The Project

AGAINST

For me, equality cannot be achieved through positive discrimination. With the phrasing we use, we are already influencing how we will address the problem. In using the term ‘discrimination’, we already find ourselves looking for the victim.

The problem, as I see it, is that policies introduced as ‘positively discriminatory’ can lead to further damage socially, simply by adding to the problem rather than proving to be a remedy.

Racially discriminating views centring on social and economic problems are fuelled by such bureaucratic initiatives as quotas. These initiatives force businesses to employ specific percentages from certain ethnicities; this is why we are regularly asked on employment forms how we identify ourselves. When these demands are placed on employment, the people hired are no longer valued on skill.

We may see complaints that there are not enough of a particular ethnicity in a particular industry. This it not an indication, necessarily, of discrimination, which leads to the idea that this discrimination is wholly misleading. Furthermore, groups that will inherently suffer an employment deficit regularly blame those who ‘take the jobs’, regardless of the reality that the job seekers are not responsible for their having been hired.

It’s counterproductive to the cause of equal opportunities to continually enforce absurd rules that turn people against one another. It seems we are trying to solve discrimination with discrimination. The BBC 2 show Genius proposed that, for the next sixty years, women should be the only members of the community to vote so we could rectify the years of inequality.

This may sound bizarre, but how different is this from hiring a percentage of the population because you trying to make amends with history, or redress a perceived discriminatory imbalance in your employees?

People need to see sense and realise a problem cannot be solved by literally mirroring the past, or by looking at statistical averages. We need to take new steps towards completely eradicating alienation in the workplace. I am not saying we need to silently pretend nothing is different, in an awkward, eggshell-preserving manner.

My somewhat deluded hope is that we can seek to aid communities without needless sensitivity which only hinders our development. Where we find clear examples of an individual not being hired, or suffering due to a particular aspect of their person, this activity should be stamped out and shown to be unacceptable.

ALEX ROSS
WRITER