As most of you will know by now, I'm no fan of Google. Despite the fact that I continue to utilise their free services, I think that they've grown to a level of influence where they're actually dangerous to society. A bit like the Murdoch media empire did in the 20th century … probably worse. What I'm not bothered by, however, is the number of white people they employ.
Personally, I don't think it makes much sense to compare employment statistics at company X with overall population demographics, unless you're also going to look at things like school and university performance, and numbers of jobseekers with relevant qualifications. As a very rough example, if 20% of the people graduating from uni with computer science degrees are women, it would be unreasonable to expect that they then fill 50% of those rolls at any particular company.
However, I also understand that not everybody sees the world the same way I do.
For a few years now, Google has been publishing the demographic breakdown of its employees—largely in an effort to appease the kinds of people who are obsessed with finding racism, sexism, etc-ism, under every rock and behind every bush (you know the types). Now, every time one of these reports is released, it becomes a topic of conversation in social circles which overlap with mine. Tonight, I got an email linking to this YouTube video.
The report is here if you'd like to read it for yourself.
Like the rest of you, I'm old enough to remember a time when overt discrimination was a common thing, both in and out of the workplace, and I can appreciate how far things have come since then. Except, you wouldn't get that impression from looking at the media now, would you? If anything, you'd think the problem had gotten worse. And while it wouldn't be entirely accurate to describe the situation as watching somebody beat a dead horse, it wouldn't be far off to say it's a little bit like watching one person shoot a horse, and then, as the horse lays dying, a second person runs over and starts kicking the horse, and incoherently screaming about how the horse is more alive and dangerous than it's ever been before.
What's more worrisome is the way in which the message has gone from being about having equal rights for coloured people, to simply being about having fewer white people—full stop. Not only do I find this sort of thing distasteful, but I fear that if the pendulum gets pushed too far in that direction, it'll only be a matter of time before it comes screaming back in the other … and I for one, do not fancy the idea of being stuck in the middle of a bunch of stupid, needless racial hostilities.
Okay, so that's my two bob. As far as I know, youse here are all white-fellas, what's your take on the situation?
PS: I suppose part of the problem is that, due to the global nature of the media now, a lot of stuff ends up filtering into the Australian conscience that isn't even particularly relevant to us. How often do you hear pundits discussing Aussie issues, but citing facts and figures from studies that were conducted in either the US or Europe?
PS: I'd also like to point out how irked I am by the whole notion of having to identify myself to my employer as being in a particular racial category. Is it just me, or does that whole practice seem both regressive and invasive?
4 comments :
I've actually been wondering recently if my grandmother, contrary to what our parents told us all our lives, was not part-Fijian, but Aboriginal. TBH though, that might open up a few employment opportunities for me, so I'd actually quite like to know that (there are a couple of Unis here that are specifically looking to recruit Indigenous people for jobs I'd like to do!).
I do not think you should be forced to identify if you do not wish to, but it's worth noting that in a medical context, it would be good for your doctors/hospital to know because of altered reference ranges, treatment aims, and increased risks for certain diseases. :) (of course the downside of that though, is depending on where you are, it might affect your care because of racists, though I refuse to believe that the care is less, merely the expectations of the results of care might be lowered)
Hmmm, so what you're saying is; if employers/the-media/etc are going to discriminate against whites—as some sort of exercise in promoting diversity—whites should "discover" some non-white ancestry, and claim that as their racial identity?
I think we've talked about trans-racialism on here before. Maybe we might see it explode into the mainstream?
I know that different population groups are affected by certain illnesses differently, and so forth; but what degree of ancestry do you have to have before that starts becoming relevant to medical professionals? Quadroon? Octaroon?
I didn't mean to imply I'd like to "discover" I was Aboriginal to claw back some kind of perceived reverse discrimination! I'm sorry if it sounded like that - I'd actually just like to know the truth.
I do not know "how much" Aboriginal (or other racial group) you have to be before it affects your risk category. Because it would all depend on different genes, and genetic inheritance is such a matter of chance. How did my sister (who took after my mother in looks) spawn a son who (my mother claims) looks just like his great-grandfather, but nothing at all like any of his siblings, or his father (actually in fact, all his other siblings bar one sister resemble their fathers very strongly)?
Fair enough, but I wouldn't blame you if you did mean it the other way. When you get to the point where employers are explicitly taking race into account when hiring, I think you can drop the word "perceived" from the phrase "perceived reverse discrimination"; the word "reverse" just seems redundant; and when you have a situation where a company's employee base has a lower percentage of whites than the national average, and the media response is "you still have too many whites", you might wanna start looking at other adjectives to drop in there.
I know that these days, a lot of people like to say that discrimination against white-fellas can't exist, because of societal power dynamics, and so forth, but I remain unconvinced. To me, it sounds like they're taking a simple concept and complicating it for their own ends. It's like these fellas who reckon women only gyms and taxi services aren't sexist, because there's special provisions in the law that allow for them. Okay, that doesn't mean you're not being sexist, it just means your sexism is being sanctioned by the state, right?
I'm not even 100% against all these things in 100% of situations. I just don't like all the bureaucratic word game bullshit. If people wanna fight racism with more racism, fair enough, but I wish we could at least call it what it is. Maybe then we could talk about the outcomes without all this pussy-footing around.
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Yes, genetic inheritance and expression is funny like that. Not so much with European and Aboriginal, but I can think of a few instances in my extended family where the same parents produced one child who looked full European and a second child who looked full Maori.
Having said that, I thought the medical profession might have some rudimentary bar they set when trying to categorise people.
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