I feel like I am stepping into the lions den, writing this post today, as it is on the thorny subject of race discrimination - more directly, white vs black.
Within the world of recruitment / employment / job seeking etc the whole subject of discrimination is around us. We are now subject to many restrictions about what we can / can't say, what questions we can't ask because of the risk if inference for something else, and what we are allowed /not allowed to put on career websites etc.
Even with all these legal restrictions, companies still flout the law and blatantly discriminate. So much so that the DWP (Department of Work and Pensions), recently sent out 1000+ bogus applications for jobs, with similar CV's but with 'white' and 'non-white' sounding names. They were trying to prove discrimination is still rife in the employment market - with the (mad) end goal of having nameless CV's!. In my opinion I think that sets a dangerous precedent.
What I can't get my head around is the way that discrimination by skin colour can be so public with things like the MOBO's , Black Movie Awards and (unbelievably in my opinion) the Black Engineer of the Year Awards (and for all these awards ceremonies there is no comparative white awards), and yet in the workplace it is legally outlawed.
These seem to have become an 'accepted' part of society, but do you think that the flip side would be so true? Surely if there were 'White' only award ceremonies, there would be uproar from the 'non-white' community?
So returning to the workplace for a moment, is it any wonder that discrimination still goes on, when 'society' is still giving out very mixed messages to people in a very public way?
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