... to think it slightly odd that so many of my school mum friends are hung up about secondary schools already, when their kids are only 5!

[sandyballs]

It seems to be the sole topic of conversation lately - how good/bad the local comp is, how extra tuition will be needed for the local grammar etc etc.

The kids are 5/6 years old! Let them be kids!

I'm sure our parents never had all this school angst!

I see yout point Tough Daddy. I would be offended if someone gave me a job just because I was a woman.

I refer to your quote:

"If I turned this around "Where I work there are lots of posh Oxbridge types and I find them achingly dull." and said where i work there are lots of blacks and I find them achingly dull you can see how those types of comments are in the reverse."

Especially the part about you refering to what would happen if you said blacks were achingly dull and see how the comments look in REVERSE.

So, by reverse you didn't mean opposite. Opps, my mistake then!

DominiConnor- I make a good living from the greed is good culture and I like your football analogy. But every game has to have a referee! And if the rulings aren't fair, the crowd will eventually show their "displeasure". I guess it depends on whether you think that striving for a fair and balanced society has any merit.

Oh and xenia I meant to comment on your comment...

How come in state schools the fact there is not as much diversity as in independent schools means you assume that is because they are less racist in independent schools but the fact that there are not many afro-caribeans in the independent sector means its a time issue... my child has been in state schools thus far and I was too and it seems a lot more diverse than independent schools of family and friends that attend/have attended. Granted, some of the worst (poorest) white areas have been quite racist but that doesn't start in schools, it starts in the home. I have seen a change in recent years with more minority races moving into these areas, so that is a time issue.

gf, still don't really understand my comment which just saying to say all posh people are dull is as bad as saying all blacks (or indeed whites) are dull.

On diversity in schools it's very mixed in this bit of NW London because my borough is 18% hindu, lots of skihs too and muslims and education is a prized resource and private schools a primary aim for famiyl money. I am sure that is not typical of private schools around much of the rest of the country so I agree with you. But around here you do to get lots of happy living together tolerance, you get into the school whatever your colour if you're really clever in the privaet sector and some of the state schools being more black or white really because of where the parents live and choose to send their children. I am sure London with education as much as anything else is very different from the rest of the country.

In teh UK do we find the higher your social class the less stupid you are to judge people on colour or whether they're gay etc? We all know the social group from which the national front is drawn and it's working class.

On DC comment about that gay policy some of the comments I saw were - we would not dream of asking our staff whether they sleep with men or women. It's irrelevant and yet now we may be forced to. It doesn't mean you're gay intolerant if you choose not to find out how many are gay or not and in fact many people want to keep that private just as most of us want to keep our sexuality private or even if we're 16th black or 16th white or have clinical depression or whatever.

I quite liked a US clause I saw - that they wanted suppliers to come from solely women owned businesses.

I think it is quite legit for us to point out the impractical extreme of some of diversity mandates in the workplace today. But I sometimes (often) sense that people are suggesting that the whole notion of racial awareness is flawed and that we were all better off before positive discrimination and political correctness. Well for me the answer is NO, the days of colour bar and prejudice weren't so great for my parent and grandparents. So on the whole, I think my children have a better (perhaps) even equal chance of being who/what they want to be, as our US friends would say.

I think it is quite legit for us to point out the impractical extreme of some of diversity mandates in the workplace today. But I sometimes (often) sense that people are suggesting that the whole notion of racial awareness is flawed and that we were all better off before positive discrimination and political correctness. Well for me the answer is NO, the days of colour bar and prejudice weren't so great for my parent and grandparents. So on the whole, I think my children have a better (perhaps) even equal chance of being who/what they want to be, as our US friends would say.

I think it is quite legit for us to point out the impractical extreme of some of diversity mandates in the workplace today. But I sometimes (often) sense that people are suggesting that the whole notion of racial awareness is flawed and that we were all better off before positive discrimination and political correctness. Well for me the answer is NO, the days of colour bar and prejudice weren't so great for my parent and grandparents. So on the whole, I think my children have a better (perhaps) even equal chance of being who/what they want to be, as our US friends would say.

I think it is quite legit for us to point out the impractical extreme of some of diversity mandates in the workplace today. But I sometimes (often) sense that people are suggesting that the whole notion of racial awareness is flawed and that we were all better off before positive discrimination and political correctness. Well for me the answer is NO, the days of colour bar and prejudice weren't so great for my parent and grandparents. So on the whole, I think my children have a better (perhaps) even equal chance of being who/what they want to be, as our US friends would say.

I think it is quite legit for us to point out the impractical extreme of some of diversity mandates in the workplace today. But I sometimes (often) sense that people are suggesting that the whole notion of racial awareness is flawed and that we were all better off before positive discrimination and political correctness. Well for me the answer is NO, the days of colour bar and prejudice weren't so great for my parent and grandparents. So on the whole, I think my children have a better (perhaps) even equal chance of being who/what they want to be, as our US friends would say.

I think it is quite legit for us to point out the impractical extreme of some of diversity mandates in the workplace today. But I sometimes (often) sense that people are suggesting that the whole notion of racial awareness is flawed and that we were all better off before positive discrimination and political correctness. Well for me the answer is NO, the days of colour bar and prejudice weren't so great for my parent and grandparents. So on the whole, I think my children have a better (perhaps) even equal chance of being who/what they want to be, as our US friends would say.

I think it is quite legit for us to point out the impractical extreme of some of diversity mandates in the workplace today. But I sometimes (often) sense that people are suggesting that the whole notion of racial awareness is flawed and that we were all better off before positive discrimination and political correctness. Well for me the answer is NO, the days of colour bar and prejudice weren't so great for my parent and grandparents. So on the whole, I think my children have a better (perhaps) even equal chance of being who/what they want to be, as our US friends would say.

I think it is quite legit for us to point out the impractical extreme of some of diversity mandates in the workplace today. But I sometimes (often) sense that people are suggesting that the whole notion of racial awareness is flawed and that we were all better off before positive discrimination and political correctness. Well for me the answer is NO, the days of colour bar and prejudice weren't so great for my parent and grandparents. So on the whole, I think my children have a better (perhaps) even equal chance of being who/what they want to be, as our US friends would say.

I think it is quite legit for us to point out the impractical extreme of some of diversity mandates in the workplace today. But I sometimes (often) sense that people are suggesting that the whole notion of racial awareness is flawed and that we were all better off before positive discrimination and political correctness. Well for me the answer is NO, the days of colour bar and prejudice weren't so great for my parent and grandparents. So on the whole, I think my children have a better (perhaps) even equal chance of being who/what they want to be, as our US friends would say.

think you all got that.....

We don't ask about sexuality, but given that our approach is to spend a bit more effort on fewer people so we get a lot of info that we don't ever share. Not that we ever get asked.

The idea of favouring "X owned business" is a complete nonsense, and just asking to be abused, and does rather beg the question of why women and not blacks/hispanics/asians/poor people etc.
One of my suppliers in my previous job had a senior member of staff with mental health problems, which we live with...
I ran one of HM Treasury's largest capital projects. As is the way of such things after we got the deal, I was questioned on "ownership" etc.
Was utter bollocks.
We got boxes ticked as a owned by a racial minority. Because, as it happened my boss was chinese, but also one of the richest men in the world. Hardly a target of discrimination, but a strong source since the owning family wer openly racist and a religious bigot. We also were quite possibly the only one with a director who was a Chinese woman on the board.
Not voluntarily because her dad had put her there, and she was much more interested in starting a fashion business, not because she was stupid, indeed was a vastly more intelligent than her brother who was going to inherit the empire, but she just hated computers, a lot.

DC- I am agree that the scenarios that you describe are ridiculous. But you should swap stories with black people from 30 yrs ago. The point is that employment practices haven't ever been perfect for some of us. And as bad as things are (per your anecdotes), some of us think that British society has made enormous progress. Thank goodness but still lots to do.

Tough daddy - I agree with that. I have observed widespread racism and sexism in the City, some of it extremely nasty. I remember one Indian being bullied in a very nasty way, and it had nothing to do with his quality of work. He was a very good lawyer.

You say: "But I sometimes (often) sense that people are suggesting that the whole notion of racial awareness is flawed and that we were all better off before positive discrimination and political correctness".

I agree with that too. I don't agree with the policy that x no. of candidates MUST get in because they are say Indian or Chinese or women.

I do think that ATTITUDES need to be changed in the City and what I say applies equally to women as to ethinic minorities.

DC, loved the idea of women owned businesses getting buyers brownie points as I might get more work as I'm a woman owned business. The amusing example the other week was my client who recruits from India having to sign up to a 40 page diversity policy although that might have been sensible - the client was worried given the treatment of women in India (they kill so many female babies there etc and that's a fact) the people we would provide might have been sexist so we have to go off and indoctrinate them into the 40 page code.

We bitterly needed the Equal pay act - women used to be paid as much as half men were and it was lawful. We really needed the discrimination legislation too. I certainly agree with HD and I think monitoring is good doo. Unless you know who you have working for you you can't even begin to look at whether people are recruiting people like them. I know someone who is gay. His boss is gay and the last 3 peoople they've recruited have all been gay although that's porobably a fairly extreme example but people often hire people like them and might avoid the best candidate may be not that I'm any kind of expert in this. When more than half the cabinet and FTSE 100 boards are female I might be reasonably happy. We seem a long way off that.

Another sweeping statement Xenia. You can't say just because the National Front were working class the rest of the working class comes under the same umbrella!

The national front to me is abhorrent, and to everyone I come into contact with. I have never known anyway who would support, or indeed give the time of day to, a national front supporter.

To say that working class is more racist than middle class because the national front comes from working class is absolutely ridiculous.

saintyellowrose- agreed; i don't know anyone who wants quotas. But all that commentary on quotas and all the stuff about race and gender stuff having gone too far that we see in popular press, to my mind is undermining the main progress. I still see/hear of many women at work putting up with harrassment and some level discrimination/bias but the loudest voices would have us believe that the workplace is full of Queen Boudiccas! And that men are now being discriminated against and all that Daily Mail stuff

I went to HABS for a year....boring boring boring boring. And I'm still in touch with the group of girls I hung out with there. BORING BORING BORING. I also went to very mixed (socioeconomically) state schools in the usa and for 3 years in the middle an experimental private school (we did yoga at recess and didn't get grades). I had a superb education at state schools. I found myself far more advanced both academically and socially than the HABS girls. I went to one of the best universities in the world. I have had a variety of jobs over the years including apprentice car mechanic, laboratory research in a top biotech company, music business exec, and currently I am an architect. I had each and every one of those jobs because I chose them, not because it was the only thing I was able to do.
I want my children to grow up having choices about what they can do in life. AND to go back to the original post, I don't think that planning for that in advance stops them from getting to be kids.
I ended moving back to the USA so that my children could go to our local state school and be in a socioeconomically mixed environment and still get a good education (and I didn't have to pretend to believe in God to make it happen). I am absolutely convinced that I made the right decision. Not only can my 6 year old spell frighten, but his best friends are an autistic boy, a mixed race girl with two dads, another mixed race girl with a dad in his 60's and he has a crush on the whitest blondest girl you have ever seen. He is taught science, art, dance and drama. He takes chess classes and could do just about any sport he wanted (if he wanted). I suspect that whether my children choose to be repairmen or scientists, they will be love what they do (because they got to choose it) and will be interesting to talk to.

Oh and my dh has a strong Northeastern working class accent and my mother has a strong Italian accent and my father has a New York accent and I have an American accent. And my kids have mixed up English/Californian accents.