In the US, at least in my experience, questionnaires sent out when you’ve only applied for a job are used for the company to be able to determine/prove that they are not being prejudicial in hiring. For instance, a company with few black employees could potentially show that they have had very few black people apply, should this become an issue. So writing “human” on those reduces their apparent number of [your ethnicity] interviewed.
Tick all that apply
[X]I am from a Protestant background
[X]I am from a Catholic background
I am from neither a Protestant nor a Catholic background
Now we get to the ethnicity part:
Tick all that apply
White
Black African
Black Other
Asian
South East Asian
Irish Traveller
Mixed race___________________
[X]Other__white-ish, Cape Malay or Cape Coloured South African, Jewish, North African Sephardi, Eastern Russian Ashkenazi
There. All done! Go have a coffee drink.
irishgirl, the form says “tick all that apply”, not “tick one or more that apply”. If none of the boxes apply to you, don’t tick any of them. Then you can hand in an empty form and truthfully claim to have followed its instructions.
Dammit, you’ve hit the nail on the head! levdrakon comes a close second, IMHO, for finding a way to comply with the bureaucracy while also remaining truthful.
I know a lot of people think this way, but I find this to be an incredibly self-defeating thought process. We’ve seen this recently in France, in a country with a strong national ideal of egalitarianism - in France, no statistics are kept even to the level of being able to identify the ethnic background of citizens, but obviously it hasn’t done anything to reduce the substantial racial tensions in France.
Saying that it’s racist, or that it perpetrates English, to ask these questions means you’re saying that we simply can’t measure racism. We can’t measure to determine if racism exists, because that somehow magically creates racism. Essentially, then, you’re saying that if we ignore racism - if we don’t act as though it exists - it’ll magically disappear. We just need to hide our heads in the sand, and racism will end.
I know this is a fairly common sentiment, but I just don’t think it even makes logical sense.
Let’s see.
I’ve been told in the past that as I have a Jewish grandparent I should tick the “neither” box on religious background.
I have also been told by David Ervine , leader of the PUP, that as a Protestant with Nationalist views I should tick the “Other” or “Neither” boxes when asked my religious background. This was at a talk he gave several years ago at my school, sorry, but this has been annoying me for years.
I’m really pissed off because this form isn’t asking what it says it is- it’s substituting questions of religion for questions about politics, and the ethnicity merely lets them weed out the non-white, non-northern Irish people-i.e. the ones without an axe to grind in the current political debate.
These forms are used by both sides to show where their support lies and how strong it is. The fact that these forms are used by Northern Irish politicians to further their own agenda is the bit that annoys me.
I think it’s different if you’ve grown up here- a Protestant is not a “Protestant” if he’s from Nigeria, only if he’s a Unionist from a long line of Ulstermen. A Catholic is not “Catholic” if she’s Italian, only if she’s from a long line of oppressed Irish people. This form isn’t asking what it appears to be, and it is used by people I have no love for in ways I mistrust.
I’m seriously lacking the trust that Sal Ammoniac mentioned.
This sort of thing annoys me, as does the idea of positive discrimination.
I am part Indian, I think, though I am not at all sure, nor how much either, nor quite a few things about my background.
I am obviously of mixed race, whatever that actually means.
I work in the UK prison service, as an instructor and we have all sorts of initiatives supposedly designed to ensure there is no discrimination, and that all ethnic groups are represented in line with their numbers local to the area where they work.
Sounds great, doesn’t it ?
What it means in practice is that endless froms arrive to be filled in, with questions similar to the OP, and along with these also arrive invitations for those from ethnic minorities to become part of a policy group, and to provide opinions to senior policy makers as to what issues may affect them disproportionately.
Since there are very few staff from ethnic groups in my jail, it always falls to me to recieve all this rubbish which I always throw away, yet there are plenty of white folks of Euro extraction, for example Polish from WWII refugees.
I do not wish to be considered as part of any quota, nor part of the fulfillment of anyones racial equality objectives, I just want to get on with my job.
I have seen one or two staff who were recruited, and to be frank, their main asset they were bringing to the post was their race, not their abilities.
When it becomes apparent that they actually don’t make the grade, because they were selected on the wrong criteria, this is reflected in a view against folk such as myself, who are competant, that we were only put in place because of race, which I find offensive, but I understand why this is so.
I see other forms that various agencies try to get me to fill in, from such things as training courses, to voting registration, and these almost always allow for races such as Scottish, Welsh, Irish, other ethnic groups such as Asian sub continent and Jamaican, the default is British, but never English, why the fuck should that be ?
Are English not considered an ethnic groups as are all the others then ?
You know those job applications that say “continue on a separate sheet if necessary”? I suggest you piss them off by doing that with several sheets of A4 describing your entire ethnic and religious background, and let them sort it out.
I see the point of doing this in NI, to a certain extent, but it’s a pretty hamfisted way of approaching the subject, and clearly open to abuse.
(I speak with bitter solidarity as one who is also repatriating to the UK from the Republic of Ireland, and being confronted by the wall of beaurocracy that seems to have been constructed in my absence.)
Sorry about those forms Irishgirl and jjimm, the sound like quite the annoyance. :mad:
The way this thread is going, this seems a good place to have a bit of my ignorance dispelled. What is the difference between being British and English? I called an English friend British once, not knowing it was a problem and you’d have thought that I’d set his dog on fire, burned his flag and called his parents and offspring bad names. :eek: After the outburst, when he realized I made an honest mistake he calmed down, but I wasn’t about to ask him for clarification! I just make sure to be careful in the future. 
Fuckety fuck. Add ‘bureaucracy’ to the list of “words jjimm can’t spell”.
You burning his dog!
British: nationality of the UK. The UK: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Therefore British citizens are both British, and [whichever country they’re from]sh.
Are you sure your friend was English, not one of the other nationalities of the UK?
The reason I ask is because England is the dominant country in this union, for historical and economic reasons. In my experience anger at being called “British” is usually more prevalent amongst Welsh, Scots, and Northern Irish who have separatist leanings - particularly Northern Irish nationalists and republicans - than English people.
Personally I’m not nationalistic, but I self-identify as English before British, because I favour greater self-determination within the union, and I acknowledge the huge cultural and historical differences between the different nations of the UK. But to call me British wouldn’t insult me.
[/hijack]
I think that lack of pride in being English simply hands over that identity to the idiots you see in their t-shirts at football matches, chanting racist abuse.
Scots don’t call themselves British, they have pride in their own national identity and so they should.
Why then, should the pen-pushers deny the English the right to do the same in their own small way.
Most of our national institutions cover all of the United Kingdom, so in Scotland, and English person may well be in a minority, and the questionnaires are also issued nationally, so there should be a box for ‘English’.
Its really the fact that deep down, I know that all that is happening with these noxious ethnic monitoring froms is that someone is checking off their little achievement boxes and fulifilling the ethnicity requirements without actually having any real understanding, or even caring in the slightest.
It’s just an excercise on paper so that someone in a senior position can claim they are a ‘caring’ and socially responsible employer, just because a few little boxes have check marks in them, it’s fucking bollocks.
More usually you tread on a non-English Briton’s toes by calling him “English”.
I’m in a not-dissimilar position. I variously describe myself as Irish (which I am on paper) or English (because this is where I’ve lived my whole life). But never British, although it’s no insult.
I was in college with a guy from the UK and he claimed that British was a term that Americans made up. That confused me for the longest time…
Actually, now I think about it, I describe myself as a Brit all the time, especially around these parts. But never in a serious context.
I’m the opposite: I always fill in “English” in the “nationality” part of immigration forms, and never had a problem, even though it’s apparently not a legally binding term.
My friend used this problem to her advantage when getting into UC Berkeley. She was 1/2 asian and 1/2 black. The form had no “mixed” category and she wasn’t allowed to check more than one box. She was told that if she skipped the question, it would be counted against her overall application. So she just checked “black” because she knew it would give her a much better chance than if she checked “asian.” It still sucks that a school that prides itself on its diversity has such a poor system.
I vividly remember his angry meltdown, and can assure you that he was correcting me as to him being English and not British. It was somewhat funny afterwards, because there had been jokes regarding him referring to me as a yank. Calling me a Yankee doesn’t bother me, but in the South it’s not the best of ideas, plus I knew he meant the unfriendly slang of yank and was testing my slang. (I’m horrible at rhyming slang so he went for more “normal” to me slang.) Also, there had been several jokes regarding my Irish background, which didn’t bother me, since it’s groovy to be Irish! The previous joking about me made it extra weird when I accidentally called him British though. All in all it was weird. Only time he got angry though.
irishgirl, I realize that you have a rich ancestry, no doubt, but I don’t quite understand why the suggestions made by kanicbird or levdrakon do not fit the bill.