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Path: utzoo!utcs!mnetor!clewis
From: clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.social,net.women,net.flame
Subject: Re: Discrimination and Affirmative Action
Message-ID: <879@mnetor.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 28-May-85 10:36:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: mnetor.879
Posted: Tue May 28 10:36:30 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 28-May-85 12:26:09 EDT
References: <566@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Reply-To: clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Organization: Computer X (CANADA) Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Lines: 47
Xref: utcs net.politics:8888 net.social:509 net.women:5302 net.flame:9820
Summary: 

In article <566@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> beth@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Beth Christy) writes:
>
>Yes, disadvantaged poor whites may be outraged.  But while I understand
>the reaction completely, I'm not sure I agree it's "justified".  It's
>true that they have less opportunity than they did before.  They now
>have their *fair share* of opportunity.  The poor disadvantaged blacks

But they *don't* have their fair share of opportunity.  That's the
problem.  Without job hiring practises being based upon "best suited
for the job" "fair share of opportunity" is impossible in specific
cases (and that's all a specific person cares about).  Particularly
if a group of applicants for a job (or classification) are not evenly 
distributed (same ratios as society) as to race, sex or whatever.

For most people in a position to hire people (at least in the computer
industry) I believe that the primary criteria for hiring people is that
they find the best person for the job.  I don't think racial/sexual
biases are particularly prevalent anymore especially in highly technical 
areas (though handicapped *might* be).  Having to pass over more highly
qualified people to fill out a blanket quota will only serve to create
more racism/sexism.  Don't get me wrong, I don't believe that
a particular minority is less or more suited for a particular position -
but abstracting from the population as a whole down to individual
cases and professions result in truncation errors.

I recognize that much of the reason for disproportionate groups of
applicants for particular positions is frequently due to a bias-caused
lack of education/experience on the part of some minorities.  But,
past prejudice doesn't alleviate the fact of someone not being
best-of-the-applicants qualified for a particular job *now*.

Considering the long way society has come since the '30s and '40s it
would be far better to let things alone and the problem of discrimination
will disappear as it has been doing - things have been happening
without anybody really noticing.  Racial/sexual/whatever quotas 
will bring back the prejudices and hatred of the 40's - only worse
because the object of this hatred is mixed into the workplace.  Then
everybody will be involved in it.  You can see this happening up
here due to long-standing hiring policies of the Canadian Govt.
w.r.t. French speaking employees.

It is getting very near the point where employers are not allowed
to discriminate against incompetence.
-- 
Chris Lewis,
UUCP: {allegra, linus, ihnp4}!utzoo!mnetor!clewis
BELL: (416)-475-8980 ext. 321