greenoaks wrote:borox0 wrote:What they are doing is flawed however having a team in sports that could be better is far preferable to having extreme racism. Even though it is a racially selected side they are still very good, their rugby team won the world cup last year.
if it is allowed to continue it will become the culture. extreme racism will only be a short step away.
Sorry, been there done that and the sky did NOT fall.
I am not black, but I am a woman who worked for years doing natural resource work for the US Forest Service. Though women were officially integrated years previous, the reality was that it took court action by a couple of brave women in the 1980's to force the issue. Without getting into all the nitty details, the court issued a "consent decree" ... which essentially stated that a qualified woman had to be considered and often hired for each position.
The result was a classic study. Many bosses went out and grabbed the first woman they could find -- the more incompetant, it seemed, the "better". Then stood back, pointed fingers and said "I told you so". Others went out and used it to hire the BEST individuals they could. I admit, I got in by accident of being in the right place at the right time -- and fit neither extreme.
What we had to DEAL with is also a classic. Either we were "too feminine" and unable to "carry our weight" OR we were fully able and "obviously" gay. (strangely that conclusion often followed turn-downs for dates or a male getting chastised for not holding HIS own).
AND they had "plenty of justificaion". Unlike skin color, you can point your finger at anyone and claim they are homosexual (though, come to think of it, there are accusasions of "passing" in the color forum, just fewer can do so). For me, it got bad enough that I almost lost a job JUST because enough idiots believed the accusations. It is impossible to disprove it... have a boyfriend .. your are "bi" or "faking"...etc. And there were even a few TRULY homosexual women to further "justify" their opinions (and a few heterosexual "sluts" ... and a good many of us who just wanted a decent job a bit more interesting than nursing or being a secretary).
It was tough. Ask any woman over 40 who worked in the field at this time and you will likely hear similar stories.
Was the effort fully successful? In biology, yes. In forestry, you have to add in the whole mess of change in timber. The forest service, in general, stopped hiring folks. Women have gradually penetrated, probably "first" in fire fighting/timber, but more and more in the forestry fields. There are plenty who blame spotted owls, fish .. women get mentioned, but generally only as a sub note. Is it perfect? Of course not, but the sky did not fall .... and to the extent that it did, it had little to do with the integration of women.
Now, understand, I FULLY recognize that there is a huge difference between homosexuality and race. There is even a pretty big difference in the male/female issue. Men and women ARE different. BUT the similarity is in how it all occured. And, that the world as we know it did not fall because women joined in all facets of the workforce a few years back. Changed, but did not fall. And, if THAT change can happen, so, too can race integratioin, given a chance.
Will all prejudice disappear? Of course not. But, in the US right now, I would suggest that you are more discriminated against for being fat, for being poor, for being ugly (NOT the same), for not having the most wonderful social skills, etc. than for being a person of ANY color.
I said it before, but it bears repeating.
NO ONE controls who YOU are. You can react ... and thereby let the world dictate how you act. OR you can go your own way, hold your head up, do your best, accept that there are plenty of idiots out there just hoping you will fail, even working very hard to ensure you do .....and work that much harder to prove them wrong.
Ironically, the race issue went more smoothly. The biggest issue there is that there really are fewer folks of color INTERESTED in working in natural resources. (in large part because much more blacks are urban and most of Forest Service folks grew up in the country). To this day, there are far fewer folks of color who enter the natural resource fields. There ARE strong recruitment efforts. Why? Primarily because if folks of color don't appreciate and understand the natural resources ... their votes won't do much for those resources. It is a matter of survival, for all of us.
Again, that is another difference. Rugby could disappear without much changing the world. A little less pleasureable, but survivable. Natural resources are the very root of our survival. Still, the comparison is just. There are far more folks of color out there than whites. If you want rugby to expand, you need to look at a new group of individuals. Folks of color who already exist right beside you are a pretty good market. ..... and make no mistake, "market" is what its REALLY about!
Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 7:23 am
i will change it.
But for me the line needs to be drawn at basically extorting private companies into hiring minorities when in fact they do no discriminate in hiring but simply don't have qualified minorities to fill the jobs who are applying. And if that type of overreaching is the product of the affirmative action in higher education that we currently have now, then I think the methods (but perhaps not the existence) of those programs need to be severely corrected. That's just my personal view, but everything I've described here is going on, so you can decide for yourself whether you think it's "racial favoritism", because probably not many people encounter this stuff every day.
