Poll The 'Rooney Rule'/positive discrimination

[MC Golgotha]

It isn't discriminatory. The rule is there to ensure black (or any minority for that matter) candidates actually get interviews. It doesn't say they get interviews at the cost of someone else, and it doesn't say there are employment quotas.

The situation in Britain right now is there are very few black managers, and black candidates for jobs, some of them who have played at the highest level, claim they are not even being granted interviews. The situation was the same in America years ago. The rule encouraged organisations to include black candidates in their searches for coaches. Nobody else was left out of that process as a result. What did happen is more organisations hired black coaches, which was almost unheard of at the time. Six black coaches in the entire history of the league before Rooney, thirteen since. Given the rule makes no provision for hiring, just for interviewing, are we to believe there was a sudden exponential increase in suitable black candidates who hadn't existed before, or did clubs suddenly find themselves faced with a larger pool of candidates than before as the interviewing process had previously taken place through the old boys' network?

The aim of such rules is to acclimatise the football culture to the idea of black managers - an idea which, at the very least, some reasonable but hypothetical people apparently find difficult to accept. Nobody is going to lose their job because of it. Nobody is even going to lose an opportunity to get themselves a job. All that will happen is there will be regulated and bigger shortlists.

The rule doesn't even get in the way of the bootroom illusion - even in the NFL, if a member of the coaching staff is being formally groomed for the head coach position, then the Rooney Rule doesn't come into effect.

Your opposition to it is entirely hypothetical. What if there is a rise in contempt for black people in high positions? Jesus, anyone who would have contempt for black people in high positions is going to have contempt because they're black, not because someone was handed an interview they otherwise wouldn't have got. That's just dressing up prejudice. The principle of talent is still as absolute as it ever has been (which, in the world of football management, I would say isn't particularly absolute given the endless opportunities handed to managers who leave a trail of failure in their wake).

There is a wealth of evidence from the American situation to suggest positive effects at no cost. Given the testimonies of black candidates in this country, there is at least a perception that not enough is being done to include minority candidates in recruitment processes. How else do we explain willing black candidates not even being able to get their foot on the bottom coaching rung, whilst countless white managers with at best sketchy track records continue to find gainful (and ultimately unsuccessful) employment? It is not a baseless assumption that football has a race problem. It's manifest from behaviour witnessed on the terraces and on the pitches, and even if we characterise the harmony between both the statistical reality and the testimonies of potential black coaches as nothing more than circumstantial, it is enough to at least look into the possibility that something needs to be done.

 

[peterhague]

It isn't discriminatory. The rule is there to ensure black (or any minority for that matter) candidates actually get interviews. It doesn't say they get interviews at the cost of someone else, and it doesn't say there are employment quotas.

The situation in Britain right now is there are very few black managers, and black candidates for jobs, some of them who have played at the highest level, claim they are not even being granted interviews. The situation was the same in America years ago. The rule encouraged organisations to include black candidates in their searches for coaches. Nobody else was left out of that process as a result. What did happen is more organisations hired black coaches, which was almost unheard of at the time. Six black coaches in the entire history of the league before Rooney, thirteen since. Given the rule makes no provision for hiring, just for interviewing, are we to believe there was a sudden exponential increase in suitable black candidates who hadn't existed before, or did clubs suddenly find themselves faced with a larger pool of candidates than before as the interviewing process had previously taken place through the old boys' network?

The aim of such rules is to acclimatise the football culture to the idea of black managers - an idea which, at the very least, some reasonable but hypothetical people apparently find difficult to accept. Nobody is going to lose their job because of it. Nobody is even going to lose an opportunity to get themselves a job. All that will happen is there will be regulated and bigger shortlists.

The rule doesn't even get in the way of the bootroom illusion - even in the NFL, if a member of the coaching staff is being formally groomed for the head coach position, then the Rooney Rule doesn't come into effect.

Your opposition to it is entirely hypothetical. What if there is a rise in contempt for black people in high positions? Jesus, anyone who would have contempt for black people in high positions is going to have contempt because they're black, not because someone was handed an interview they otherwise wouldn't have got. That's just dressing up prejudice. The principle of talent is still as absolute as it ever has been (which, in the world of football management, I would say isn't particularly absolute given the endless opportunities handed to managers who leave a trail of failure in their wake).

There is a wealth of evidence from the American situation to suggest positive effects at no cost. Given the testimonies of black candidates in this country, there is at least a perception that not enough is being done to include minority candidates in recruitment processes. How else do we explain willing black candidates not even being able to get their foot on the bottom coaching rung, whilst countless white managers with at best sketchy track records continue to find gainful (and ultimately unsuccessful) employment? It is not a baseless assumption that football has a race problem. It's manifest from behaviour witnessed on the terraces and on the pitches, and even if we characterise the harmony between both the statistical reality and the testimonies of potential black coaches as nothing more than circumstantial, it is enough to at least look into the possibility that something needs to be done.

Its stated purpose is to treat blacks and whites differently but it's not discriminatory?

What?

 

[MC Golgotha]

No, its stated purpose is that blacks should be treated the same as whites, which they hadn't been up until then.

 

[peterhague]

No it's not. Its stated purpose is that blacks and whites should have the same outcomes, and its method is to treat them differently.

That. Is. Discrimination.

 

[singlerider]

I think the general argument against any sort of affirmative action - that it's anti-equality because it means that people are chosen purely on the basis of skin colour or gender etc, rather than being based upon the most suitable person for the job - relies on the assumption that people are being treated equally as things stand, and it therefore unfairly favours less qualified or less competent people.

However, this patently isn't the case. Every society on the planet is inherently racist. We as a species are by and large still extremely patriarchal and biased against women.

Peter has asked for evidence, and it really wouldn't take much effort to drag up hordes of it demonstrably proving that potential applicants with 'black' names are less likely to be invited for interview, or that (despite Equal Pay legislation) women in the same positions will still be paid significantly less, but then everyone would bitch and moan about "who wants to read all that?"

I mean, c'mon - does anyone really think we aren't racist, sexist and everything else-ist?

Affirmative action isn't being unfair or anti-equality, it's trying to create a level playing field on what's currently a huge slope. Anyone that can't see that is either lying to themselves or is very naive

 

[MC Golgotha]

So its stated purpose is explicitly anti-discriminatory, but its method is discriminatory?

I guess I can go along with that, mostly because any such "discrimination" on the rule's part is entirely harmless.

You're using the word discrimination as though in and of itself it is a reason not to have the rule. But discrimination is bad only when it is prejudicial. The Rooney Rule is not. No individual is discriminated against. If you're not black, but were a legitimate candidate for the job, then you still will be. The only cost to you is an increase in competition and the possibility of a more talented individual, who historically had been denied an interview, actually getting the job. How is that bad?

People discriminate in non-prejudicial ways all the time. We like to think of ourselves as discriminating. Just saying something is discrimination isn't a sound rebuttal against it. Assumptions, hypotheticals, discriminations. We'll get to a salient point eventually.

 

[MC Golgotha]

Peter has asked for evidence, and it really wouldn't take much effort to drag up hordes of it demonstrably proving that potential applicants with 'black' names are less likely to be invited for interview, or that (despite Equal Pay legislation) women in the same positions will still be paid significantly less, but then everyone would bitch and moan about "who wants to read all that?"

To be fair now, I think any reasonably-minded but imaginary assumptions off the top of your head would suffice. For illustrative purposes. We don't need to go boring people with facts.

 

[peterhague]

Oh great, double teamed by the two most pompous and verbose posters on the site.

This should be snappy.

 

[Mamma Mia]

If you are feeling a little embarrassed for peterhague, like this post.

 

[Athens]

If you are feeling a little embarrassed for peterhague, like this post.

I can't feel embarrassed for someone on a forum, although I understand your point.

 

[singlerider]

If you are feeling a little embarrassed for peterhague, like this post.

It would only make him feel validated . . .

And anyway Peter, I prefer 'grandiloquent' to verbose, thank you very much

 

[Judge Jules]

I think the general argument against any sort of affirmative action - that it's anti-equality because it means that people are chosen purely on the basis of skin colour or gender etc, rather than being based upon the most suitable person for the job - relies on the assumption that people are being treated equally as things stand, and it therefore unfairly favours less qualified or less competent people.

However, this patently isn't the case. Every society on the planet is inherently racist. We as a species are by and large still extremely patriarchal and biased against women.

Peter has asked for evidence, and it really wouldn't take much effort to drag up hordes of it demonstrably proving that potential applicants with 'black' names are less likely to be invited for interview, or that (despite Equal Pay legislation) women in the same positions will still be paid significantly less, but then everyone would bitch and moan about "who wants to read all that?"

I mean, c'mon - does anyone really think we aren't racist, sexist and everything else-ist?

Affirmative action isn't being unfair or anti-equality, it's trying to create a level playing field on what's currently a huge slope. Anyone that can't see that is either lying to themselves or is very naive

That may be its purpose, but too often that won't be its effect. Your highlighted assumption above is just wrong - the argument relies on no such thing. It relies on the far more basic point that, if you start excusing one instance of colour/sex discrimination on the grounds that its purpose is acceptable, you destroy your own case against the rest of it, because those who perpetrate that will ask "Who the f'ck are you to decide when this is acceptable and when it isn't?" and neither you, nor MC Golgotha, nor those who have liked your posts will have a satisfactory answer.

 

[FreshRed]

Quite enjoyed catching up on this topic. Appreciate the discussion from MC and Judge and Peter. It is an important topic and I have also seen the positive effects of the Rooney Rule over here.

It had the same controversy as discussed here when implemented, but has worked well. And, by worked well, I do not mean just the hiring of more black coaches, but hiring coaches that then take their teams to the Super Bowl (and they happen to be black).

As Judge was saying, it is not about equality of outcomes, it is about trying to create a semblance of equality of opportunity and, to be fair, it does not even come close to that. Providing an interview to someone of color is a very small step in the right direction.

I mean it is hard to believe that Crystal Palace can't find someone better than Neil Warnock isn't it?!

 

[MC Golgotha]

 

[singlerider]

That may be its purpose, but too often that won't be its effect. Your highlighted assumption above is just wrong - the argument relies on no such thing. It relies on the far more basic point that, if you start excusing one instance of colour/sex discrimination on the grounds that its purpose is acceptable, you destroy your own case against the rest of it, because those who perpetrate that will ask "Who the f'ck are you to decide when this is acceptable and when it isn't?" and neither you, nor MC Golgotha, nor those who have liked your posts will have a satisfactory answer.

But even this post demonstrates that you view it as being discriminatory; that it is discriminating towards a group of people based upon their race/gender etc, and that it is being 'excused' - rather than seeing it as something that recognises the fact that there is discrimination against these people, and therefore it is an attempt to redress the balance by ensuring that organisations are forced to tackle the inherent discrimination that already exists

 

[peterhague]

Rotherham sex abuse scandal: we cannot ignore that race played a part in these crimes
By Dan Hodges Society Last updated: August 27th, 2014
Comment on this
The abuse experienced by the children of Rotherham is beyond belief. Sexual abuse. Physical abuse. Psychological abuse. It is all laid out in brutal detail in the report by Alexis Jay.
But one equally vicious aspect of the assaults on these children is identified in a less explicit way. And that is the manner in which the vast majority of the Rotherham victims were also racially abused.
Ever since the first reports, and subsequent convictions, of so called “Asian grooming gangs” began to appear, a debate has opened up about how to confront the racial element of these crimes. It was inappropriate, many people argued, to explicitly describe them as “Asian” or “Muslim” gangs at all. Others said to even touch on the race of the perpetrators, or the victims, was to itself pander to racism. When I first heard the reports, I sympathised with this argument.
I was wrong. There is no longer any debate about what happened in Rotherham. A major British town was turned into a rape camp. The overwhelming majority of the abusers were Asian men, primarily of Pakistani descent. And their victims were overwhelmingly white girls.
The section of Jay's report dealing with the victims of the crimes is unequivocal: “In a large number of the historic cases in particular, most of the victims in the cases we sampled were white British children, and the majority of the perpetrators were from minority ethnic communities. They were described generically in the files as ‘Asian males’ without precise reference being made to their ethnicity.”
In the section that deals specifically with what Jay euphemistically calls “issues of ethnicity”, the report tortuously expands on this. It says, accurately, “there is no simple link between race and child sexual exploitation, and across the UK the greatest numbers of perpetrators of CSE are white men”. But it then goes on to demonstrate that in Rotherham there was indeed a clear link between race and abuse.
The 2011 census in Rotherham showed that 3.1 per cent of the population of the Borough were of Pakistani or Kashmiri ethnicity. Yet as Jay states, “In Rotherham, the majority of known perpetrators were of Pakistani heritage including the five men convicted in 2010. The file reading carried out by the Inquiry also confirmed that the ethnic origin of many perpetrators was ‘Asian’.” This is despite the fact that, as Jay underlines, the perpetrators of crimes of this nature normally select victims of the same ethnic origin. In Rotherham the opposite occurred. Pakistani men targeted white girls so that they could rape them.
But race did not just provide a motivational element in these horrific crimes. It was also a major contributing factor in the perpetrators' ability to get away with their abuse on such a scale for such a long period of time.
The evidence is again damning. As Jay recounts, the abuse was organised in such a way that “it offered career and financial opportunities to young Asian men who got involved”. Yet time and again the racial element of their crimes directly or indirectly obstructed efforts to prevent them.
Local councillors admitted they “believed that by opening up these issues they could be 'giving oxygen' to racist perspectives that might in turn attract extremist political groups and threaten community cohesion”. Local youngsters confirmed to the Jay inquiry what had been reported to a previous inquiry, namely that ”young people in Rotherham believed at that time that the Police dared not act against Asian youths for fear of allegations of racism”. Several people interviewed by Jay “expressed the general view that ethnic considerations had influenced the policy response of the Council and the Police”. Jay herself states that “messages conveyed by some senior people in the Council and also the Police, were to 'downplay' the ethnic dimensions of child sex exploitation”. Although the report claims not to have found evidence of direct influence on individual cases, it then adds “Unsurprisingly, front line staff appeared to be confused as to what they were supposed to say and do and what would be interpreted as 'racist'.”
When I first saw the headline findings of the report my reaction was almost identical to the findings of the report into the Jimmy Savile abuses. How could crimes that vile have been committed over such an extended period?
The answer to that question is the same in both the Rotherham and Savile cases. The attackers had a cloak. Savile’s was fame. In Rotherham it was race.
I understand why people want to downplay the racial element of this case. That was my own initial reaction.
But consider this. Imagine if it came to light that in another region of the country, organised gangs of white men had been systematically engaging in the rape and abuse of black children. The local white community knew about it, but shielded the crimes behind a wall of silence. Officers in the local authority were aware of it, but were told by their political masters to keep quiet about the racial element of the crime for fear of offending their local constituency. Police officers who attempted to investigate where specifically warned by their superiors to ignore any racial aspect to the offences.
There would be a national outcry. The racism inherent in those crimes would not be pushed to the margins, but to the forefront of our enraged response. There would be a full public inquiry, along the lines of Lawrence. And that reaction would be wholly appropriate.
We cannot just ignore racism because it doesn’t fit a neat binary perception of the victim being black and the perpetrator being white. When a Pakistani man calls a white child a “white bitch” because she tries to stop him raping her, that isn’t just horrific sexual abuse, it’s also horrific racial abuse.
Those who tried to cover up the racial aspect of these crimes did so because they feared giving “oxygen” to racists. But what kind of perversion is that? You counter racism by covering up racism?
For those who endured the abuse, the racial origin of their attacker will seem irrelevant. But as we’ve seen, it wasn’t irrelevant because it was their racial origin that contributed to the abuse continuing unchecked for so long. That’s why we must never again allow a situation to develop where racism is allowed to flourish simply because it challenges our conventional belief of what racism is.
The children of Rotherham were abused racially, as well as sexually, physically and psychologically. We don’t just have a right to say that, we have an obligation.

 

[peterhague]

If you are feeling a little embarrassed for peterhague, like this post.

I've long thought you were a pretentious and conceited cunt, but never really had enough of a reason to say it.

So cheers.

 

[singlerider]

What the fuck has that article got to do with this peter?

 

[peterhague]

Everything.

 

[singlerider]

Ha, okay, you dick

 

[Athens]

Ha, okay, you dick

Positive discrimination leads to white girls being raped.

 

[peterhague]

Bad, politically correct, principle, despite "good" intentions, leads to bad, unpredictable, outcome.

That's the relevance, as you know.

 

[peterhague]

Positive discrimination leads to white girls being raped.

Literally true in the Rotherham case.

 

[Athens]

Literally true in the Rotherham case.

I don't think they're the same though.

 

[singlerider]

Yes, the good intentions of turning a blind eye to rape (which the police do all the fucking time anyway, regardless of whether the assailants are white/black/Asian or whatever) lead to the completely unpredictable outcome of girls being raped.

That's *exactly* the same as trying to ensure that recruitment processes offer the same opportunity to equally competent people that happen to be black/women/whatever.

You dick

*ruffles peter's hair*

 

[peterhague]

I don't think they're the same though.

Of course they're not the same, but the evidence of the case is remarkably clear in showing the sort of terrible unintended consequences "well intended" (IMO more likely to be self-serving and sanctimonious) intervention can have. Several people have spoken of their fear of speaking out for fear of being branded racist.

Clearly nothing so dire could be expected to come of a Rooney type rule, but on the other hand to glibly and smugly declare it to be costless is IMO irresponsible and selfish.

 

[peterhague]

Yes, the good intentions of turning a blind eye to rape (which the police do all the fucking time anyway, regardless of whether the assailants are white/black/Asian or whatever) lead to the completely unpredictable outcome of girls being raped.

That's *exactly* the same as trying to ensure that recruitment processes offer the same opportunity to equally competent people that happen to be black/women/whatever.

You dick

*ruffles peter's hair*

LOL ok ignore the point if you want you fucking cretin.

 

[Athens]

Of course they're not the same, but the evidence of the case is remarkably clear in showing the sort of terrible unintended consequences "well intended" (IMO more likely to be self-serving and sanctimonious) intervention can have. Several people have spoken of their fear of speaking out for fear of being branded racist.

Clearly nothing so dire could be expected to come of a Rooney type rule, but on the other hand to glibly and smugly declare it to be costless is IMO irresponsible and selfish.

Well I've seen what positive discrimination can do. The police force in N.I. now represents the population as a whole instead of being 90% from one community.

So far there hasn't been sectarian rape gangs operating in Belfast, as far as I know.

 

[Judge Jules]

But even this post demonstrates that you view it as being discriminatory; that it is discriminating towards a group of people based upon their race/gender etc, and that it is being 'excused' - rather than seeing it as something that recognises the fact that there is discrimination against these people, and therefore it is an attempt to redress the balance by ensuring that organisations are forced to tackle the inherent discrimination that already exists

Well, I've read both your posts and Golgotha's carefully and you both seem to me to be doing precisely what you describe at the beginning of this post, namely excusing the discrimination inherent in affirmative action for the sake of the greater good.

Overall, with respect, your post posits a false distinction. Affirmative action is *both* an attempt to redress the balance *and* discriminatory in its own right, and I maintain for the reasons given above that the latter puts it out of court.

 

[Judge Jules]

Well I've seen what positive discrimination can do. The police force in N.I. now represents the population as a whole instead of being 90% from one community.

So far there hasn't been sectarian rape gangs operating in Belfast, as far as I know.

Genuine questions: do we know for certain that this is due to positive discrimination/affirmative action being applied to police recruitment, how was it implemented and what percentage of the Police Force of NI is now Catholic?