is black or the experienced applicant is a woman doesn't enter the equation against them. Without it, sooner or later those factors would be deciding who got hired, or rather who DIDN'T get hired. I don't like it, but it's true. (edited parts in purple)

Good points all around. I just want to emphasize that the qualifications invlolves more than test scores (at least for a non-civil service) job. What if one applicant has a good scores and grades, but another applicant with lower scores was excited about the job, new all about the company and job, and was highly motivated? Would it be unfair if the second person got the job?Suppose you have an applicant who's qualifed, but who came from a priveleged background, and another applicant who came from a deprived background, got through school, but didn't have quite the scores of the first applicant? Which would you rather have in your company?The problem is that people oversimplify the idea of "qualifications". On the other hand, affirmative acion can be difficult to deal with when there are strict racial quotas. That, however, is not generally the case.

In reply to: I don’t think that statement reflects much global consciousness on your part. There is great genocide, war and economic enslavement raging all over the world as we type; it seems you hadn’t noticed. Have you forgotten about Rwanda? The enslavement of African Americans was economic exploitation in probably the most overt form the world has ever seen, but that does not mean to say it does not continue, right now, in a variety of other forms. What about the Nicaraguan children of five and six years old who spend all day, every day, humping lumps of granite in quarries for a few cents a day? Or the Bangladeshi children who expend similar energy sewing together Nike trainers which are so greedily consumed by the markets of the Western world? Are they not suffering economic enslavement? They are different situations. It's a fair point you make, but they are internal conflicts/poverty/enslavement situations. I was referring to a country coming in, transporting a large amount of people to be enslaved. If America/any western civilisation did that then there would be hell to pay. In reply to: Certainly I'd agree that many economic and educational concessions should be made to right the wrongs minorities in America must live with as a legacy of the iniquities of the past, I just don’t think opening up direct employment avenues to people on the basis of race or gender is the way to go about it, as it is discriminatory in a manner which can only fan the flames of racism, the very evil it purports to dispel. I think a far better route to righting these wrongs is to make educational opportunities more widely available amongst minority groups, so that people are educated to a degree where they can be successful in sourcing employment on their merits, which should have no basis in race or gender. I won't get into this now, but take a look at the other "racism" thread somewhere on the community board for my answer to this (or was it in this one, can't remember). In reply to: This statement serves to demonstrate that you assume anybody who has an issue with this 'affirmative action' to be middle or upper-middle class. That would probably be insulting if it wasn’t so clearly presumptuous. You are simply wrong to assume that. I am from a fairly impoverished working class background and certainly wouldn’t be comfortable with my socio-economic background being taken into account in a job interview situation. The thing is, African Americans are ~40%ish poorer than European Americans on AVERAGE. Granted there are white people just as poor as some black people, but statistics say that a white person is more likely to be better off financially than a black person.

"They are different situations"I know that there are differences in these situations, note the italicised section in my response:"The enslavement of African Americans was economic exploitation in probably the most overt form the world has ever seen, but that does not mean to say it does not continue, right now, in a variety of other forms "I don’t mean to be condescending here, but when you say: "they are internal conflicts/poverty/enslavement situations" I think you are being naive. Sometimes they are internal and sometimes they are deliberately fostered by Western foreign policy, often the reality is a mixture of both. The reality is it suits the West to have ridiculously inexpensive labour available around the world, and to hell with the suffering of the humanity that resides there. The citizens of these countries are trapped in their poverty, because it suits the West that they be so entrapped, as it massively swells the profit margins of the Western company conglomerates. This ugly face of capitalism is just a 21st century take on slavery. It is slavery with an 'acceptable' face."The thing is, African Americans are ~40%ish poorer than European Americans on AVERAGE. Granted there are white people just as poor as some black people, but statistics say that a white person is more likely to be better off financially than a black person"I don’t doubt that you are right here for a moment, in fact I know this to be true, and this poverty has big time reprecussions for those unfortunate enough to be snared in it and they are not only economic in nature. Something that has always pissed me off is listening to white Americans moan about the ratio of black people in prison in America and point to this as an indicator of some inherent evil in the African American character. That is ignorant bull and nonsense. The reason why so many racial minorities are imprisoned in America IS A CLASS ISSUE, not a racial one. If racial minorities didn’t make up such a huge proportion (through no fault or choice of their own) of the lower socio-economic groups they wouldn’t be so highly represented in prison, and this is where the confusion comes in; people see that racial minorities make up a large proportion of the inmates of the jails, and don’t stop to examine the issue any further. They would rather see that racial minorities are more highly represented in prison and take what they want to take out of that, while never bothering to look at the fact that these minority groups are almost all from the 'lower classes' (I hate that term) and that so in fact it is the 'lower classes' that are represented in prison, and race is actually incidental.The prisons in Dublin, Ireland, where I come from, are filled with young men from six working class areas of the city, and that is almost exclusive, something like 95% or higher. Now, if all the people living in those areas were, lets say Mexicans, wouldn’t it have to follow that our jails would be filled with Mexicans?Anyway I've gone on a rant here and gone somewhat off topic. It still stands that this is an international forum and while we are discussing issues mainly concerning North America you still issued that 'deal' as something to consider for anyone opposing affirmative action, with the clear assumption that anyone who opposed it naturally had to come from a background which could have afforded to lose 40% of their income. Well I can tell you, if we'd lost 40% of ours we'd have starved.My opposition towards affirmative action has no basis in a desire to hold any race or class down economically or any other way, my opposition here stems from a desire to do away with discrimination, regardless what direction it points in. I am simply not of the school of thought that says two wrongs makes a right or that you can fight discrimination with further/reverse discrimination. I have never seen evidence of that strategy working anywhere in the known world, and I doubt I ever will.

"When two applicants are both qualified for the job, who does the employer pick? The one who needs it the most? The one who, even though they are both qualified, might do a bit better? The one who is younger and will likely have a longer working career with the company? The one who is more experienced, but then might sooner expect more pay for that experience? The one who lives a healthier lifestyle and is likely to use less sick days? The one who is just more fun to be around and makes everyone in the office feel good when they are there?"Yes there are intangibles, but generally, in my opinion and experience, an employer will hire the person who is likely to be more productive in their post, as increased productivity will benefit the business and so reflect better on the employer who hired him/her. Now I do admit that the scenario presented in the link you posted throws something of a spanner in the works; perhaps those with a higher than 33% score in that test ought to claim protection for the higher intellectually minded under some new form of intelligence biased affirmative action?! lol.You say that “we cannot permit unfair biases in either direction”, I agree, and that is why I say that we cannot permit affirmative action to continue unchallenged.“affirmative action sees to it that the fact that the MIT grad is black or the experienced applicant is a woman doesn't enter the equation against them”From my understanding of what affirmative action does, (as I comprehend it, from how it has been described to me, and if I am wrong feel free to correct me and those who have described it to me on this thread), is to ensure something different; that if the MIT grad is black or the experienced applicant is a woman that it will enter the equation for them. This is my issue with affirmative action. Race and gender are two elements of who we are over which we have no control, accidents of birth of you like, and I really do not see why they should be taken into consideration for that reason. Of course, as you say, they are sometimes taken into consideration against people and this is every bit as wrong as taking them into consideration in their favour.In Ireland, which is now a vibrant multi-ethnic society, it is totally illegal, as I have already pointed out, to take factors such as these into consideration. In fact, Irish employers are left in no doubt that they face heavy economic penalties should they be found to take these factors into account. Now, don’t you think this is a better way to deal with this situation? Minority groups only make up about 20/25% of the people living here now, but they are very diverse, coming from all over the world and are to be found working in absolutely every area of the private and public sectors, from menial jobs to the highest paid consultants in our hospitals. We have more Pilipino nurses here than Irish, we have more Polish construction workers than Irish, we have more Chinese shopkeepers and restaurant workers than Irish, and many many African, Indian and Pakistani doctors, I could go on and on and on. In fact, work opportunities are what attracted most of these people here in the first place, sourcing employment in Ireland as a minority simply isn’t an issue. It isn’t an issue for two reasons; firstly, granted, we have a thriving economy and of course this is a bonus in ethnic diversity in the workplace, but it is also a non-issue because it isn’t tolerated as an issue , and I think that the Irish model of social policy in this area is one that any country which relies on affirmative action ought to take a look at.

In reply to: Yes there are intangibles, but generally, in my opinion and experience, an employer will hire the person who is likely to be more productive in their post, as increased productivity will benefit the business and so reflect better on the employer who hired him/her. True. The problem is deciding which one this is, and it cannot be done on qualifications and test scores and experience alone or it would be possible to simply input these factors into a formula which would choose who got hired completely sight unseen. You would simply send in your data and a letter from a computer would come back saying you were hired or not. That would indeed be a level playing field, and affirmative action wouldn't be needed in this case. It would be great, but I have never heard of a situation where hiring was determined without meeting the applicants. In reply to: You say that “we cannot permit unfair biases in either direction”, I agree, and that is why I say that we cannot permit affirmative action to continue unchallenged. It's pretty much undeniable that unfair biases exist, but the purpose of affirmative action is to counter them. As long as it is possible to tell at first contact that someone is of a different ethnicity or gender or age, those characteristics will have some influence on the decisions of a significant percentage of employers. If you agree that we cannot permit such unfair biases, how do you suggest we stop them? I'm not a big fan of affirmative action, so if you have a better idea I'm listening. In reply to: From my understanding of what affirmative action does, (as I comprehend it, from how it has been described to me, and if I am wrong feel free to correct me and those who have described it to me on this thread), is to ensure something different; that if the MIT grad is black or the experienced applicant is a woman that it will enter the equation for them. Only to the extent that it would otherwise enter the equation against them. At least that's the intent, to level the playing field. Like everything else the application rarely measures up to the plan, but something had to be done because discrimination was keeping women and minorities out of jobs they were qualified for. In reply to: In Ireland, which is now a vibrant multi-ethnic society, it is totally illegal, as I have already pointed out, to take factors such as these into consideration. In fact, Irish employers are left in no doubt that they face heavy economic penalties should they be found to take these factors into account. This makes me curious. How would an employer be found out if they did this there? Affirmative action isn't about hiring unqualified or less qualified people, it's about seeing to it that minorities don't get eliminated by biases, about detecting and catching those who do exactly what is forbidden both there and here. I'm a bit tired and tipsy since I had a couple drinks with a late dinner this evening, so I hope I've expressed myself clearly here.

"I'm a bit tired and tipsy since I had a couple drinks with a late dinner this evening, so I hope I've expressed myself clearly here"You have indeed Lanky; I am a bit tired and hungover reading this this morning, so I will return to it's points this evening when my own head has cleared, ha ha.