Is this racism?

About 30 years ago I employed an older bloke from Sheffield whose daughter married Devon Malcolm's brother. The bloke refused to attend his own daughter's wedding!!

 

Me and Devon Malcolm!

 

But being black is a characteristic. So is that racist too?
Tell you. The world's gone mental. And no, I'm not being mentalist .

 

You missed the bit about the characteristic making them inferior or superior

 

Worst racism I've seen was in USA. NYC..a melting pot .. but unbelievable amounts of racism.

 

It works both ways .. from all types from all races. Tribalism

 

Worst I ever saw was in Benidorm about 1988 , SS America (aircraft carrier ) and two battleships were returning to the states after service in the Persian Gulf and docked in Benna for two nights .
Holiday makers loved it they were doing tours and everything and sailors/Marines were selling their service issued Zippo lighters to spend on the mainly British girls .
But at night time round Benna it was very intimidating you wouldn’t think they were serving on the same ship , they were all very polite to the bar staff and holidaymakers but to each other of differing race it was very different story .
On one occasion I went to the toilet and in the toilet were three Black sailors using the urinals , just behind me walking in were six or seven White sailors and began verbally abusing the Black guys calling them the N word among other names .
I was literally in the middle of this and I’m not ashamed to say I was virtually sh****** myself and it seemed to be escukating as the Black guys were giving it large back to them .
I’m almost certain one of the White sailors produced what I thought was a lock knife when just in time imo three Shore Police ( from the ships ) came in and made an almighty row at which point they all dispersed .
After they all left one of the SPs said to me in a southern American drawl Yorl have a good night now and fekked off .
When I got back to lads and told them this story they told me their had been an altercation near the bar and that the SPs had sorted that out too.
Just for those seconds between the two I saw American Racism at its ugliest and it wasn’t an experience I’d like to repeat .
True Story

 

It may just have been a fact at that time. Usain Bolt will run 100m about 6-7 seconds faster than I can. I would bet my house that I would beat him in a race over 5 miles. It's all down to fibre type in the muscles, Fast twitch and Slow twitch. Who are the fastest footballers? Why are most sprinters black? Why doesn't East Africa produce many sprinters? When black players first came into the game their parents were of West Indian origin with roots in West Africa. So many of them did lack stamina. Remember footballers were purely endurance trained in the past.

 

A long time ago, about 2002

 

And yet a lot of Europeans still go abroad (or at home ) to get a good sun tan , to get as brown as possible .
Double standards or what !

 

I would have thought it was too bl**dy cold to spend too much time running in the Andes and Himalayas.

 

Could also explain the lack of Irish long distance runners. They'd all suffer from rust!

 

True but the scenery is great.

 

It is when the garden isn't swamped in cloud and mist.
Seriously it is beautiful but, jeez, it rains a lot.

 

In recent years, I have worked on cruise ships and the Racism on their is awful. You don’t see name calling etc, but they class people from India and Caribbean as Staff and Europeans as Crew. This then expands to working hours(duration on ships), canteens and sleeping arrangements. As an example Crew share no more than 2 in a room, Staff upto 12, different sized rooms yes.

 

A big part of the answer about Kenyans is actually largely due to the altitude, which gives them a huge advantage as their bodies develop to process Oxygen quicker and more efficiently.

 

Unless they’ve not employed any white police officers since then I suspect that’s not the real reason.

 

During that particular round of recruitment that was the policy...positive discrimination or summat.

 

It did happen at least in some forces. The government wanted to increase the number of ethnic minority police officers and because some were still nowhere near the figure (I think it was around 5%) some were deliberately not giving white people a job because it pushed them further from the target.

In answer to the question is that racist? Yes if it and it was proven as being racial discrimination in a court of law.

 

You are absolutely correct. There is no such thing as 'positive' discrimination. However you phrase it, package it or try to justify it, whenever you favour one person or group of people, for whatever reason, however well intentioned, it therefore follows you must be negatively discriminating against another person or group of people.

The minute quotas are applied when it comes to recruitment be it minimum numbers of females, ethnic minorities disabled, etc. you have discrimination. The only fair and just way is to employ the 'best fit' in terms of skillset, experience, aptitude and qualifications for the position. The race, creed, gender, colour and age should be completely irrelevant unless it directly impacts upon the persons ability or suitability for the position.

Regrettably, we all know that various prejudices often influence decisions in the real world and it is usually impossible to prove if that has played a part in the decision making otherwise we would not have the situation where imbalances in a workforce, particularly at senior level, exists.

I don't know the answer but applying quotas is not it.

EDIT: Just thought about the original post - what would people think about a parallel of a UK farmer (I am certain more than one has expressed this publicly) who stated he only employs Eastern European workers because UK workers are less productive and won't do the work for minimum wage as it is too hard. Whilst he possibly has a point is that not the same generalisation bordering on prejudice that some on here are complaining about even though he has probably based his views on past experience? Nevertheless it is hard to see any difference.