AIBU to find this offensive?

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...or at least to say not good things about the organisation in question?

I was filling in a registration form which asked (as many do) for my ethnicity for diversity monitoring purposes - no issue so far.

That is until I look at the code they ask you to use which have a list of A-Z, where White British is code 'A' White irish 'B' through the whole alphabet, corresponding to various ethnic groups. (I can't remember what was at the bottom)

AIBU in finding this quite offensive? I think that having a coding system with a generally accepted 'top and bottom' like this carries with it the implication that being White British is somehow 'better' than being White Irish, which is in turn better than being 'Black Caribbean' and so on? If you must use codes, surely they should be neutral?

I am really hot on casual racism/sexism like this and I am quite close to offering some feedback.

WIBU to do so?

It is simply a coding system that would have the largest percentage at the top, it is not offensive ,it is factual.
if you filled in a list in china then the options would be in a different order to fit in with the population percentage there.
its nothing to worry about if you are A or C. It would be like getting upset at your blood group,it is simply a code to categorise data

Hold the phone its yet again one of those pesky UK white people wanting to be at the top again.. This is the UK how dare those white UK people expect to be A. They should be X where they belong.

Or maybe that's a tad racist.. yanno against white people. Course that doesn't exist does it? Christ on a bike.

Who gives a fuck about a stupid form that needs codes so it can be read by a computer?

Don't worry OP. In 40 years when White British are a minority they'll flip it round for you.

I have nothing against listing the ethnicities in order of most to least frequent response. But why do they need to put a letter code next to them (A, B, C, etc)? That looks as though they are giving grades or ranks. As I said it's very unlikely to be racist, but it doesn't look good.

Letters do carry cultural baggage, of course they do, hence 'straight A student'.

Saying that, I doubt there was any malice behind it but it's sloppy practice. Why number or code at all? Use bullets etc.

And while it's your right not to say of course, it's very difficult for large organisations to improve their diversity records if they don't have the data to back up their proposals.

WTAF? Seriously you think it's offensive and grading? It's the alphabet, not GCSE grade letters.

As for the suggestion of bullet points, if there was no need for a code they wouldn't use one. Funnily enough,bullet points are identical so pointless...

Are you being serious...?

yabu, way over thinking it

I think a more neutral code would be something like this:

White British: chicken
White Irish: pork
And so on through beef, lamb, guinea fowl and so on. Then you could go on to cuts if you need further codes until you get to Gristle right down at the bottom.

Would that work less offensely?

On the other hand, there are few codes which take up less space on storage on a large database than alphabetic or numeric. They also have the advantage of taking less time to type in, thus saving much time in both initial data entry, but also in umpteen retrievals when the data is analysed or manipulated in programmes.

You're being a wee bit silly, op.

At what point would someone then find offence at being pork/ pig when some see that as a dirty animal ect though

And the pages in books shouldn't be numbered as one page should not be inferior or superior to another.
I cannot believe this thread. There are far more important things in the world to worry about.

What about shapes? But then someone has to be a square and a star. Is star an A equivalent and square Z? Hmmm.

Maybe parallelogram, trapezium, rhombus. But then white uk might end up with a shape that has more sides.

This is bloody fraught.

Fruit maybe? Although some people might not like plum.
veg could be fraught with problems..turnip, cabbage. Although i would be pretty happy with sprout

Perhaps you should complain to the police about their identity codes too. IC1 is clearly an implication that white northern Europeans are superior to IC3 (black) individuals seeing as 1 is better than any other number.

Jesus wept.

Why is there no [eyeroll] on MN?

Yabu and possibly need to get out more.

But A isnt always better. When I was a very skinny teenager, I though A was the worst letter in the world, and desperately wanted a C.

They have to be listed in some form of order though or it wouldn't be a list. You could perhaps feedback that it would embrace equality more if they scattered the ethnicities across the page. Or perhaps put them inside a word search puzzle where you had to find your ethnicity and circle it.

Fruits (perhaps for sexual orientation question?), shapes . . .

Shades of Monty Python:

This is getting silly

OP please "offer some feedback" to this organisation. My office would be a lot more boring if we didn't get crazy feedback from people like you! You will make their day! I think this is quite possibly the most ridiculous things I have ever read on MN. Well done OP!

Well you can be offended by what you like it's up to you really. We can all find something inane to stamp our feet about if we try hard enough.

My favourite letter is Q I always find it rather jaunty. (I can assure you I am not alphabetist about the others though, honestly).

I don't think there was any intention to rank the ethnicities in order of any perceived preference by the company.

I do however think the fact that you see it that way OP actually makes you the racist one.

Well I say YANBU anyway! its not the ordering that's the issue, its the codes. if they had been eg WB (for white British), WI (for white Irish) etc, that would have been fine.

to all those saying YABU, would you say the same if it was a title question and it said
Mr (A)
Mrs (B)
Miss (C)
etc?
you can make all the same arguments there about Mr being most common etc.

I would choose B Mrs and carry on merrily with my day safe in the knowledge that I don't look for problems where there are none.