Ethnic minorities...

[PatricksRum]

Do you answer monitoring questions e.g. What is your ethnicity?

It still makes me feel very uncomfortable and I refuse to provide an answer as I probably will be treated differently.

YABU - I answer
YANBU - I also refuse

I always answer diversity questions. It’s much harder to tackle a problem if you don’t have data on it existing.

OFRS is an Oh Fuck Rucksack

Wary is understandable if you know that Black women are 4 times more likely to die in childbirth, and Asian ethnic women are 2 times more likely to die in childbirth compared to white women, stats from the MBRRACE report here
www.rcog.org.uk/en/news/mbrrace-uk-report-response/

It doesn't take a genius to draw a line between maternal deaths disparity and the over representation of deaths in the same groups from covid.

Patrick I hear you.

@MrsNeilGaiman

I do, even though I know I won't be.

I'm an immigrant and Polish ancestry but a 'perfect' accent so no one knows. Which means people say a lot about Polish people in front of me

I get this too.

Please please please answer the monitoring questions. They're the only way for organisations to be able to measure whether they're systematically discriminating against people on the basis of protected characteristics in hiring, promotional or performance decisions. If you don't answer the questions there's no data, so no evidenced problem.

Flibberty - don't we only know those stats (so can only act on them) because data on ethnicity is collected? I'm not clear on your point?

@Zarene

I'd feel quite uncomfortable with hearing some off that *@SometimesRavenSometimesParrot*.

The 'people who have paid for today...' stuff would make me feel patronised and as if I'm supposed to be grateful.

The 'I can signpost you to the local Arabic Center' thing would get my back up because it assumes that with an Arabic background I want support that focuses on my ethnicity not anything else about me.

I do totally get that you have good intentions. But it may not be heard that way, which is why people are sometimes wary of disclosing.

It’s obviously said in a nicer, more appropriate way @Zarene. ‘The people who’ve helped us to provide you with the event today’ or ‘as you know today was part of national X day and the people at national X would love to know a bit more about the people they’ve helped today’

I can assure you the support we provide is NOT wholly focused on ethnicity, but where there are supplementary, high quality activities we’re made aware of, having data the data to send them out as a supplementary activity is a fantastic opportunity for the students I work with. The take up rates tell us that broadly students are happy to have that additional tailored support - who can often provide things that aren’t in my remit. For example the Arabic centre mentoring I’ve picked as an example, that’s strong community leaders offering young people support with their employability and enterprise activities. This isn’t something I can offer within my programmes.

Ultimately we help about 35k young people a year, both in terms of activity, 1-2-1 support and financial support. If we don’t get the data to evidence what we do, this will be pulled back and less people will benefit. I imagine this is the case with anything charity based or NGO too.

I understand the worry some people might have about being discriminated against (my family is Irish and my grandfather tried to find work in England during the no dogs, no blacks, no Irish period…) but equally if we don’t have data, we can’t understand underrepresentation or the impacts or that and it will continue to happen.

The vaccine example above thread is a good example…vital resources could be going on trying to sort vaccine take up in an ethnic group, when actually this group has good take up but there is a trend within the group not to disclose.

That's really not how this wprks amd positive discriminate is NOT permitted outside of specific circumstances such as genuine occupational requirement
My SIL recently conducted interviews at work and her boss told her “don’t hire a white person even if they’re the best candidate, we need more ethnic minorities to hit our targets”. And I was once turned down for a job because “you’re too local and it doesn’t fit with the multicultural image we want to project going forward”. Another interviewer told me “we already employ enough people who look like you”. So regardless of whether it’s legal, it does happen.

@Paulinna

That's really not how this wprks amd positive discriminate is NOT permitted outside of specific circumstances such as genuine occupational requirement My SIL recently conducted interviews at work and her boss told her “don’t hire a white person even if they’re the best candidate, we need more ethnic minorities to hit our targets”. And I was once turned down for a job because “you’re too local and it doesn’t fit with the multicultural image we want to project going forward”. Another interviewer told me “we already employ enough people who look like you”. So regardless of whether it’s legal, it does happen.

That's just a pure and simple discrimination and she should be saying no. IF they can really show they have big imbalance and get equal candidates they can apply s158. But no, you can't just "not hire the white one even if they are best" and unless people start reporting shit like this, discrimination won't get any better. I hope you rrported the interviewer

That's just a pure and simple discrimination and she should be saying no

How can you say no to your manager who is adamant to meet certain quotas? It's not realistic at all

@mustlovegin

That's just a pure and simple discrimination and she should be saying no

How can you say no to your manager who is adamant to meet certain quotas? It's not realistic at all

Would you say the same if they said "no ethnic minorities"? Discrimination is not ok no matter what skin colour/sex/disability and people should be challenging it or reporting it.

Schrodingers what would happen also if there were two equally capable candidates but there was a quota to be filled?

Discrimination is not ok

I agree, discrimination in either direction is not ok, and hence many people prefer not to tick any boxes

I do answer but then I'm white British so know I'm not going to be discriminated against.

I understand it's difficult for you, but equally, if people of other ethnicities refuse to answer monitoring questions, how do companies know what needs to change for them to feel equal?

I always put Mixed - other, as I have a small amount of Romany ancestry. If there is an option to mention Romany, then I do. Nobody would ever know unless I told them, to anyone looking at me I'm just a middle age white female, but I am not completely White British and I don't want to say that I am.

My DP is never completely sure what to put. He is Indo-Jamaican, so often puts Caribbean as he is Caribbean, but that comes under the Black or Black British section and he isn't black so it doesn't seem completely correct. On the other hand, he doesn't feel overly comfortable ticking Indian as he doesn't feel particularly Indian or Asian.

I think it is helpful for organisations to know what the spread of their applicants and employees are. It’s helpful to be able to see if ethnic minorities are being fairly rewarded/promoted/hired. How will organisations be able to do this if they can’t collect the data?

I am part of an ethnic minority and always fill in this part.

I always answer monitoring questions on ethnicity, age, income, education level, house type etc. but I rarely answer truthfully. If the data collected is used in a non-discriminatory way then it doesn't matter. If it is used for discrimination (positive or negative) or for self-congratulation then I am happy to contribute to the errors in your data.

I'm Hungarian but have a British passport and because DH is British I always tick "White British" for me & kids.
I'm pretty sure it is my legal right to do so but mainly I just can't be bothered with nitpicking.

Also I don't even know if "Hungarian" counts as ethnicity.

@Brainwave89

Yes I fill in the form. Most serious organisations are interested in reaching all areas of society be that by gender, race, class or sexuality. Collecting appropriate data demonstrates issues which need addressing. For example, black and asian people generally are not using national parks- work is ongoing to address this. Women do not cycle as much as men- a strategy to address issues for women are being developed. It is the accountant in me I know, but without data, these issues cannot be identified and addressed.

I agree with this- also work in a profession where i wish we had more data on how different groups use services/spaces in order to help address inequalities and assumptions about behaviour that might exclude some. I believe invisibility doesn't help and not providing the data only adds to "invisibility"

However, having said that, I am white and so if an ethnic minority says they would rather not tick the box, I will respect that

@mustlovegin

Schrodingers what would happen also if there were two equally capable candidates but there was a quota to be filled?

We don't have quotas in UK

That said, you can have a kind of a "target" to make represetation better and more on par with population, but you can't just fill it willy nilly. So if you get two final equal candidates (very hard to do but if yes) then you can apply s158 EA - a tie breaker when you can give preference to the person from underrepresented group. You msut be able to show that the group was underrepresentation etc.
It's rare to use it, police force applied it wrongly once, not much data on it. Assumably because it is actually really hard to get two candidates of equal merit.

I refuse to answer because I can’t see any reason for doing so.

We have forms asking our patients this at work and they all complain about it, some refuse to fill in the whole form because of it.

Assumably because it is actually really hard to get two candidates of equal merit

It's all very subjective and easily manipulated, even more so when companies bend over backwards to prove that they actively support diversity and inclusivity.

Take advertising, or the media, for instance. Can you honestly believe that positive discrimination is not happening? That's why some may be reticent to provide any details.

We don't have quotas in UK
We don’t have formal quotas. But we do have companies saying “we’re too white/male/straight and it doesn’t look good, we need to appear more diverse”. For example www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jul/23/top-ad-men-who-feared-obliteration-win-sex-discrimination-claim

You can't manipulate data that easily. It's not that "he said we need more x". It has to be supported by actual data otherwise the firm is opening itself up to lawsuits.
But then, when people don't report discrimination, we can't be surprised some companies may be happily doing it...
And of course discrimination happen. I mean there is a case about why guy being discriminated against for being a white, straight guy. I don't know ehere you got me saying it doesn't happen from. What I was saying is that it's not legal or permitted.