I ask this out of pure curiosity. Are there any non-white countries that have an affirmative action program in place that would promote/encourage hiring white employees?
This is a very leading question. In the US, affirmative action has nothing to do with a specific race or gender. Hence, in certain circumstances, extra effort has been made to encourage people of all types to apply for schools, jobs, etc.
If it happens in the US, why shouldn’t it happen in a “non-white” country???
Who would need it? Affirmative action is intended to make up for a situation in which one racial or ethnic group was discriminated against by another that controlled the country they both lived in. Zimbabwe is probably the only nation in the world where whites are being persucted by non-whites, and until the 1970s it was the reverse.
That said, there are many nations in the world where ethnic minorities are only now being given “a slice of the pie” by the majority. So it’s not just Europeans vs. Africans.
Yes, there is. For more details, you could read Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study by Thomas Sowell. (I haven’t read it, but according to the blurb at Amazon.com, he discusses affirmative action in India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Nigeria.)
Sorry, I read your post too quickly, and didn’t see that you wanted to know of programs that promote hiring white people. I doubt that’s the case for any of the countries I mentioned. Most likely, they promote the hiring of minorities that have a history of being discriminated against (the untouchable class in India, for instance).
Pretty sure there’s affirmative action in the world’s biggest democracy, India, to help Dalits (aka ‘untouchables’). Of course, Indians are Caucausians, only not very pale ones.
I believe China gives some preferences for the 50 something odd minority groups. Russians constitute one of those minority groups. So yes its possible that if you are a Chinese indigenous Russian you might find a way to get into a better Chineses college easier. I have no idea about employment though.
I don’t understand what you are claiming. If “all types” of people are equally encouraged to apply for a school or job, why does the government need to be involved? And a significant part of affirmative action involves using race/gender/whatever as a hiring or admissions factor, not just a reason to encourage someone to apply.
I’m afraid you have some extremely mistaken notions about what AA is and how it works in the US.
This is neither the thread or forum to correct them. I’ll just leave it at that.
Oh, brother. I’ll just leave it at that.
I’m sorry, I was under the impression that - whatever your views on it - affirmative action was a euphemism for ensuring that minorities were over-represented in hiring practices, that an employer must give biased (wish i could think of a less leading word for it) consideration to minority candidates. As I understand it there are in fact targets and quota systems.
I’m not saying this is or isn’t justified but is someone saying this isn’t what affirmative action is??
Dan
Quotas or “targets” are in fact illegal; affirmative action doesn’t require or even allow the use of quotas to guide hiring.
The ‘bias’ given to minority candidates is probably a reasonable way to look at it; in the system that the University of Michigan used to employ in admitting undergraduates (until a court decision mandated a change) students were admitted if they accumulated enough points, which were given for things like grades, test scores, other ‘achievement’-type metrics, and things like being a legacy student or a minority. So being a minority student did in fact bias the selection in your favor.
However, quotas, reserving a certain number of slots for minorities, are basically a straw man used in attacking affirmative action. It may have been the case that they were used originally - I don’t know the history of the practice - but they haven’t been for quite some time.