On discrimination and prejudice

[billyskank]

I have become concerned at the lazy thinking which is becoming prevalent in my society. Recently my company announced that it would be taking new anti-discrimination legislation very seriously. Specifically the legislation outlaws discrimination on grounds of age.

There are good reasons for this; it is unacceptable to prefer a younger person to an older person when hiring for a position, if the two are of equal qualification or the older person is even more qualified. I do not doubt that this occurs, and the practice should be opposed.

But my employer has taken this even further to say that it is unacceptable to specify a minimum years' experience on job advertisements. They even think it is out of order to refer to someone as "senior" and another as "junior."

I think this is bogus. Even the term "anti-discrimination" to me seems to indicate the problem, which is that people have started to think that discrimination itself is bad. It isn't. It is impossible to avoid discrimination. Every time you separate one thing from another by means of making a choice, that is what it means to discriminate. Choosing one person over another for a job is to discriminate.

What is wrong is to discriminate falsely. If you are trying to hire an expert programmer, and of your candidates there is one with a year's experience, and another with 15 years experience, it is not false to discriminate in favour of the more experienced candidate. This is not ageism. It is not even reverse ageism. It is discrimination based on reasonable evidence.

Even prejudice isn't a problem per se. If a person is known to be an unrepentant thief by personal experience or trustworthy testimony, then there is nothing wrong with holding prejudice against this person, i.e.: do not trust this individual with your stuff. What is wrong is false prejudice: I don't like this person because they're gay, or I don't like this person because they're black. The reason that these examples of prejudice are wrong is because they are unfair.

It used to be that to say someone was a person of discrimination was a compliment. It was to praise their intelligence.

[trof]

1. Well, if you're looking for an argument

you won't find one here.
:-)

[billyskank]

2. Nah, just thinking aloud.

:hi:

[Callalily]

3. Well put Billy!

I could never understand prejudices, it's something that I just can't comprehend.

We have age discrimination laws here too, but it's difficult to prove. Many times someone younger will be hired over an older, more experienced candidate simply because they won't command as high a salary. And then there's the health care issue. An older employee has the potential of filing more claims than a younger employee, which brings up the cost of premiums. Sad but true.

:hi: :loveya: :hug:

[billyskank]

4. Hi Fugue!

Nice to see you! :hug: :hi:

But you know something? At least you can point to solid reasons in both of those cases.

For example, my first programming job was with a tiny little mom-and-pop firm. They never took on experienced programmers, because they couldn't afford them. They took on unemployed graduates, knowing full well that in a couple of years they'd leave to higher paying gigs. Discriminating in favour of someone who is cheaper does seem justifiable to me, and often that will be a younger person. That said, the right thing would be to offer the job to the most qualified candidate, even if it is the older person, but only offer the salary the company wants to pay. That gives the candidate the choice to accept or not. They may want the job enough to accept the pay, and if there are better jobs out there they can always say no.

As for the discriminating against an older person because of the health care cost, yes I agree that that is unfair on the older candidate. But the real fault lies with the system that requires the employer to stump up for the health insurance, and the insurance industry that doesn't want to spread the risk across the population like it ought to.

[Callalily]

6. You have a valid point

I worked for a company that hired people right out of college. As a matter of fact, they went and recruited even b/4 graduation. This way they got employees with the most current knowledge and skill sets, not to mention enthusiasm, knowing full well that once they had a few years of experience under their belts they'd be out the door.

As far as offering the same pay scale for a younger, more inexperienced candidate along with an older, experienced candidate, unless the older person has been unemployed for a long time, or has some personal reason to accept a lower wage, that person is not going to take a pay decrease, is not going to accept a salary that's far below the norm that comes along with that experience. The staff suffers working with someone with less experience. Now I'm talking here about higher level jobs.

I think that's why we're seeing so many threads complaining about poor managers, poor supervisors. Those companies most likely opted to hire someone who fits their pay scale, rather than having someone with managerial/supervisory experience and knowledge.

It's a tough balance. Companies are in financial difficulties and they have budgets to adhere to for simply survival. There are no easy answers, and employee/employer relations are not always fair.

Whew! Quite a heavy topic so early in the morning! At least it's morning for me Billy! And nice to see you. Don't get a chance to say howdy to you in the morning anymore.

[Crazy Dave]

5. There's a big problem here in the states

Where you may in fact hire or promote a person based purely upon qualifications but the individuals that do not get the position or promotion claim victim status and sue saying they were denied because of race, age, etc. regardless of all the efforts made to be fair and the facts.

[terrya]

7. Ok...I understand the distinction.

Of course. If, say, I had 10 years of experience in applying for a job, and other appplicants had less than that, more than likely I would be in a better position to be hired for that job.

But as a gay man, I have a big, big problem with the crude bigotry in this country exhibited towards us, towards African-Americans, towards women, towards other minorities. Ilustrative of that kind of bigotry can be found in the threads in GD about Ann Coulter's vile comment. That, to me, is the kind of crude, uncalled for, inexusible bigotry that all of us must denounce.

This is a very good point, billy. I do understand the distinction.

I'd suggest you crosspost this in GD...but I'm not sure if you'd want to do that/

Thank you
Terry

[XemaSab]

8. The whole notion of experience is universally held

Native Americans revere their elders because they have more experience. Tradespeople have had apprentice, journeyman, and master rankings for centuries.

The other day I went to a workshop where we had to get up and state our names, where we worked, and how many years experience we had. There were people there who were still in school, and there were people who had been working with the subject since the first environmental laws were passed in the early 70's. :shrug:

:shrug:

[Nikia]

9. It depends on the company and job

I think that sometimes younger people are discriminated against too in some situations. For example, some companies prefer to hire middle aged line supervisers over someone in their 20's because they think that the older person will command more respect than a younger person even if their knowledge and experience of the work is the same.
I think that the whole idea of hiring a person that commands respect has been used to discriminate against women and minorities though. At my previous job, I even found a management workbook which had belonged to the former plant manager there. In an exercise he completed on picking the best candidate, he stated that he would never hire a woman to be a front line superviser because women do not command respect amongst men.

[jane_pippin]

10. I understand what you're saying, but I think

you're using two definitions for the word interchangeably and that can be problematic.


from: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/discrimination

5 results for: discrimination
< Nearby Entries >
View results from: Dictionary | Thesaurus | Encyclopedia | All Reference | the Web

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source
dis·crim·i·na·tion Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. an act or instance of discriminating.
2. treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.
3. the power of making fine distinctions; discriminating judgment: She chose the colors with great discrimination.
4. Archaic. something that serves to differentiate.I think in the context of anti-discrimination, it's implied that it means in terms of ethnicity, age, orientation, etc. But to use it in terms of "a person of discrimination," meaning perhaps "making a careful choice



So yes, to discriminate based on ethnicity, orientation, age, etc. is wrong, but making "fine distinctions," on say, what kind of china pattern one might want is not wrong. But they aren't the same kind of discrimination. There's a distinction. I understand what you're saying: that to discriminate against someone with less experience might be a good idea, but in that idea, you're using the third definition of the term, not the first.

Am I making sense? I don't know. I just woke up and I don't think I'm doing a good job explaining what I mean.

[billyskank]

12. What I was thinking is that nowadays people think it only means definition 2

so that 'discrimination' itself becomes a dirty word. As if it were possible to go through life without discriminating, which it isn't. Although we may have to stop using the word, if this carries on.

[jane_pippin]

13. Oh, now I see what you mean.

I kind of misunderstood you the first time around. But I can read. I swear! :D

[Oeditpus Rex]

11. There used to be an ad campaign

for a car or a cigarette or a brand of whiskey or something, but that matters not. The tag line was something like "For the man with discriminating tastes."

Quite obviously, this did not mean "For the man who'd refuse to hire a member of a minority."

Language becomes bastardized, and too many people accept that with an apathetic shrug as the "evolution" of language.