Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Discrimination

Alright, my African-American professor felt it was necessary to talk about the discrimination of women and minorities in the sports environment. Now, ok, if this is a problem (which, by the way, I have NOT seen in my three sports internships, I've worked with Hispanics, Blacks and women), then we should be discussing ALL discrimination, because invariably he talked about the black man being held back. One of the statistics he showed was that the NBA was 90% black, but we don't talk about how whites are underrepresented.

Anyways, I don't want to come off as being a racist. Because that's not the case. Frankly, I feel that the most qualified applicant should be hired for the job, regardless of race, gender, credo, etc. The "old boy" network where older white men simply hire their friends and don't consider outsiders is going by the wayside in my opinion as these white old men retire or die, and they're being replaced by younger people who I feel don't really care about race or gender.

Where I think this issue gets out of hand is requiring employers to interview a certain number of minority candidates, even if they are underqualified. Why waste both peoples' time if the candidate is obviously not going to be seriously considered due to underqualification? It seems unnecessary.

Anyways, I want to know what everyone thinks about this issue. As I said, I personally don't care what race, gender, religion people that I work with as long as they are good workers. But am I in the "minority" on this one? Either way, I'm just curious about how other people come down on the discrimination in the workplace issue (gender, race, religion or whatever). Let me know your comments.

3 Comments:

Blogger Marty said...

I agree with you 100% Brad. The most qualified person for a certain position should be hired. If I were a minority, and I got hired because of that and not my skill set, I would feel as if I stole a job from someone and that I didn't really deserve it. To be considered for a job based on your race is discriminatory in itself. I always think about what would happen if I marked down "Asian/Pacific Islander" on job applications to see the response I would get.

5:27 PM  
Blogger Brad said...

Marty, interesting comment. I'm glad to hear that you agree, and you brought up an interesting point that I hadn't considered, which I guess I should have. That is, do minorities care if they're handed jobs they didn't deserve? I can safely say it would bother me, but then again, I haven't been through what they have.

12:01 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

did you forget about the upper echelon of sports management...especially in the nba...you say it's 90% black...but that is just the players..not the owners, presidents, and coaches...do you see any women there either? you say your internships were with women and with people with different backgrounds...this is usual...it's that whole glass ceiling to upper management which is hard to break for minorities...look at women's college basketball as well...almost all the programs were coached by women..but now that many players are becoming viable assets in basketball, women coaches have been greatly outnumbered by men because "men are more knowledgeable in sports..."

7:51 AM  

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