AIBU to be stuck on the fence re BAME shortlists

[HubertHerbert]

I thought it sounded like a great idea. And then when I see how unpopular it appears and how reasonable some of the criticisms are...

Are there any better ideas to make parliaments/political parties more representative?

Poll - yes - BAME shortlists are a good idea

No - they're not

I absolutely agree there needs to be more representation. I hate this new sociological idea of lumping people together under umbrella terms like BAME and LGTBQetc then giving them 'special platforms' or making people 'required targets'. It's stinks of positive discrimination whilst still 'othering'.

Unhelpfully, I dont have any other solution though.

I don’t like women-only or BAME-only or ‘anything’ only shortlists. It’s my opinion that the electorate should expect nothing more or less than to be offered the choice of the most able willing people. If they’re all black people, I’m fine with that. If they’re all female, I’m fine with that. I just want them to be the very best.

Sorry to be a PITA, but there is no YES or NO, there is YABU and YANBU which don't clearly correlate to yes or no especially when your OP isn't putting a strong argument either way.

I agree that umbrella terms such as BAME are incredibly unhelpful in terms of just lumping in anyone isn't white. In addition to that not all people from the same racial group have similar political outlooks. The tories do very well in this regard.

@Pinkdelight3

Sorry to be a PITA, but there is no YES or NO, there is YABU and YANBU which don't clearly correlate to yes or no especially when your OP isn't putting a strong argument either way.

Yes, I'm confused by that too.

I don’t like women-only or BAME-only or ‘anything’ only shortlists. It’s my opinion that the electorate should expect nothing more or less than to be offered the choice of the most able willing people. If they’re all black people, I’m fine with that. If they’re all female, I’m fine with that. I just want them to be the very best.

Except they're mainly white, and not the very best.

They’re necessary. Until all companies have the resources to recruit in a way that defeats unconscious bias - ie candidates answer several skills based questions anon and CV a are then looked at..
the old system isn’t working. Even an attempt to be conscious that white, middle class males are favoured over everyone else does t work.
So for now, yes we do need to actively recruit BAME and LGBTQ etc.

We need a parliament that represents the people. Of course we need stronger representation from minorities and that include working class white people as well as Bame, Women and - we all need a diverse voice but they need to be an excellent candidate too.
We currently have an ethnic minority MP and he is absolutely useless as a local MP - he is only interested in his career and promotion within the party and is absolutely loyal to all they do (badly). And when he receives criticism from his constituents he writes articles in the Daily Mail about how racist we all are because we think he's crap and doesn't represent his constituents.

Except they're mainly white, and not the very best.

I have no issue with all-white shortlists either. I do have an issue with fixed shortlists, in favour of any group.

Yes, recruit on merit would be best. It's been shown over and over again that that just does not happen

I work on university collaborative projects and recently I was horrified that , in a room of around 60 blokes, I could accurately predict which university any one belonged to by their racial appearance. The whole room was very diverse, much beyond the natural uk diversity. But each university group was distinctly not diverse

I don’t agree with shortlists based on sex or race. It’s racist/sexist to say “no whites” or “no men” because that’s what these shortlists are. I also find it insulting as an Asian woman the idea that I can’t compete on my own merits for a position because if I did a white or white man would beat me. I’ve also faced accusations of only getting a position because I was female and a minority. I have actually heard people comment “well you are two ticks off the diversity checklist so no wonder you were selected”. And when direct reports think you didn’t get your position over them by merit, it makes leadership and management that much harder. Not to mention imposter syndrome because I’ve wondered at times when feeling challenged why did I get promotion? Was it because of my sex and race? Or because I worked hard, am good at my job and earned it?
It sounds nice in theory to just equalise things by barring whites and white men, but in practice it’s been nothing but damage from my perspective.

I think people sometimes forget that only about 12-13% of people in the UK are not white British. An all-white shortlist in Harlesden would shock me. An all-white list in Bristol wouldn’t.

I agree with theyouttheresayin that current recruitment practices are unfair and need to be changed.
I have seen the wrong person get the job so many times, because it’s all on can you talk the talk instead of can you walk the walk.

Scoring people on how well they Answer questions about a job favours people who have the same cultural background.

If you actually observe someone doing a task you might get a better idea of their competence level.

If it’s all on the way they communicate being in tune with you, you’re not always going to get the best person for the job.

I would rather more time and money was spend trying to level the playing field before candidates are being recruited for jobs.

For example, money allocated to improve educational attainment for groups who are disadvantaged and tend to under perform, better support packages and recruitment to top universities, mentoring schemes and work experience to target groups that are under represented and so on, so that by the time candidates are applying for a job the gap has been narrowed.

It’s racist/sexist to say “no whites” or “no men” because that’s what these shortlists are But the default is that people show biased towards white men and there is no evidence that they are overwhelmingly better at the job - they just look like what we think someone doing the job should look like.

Best people for the job. It should be as simple as that really. Moving away from that means sub standard service on every level.

Best people for the job. It should be as simple as that really. It should be but that's not as simple as it sounds.

YABU vs YANBU is a perfectly clear choice. The question is:

AIBU to be stuck on the fence re BAME shortlists?

YANBU therefore means it is fine to be on the fence. YABU means it is better to have a polarised opinion (either strongly for or strongly against).

On this basis, YANBU. There are pros and cons.

I'm Asian and realised I was earning 20% less than white colleagues in the same role. It took #BLM for my workplace to pay me the same same as my white colleagues, and I'm damn good at my job.

Every promotion I've ever had I've had to fight for, by setting out the case for it and benchmarking against others, whereas white colleagues didn't have to do this. It took #BLM for us BAME colleagues to realise this is endemic, but steps are being taken to change this.

It's just not the case that the best people get the jobs. That's a useful phrase for people who want to maintain the status quo.

I’m a bit torn. Quotas are an interest concept. I remember there was an uproar a few months ago because there are only 2 black county cricket coaches of 118. In absolute terms 2/118 sounds terrible but adding just two more coaches would see black coaches over represented vs the 3% of the U.K. population who is black.

However I work in a very white, overwhelmingly male field and it is a battle to get balanced CV shortlists. You really have to prod recruiters to search out (usually extremely qualified) women when zero female CVS have been put forward, whereas men tend to apply even if their experience is adjacent/indirect. For that reason I support balanced shortlists because I know from experience that a lack of effort (rather than discrimination) is often responsible for white, male and stale candidate lists.

I agree @jcurve . Years of being sidelined in favour of white colleagues has taken its toll on my confidence and I have to continually convince myself that I am as good as, if not better than similarly skilled white colleagues.

That's a useful phrase for people who want to maintain the status quo.

It is. But it’s also the truth for people who just want the best people.

It is. But it’s also the truth for people who just want the best people.

It's not always the truth, if in practice it means the best white people get the jobs.

If you want the best people, if you are pretty well split in sex , disability, sexuality , religion etc according to uk demographics, great, you may well have the best

Otherwise you need to find a way to do blind recruitment

Or you need some other way to overcome your recruitment biases

i absolutely understand that most people would like to see the best person get the job.unfortunately, and especially when it comes to politics, we see to always end up with an incompetent person from oxbridge.

And thats the problem with the notion of the best and person - who's best, according to whose criteria and in the name of whom. Also, the best assumes that only the top is good enough but most people are average at best and actually need someone who is good enough rather than the best. Equally nowadays with automation the more prescient question is the best or a person? The best will increasing mean a computer....is that really what we want?