A brief chat with a poster in one of my diary posts got me thinking about this topic, mainly because he/she mentioned reverse discrimination.
Now, to be honest I don't really believe in reverse discrimination. because that implies that most discrimination is a one-way street with the "traffic" only going one way towards a certain group of people 24/7. Then all of a suddenly you got people driving the "wrong way" when normally it should be the way around. At least, I think that's how most people see reverse discrimination?
On the contrary, I happen to believe that discrimination in all forms tends to be a two-way street with everyone experiencing some form of discrimination and having some strong negative bias towards others themselves due to their own bad experiences.
To take this road analogy even further the only difference between different types of people is the amount of "traffic" they experience. the "traffic" in this case being vehicles of discrimination whose purpose is to literally block your way on the road of life. Some people experience traffic so bad that it becomes a traffic jam while others barely see any traffic. Yet all the same, any type of traffic will always slow you down.
On the road of life, there's never any one-way street where you channel the traffic at only one target... espeically not when it comes to discrimination. Because people will find any reason to discriminate against others... whenever it be religion, Ableism, Racism, etc. I get the feeling that even if we were all one gender and looked exactly alike we would still find some silly excuse to discriminate against others. "You dare to wear red?? But red is a evil color according to my opinion, so therefore I shall ban you from this place unless you stop wearing red."
So hence, There cannot be any Reverse Discrimination for it flows both ways and all over the place. Of course this is the part where some people bring up Affirmative Action.... claiming that it is proof of "positive discrimination".
Okay. First off, I happen to think the term "Positive discrimination" have to be the most stupidest thing that I have ever heard of. I don't believe any discrimination can be called "positive" at all.
But okay, let's take a look at affirmative action. There are some who believes that it does not really address the source of discrimination in the workplace and instead serves only to act as a tiny band-aid for a large fatal wound.
You know, white racist guys filling out a quota to hire token minorities in order to pretend that they're not racist or sexist. Their way of saying: "Y'all can't sue me for discrimination... here, let me put the token minority employee on public display as proof that I'm not racist/sexist/etc. So please don't look too closely at my bullshit excuse for not hiring that highly qualified person who were clearly perfect for the job, save for the fact that he/she wasn't a white guy. Or the fact that the majority of employers I hire tend to be white guys only."
This is how some cynical people see affirmative action. While others tend to see it as companies refusing to hire highly competent guys in order to hire people who are less competent just to fill a quota.
Who knows, maybe they're right on both counts.
But here I have to share some of my experiences on how difficult it was to find work despite the fact that I had an Master's degree perfectly suited to the kind of job I was looking for. A Master's Degree in 3D Graphic Art, An Associate's degree in Graphic Communications and Design. Just in case you were wondering.
I did not need to be trained on the job, and I also did not need interpreters or have to answer phones. Yet, just because I was a deaf person many people were often scrambling for reasons NOT to hire me. They would bring up that I "obviously" needed to be trained, have interpreters or answer phones... despite the fact that I was able to disprove most of that.. espeically the answering phone part or the interpreter... my job does not call for that. AT ALL.
Once all other "reasons not to hire this deaf person" were proven to be useless against me, they would then say that I was "over-qualified" for the job due to my college degrees.
It got to the point that I actually tried faking being a hearing person and hiding my hearing aids behind my hair. It was only halfway successful, though. The interviews would go perfectly, with the employer seeming very eager to hire me. That is until they catch a glimpse of my hearing aids despite my best attempt to hide it with my hair. They ask what that is... and of course I have to tell them that it's my hearing aids. This is the part where they kind of freeze up, obviously reassessing whenever they want to hire me after all.
Sometimes they say stupid things like "But... but... you don't sound or act deaf. you don't LOOK deaf." (WTF is that supposed to mean?)
But once they found out they'd be literally rushing me out the door, telling me that they have TONS of people to interview and that I'd have to wait for a response from them to see whenever I got the job or not. I don't.
I actually was unemployed for two years after I got out of college! I was pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel for temp jobs until my dream job finally came along. The only thing that hindered me from getting a job was people's prejudices and assumptions about what a deaf person could or couldn't do. They have this tendency to treat the deaf like little children who are incapable of living on their own, much less hold a job.
and I hate to say it, but I don't think that the employer who hired me would had really hired me without Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action gave me the chance to really prove my mettle to my employer, who were initially doubtful that a deaf woman could even do a perfect job like he wanted. I was able to surprise him and erase any doubts he had.
For forty years the issue of affirmative action has been subject to a tremendous amount of debate and controversy. When President Kennedy proposed the idea of preferential treatment in 1961, the nation was in the midst of radical changes regarding civil liberties. It was a time when the injustices imposed upon minorities were beginning to be recongnized, and people wanted to make up for the years of oppression that served as a barrier for the advancement of minorities in America. At the time, the idea was morally justified and socially appropriate.
To this day, it still has some ability to do good. Because there are still some prejudiced assholes out there who won't hire a person for a stupid reason instead of perfectly legitimate ones.
However, I can see how some people would think that affirmative action is just an half-assed attempt to atone for the sins of our country's racist past, and a double standard that threatens every citizen's liberties. That it's an attempt to end discrimination with more discrimination.
But the thing is...most of the time statistics don't lie. In many jobs white males are more likely to be hired 80% of the time over any other group, even in this day and age. Depending on the kind of job you're looking for... chances are that in a high-end job the workplace is going to be bursting at the seams with white guys. I know that the company I work for is. I counted maybe one other woman besides me there.
and we had to work harder than the other guys did just to prove that we could pull our own weight just as much as the guys did, and more.
We've come a very long way in terms of progress... but we still have a while to go before skin color, gender and ableism won't even be a factor in whenever you get hired or not.
I understand that some white guys might feel like they're experiencing "reverse discrimination" or something when the only reason why they got passed up for a job was that the company had way too many white guys and not enough black/asian/women/deaf or whatever.
In such a situation I can understand how a person might feel slighted that they got passed over just because somebody had to meet a quota.
Heck, I can consider the possibility that I'm the token minority that the company trots out at public meetings and parties in order to show that they're not prejudiced, despite my impressive credentials. It's not a very pleasant thought, but on the other hand it also gives me a chance to show everyone that just because they consider deafness to be an disability, that it doesn't make me less of a person than they are. It gives me a chance to show people that they shouldn't assume what a person can or can't do just because of skin color, "disablity", or whatever else.
And this is coming from a highly jaded person who's seen so much shit occur during her life so far.
I know this Diary is probably going to piss off a lot of people, but I hope that I was able to explain my instance on the subject without it becoming too inflammatory for this site.
Feel free to share your thoughts, and any proof on if I'm utterly wrong or not. :)