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2nd December 2005, 12:13 PM
There is an issue of racism if people are denied access to education of employment for which they are qualified and the best applicant because of their "ethnicity", however you choose to define that.
There is no issue of racism if a defined set of people elect not to apply for said courses or jobs.
If I was an employer (just you wait...) and I've been on the employing side of the desk man a time, I would want to employ the best applicant whatever their personal definition (good lord we even took on an arsenal supporter once). I would certainly be opposed to reverse racism.
I think that, like the BBC, we should try to educate, inform and entertain, within our field, the entire British public - spread our message to all, not favouring any group. If there tend to be white middle class middle aged peeople at society meetings, so be it, they are people too. Interest in "heritage" is not compulsory after all.
We owe the dead nothing but the truth.
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2nd December 2005, 02:49 PM
If anyone is any doubt about the value that the government and national heritage bodies are placing on introducing diversity into the heritage workforce and research agenda, check out the programme for this conference coming up next month.
http://www.multimediaventures.com/conference.pdf
Note that in the introduction Tess Jowell says that the 2007 funding round is going to be particularly tough for the heritage sector, inferring perhaps that considerations regarding positive progress towards introducing wider diversity may be a factor taken into account.
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2nd December 2005, 03:54 PM
I see the word "diversity" once. More worryingly I see the word "value" quite a lot - this only means one thing in a government publication!
We owe the dead nothing but the truth.
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2nd December 2005, 04:17 PM
Kevin Wooldridge wrote...
Quote:quote:One solution might be to encourage 'positive discrimination' for a fixed period of time that would allow a more diverse employment profile to be established, for role models to be created and perhaps a wider ranging social profile given to the archaeology/museology agenda.
Bad idea. For once I agree with the invisible man when he writes...
Quote:quote:There is an issue of racism if people are denied access to education of employment for which they are qualified and the best applicant because of their "ethnicity",
If the best person for the job is white, and you deny her the job because you have to fulfil a quota of non-whites, then
that is racism.
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2nd December 2005, 04:32 PM
Yes... but surely historically people of ethnic minorities in this country have had proportionally little opportunity because of a variety economic and social factors out of their control to aspire to certain employment. It's not because they are 'not interested' its because they are excluded.
Central and local government as the mouthpiece of our society surely has a responsibility to redress this imbalance. Or have I misunderstood everything?
G
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2nd December 2005, 04:46 PM
So have lots of white people too. And again that lack of interest arises from historic exclusion. The answer is to improve education and opportunities for [u]all</u>, not just a few because of their skin colour.
I agree 100% with Martin Luther King - I will
not be judged by the color of my skin but by the content of my character.
Or perhaps we should have positive discrimination for chavs as well? I suspect they form a substantial 'ethnic minority' which is under-represented in archaeology today...found any gold yet??!!
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2nd December 2005, 05:06 PM
It may only have the word 'diversity' once but this major conference will address such major issues. The value of heritage will be discussed at length. The 'whose values?' session will almost certainly debate how heritage is engaged by a diverse society.
We need to have wider support and interest in heritage and archaeology in particular. Archaeology for archaeology's sake is not sustainable. Mr Developer is not going to shell out millions just so we can put more finds in (costly) storage and disseminate grey lit reports to a dozen or so people (and probably only one of those will read the damn thing). Publications that sell only to a narrow focus audience of a few dozen doesn't look like value to those holding the purse strings.
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2nd December 2005, 05:19 PM
PMM - glad we agree then! (Although I didn't know we disagreed as a rule....)
A. Knees, agreed, absolutely, I think that is what I was trying to say about "engaging" the entire public - everyone! Including the Scots!
We owe the dead nothing but the truth.
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2nd December 2005, 05:48 PM
I apologise for the use of the term 'positive discrimination' in my previous mail. It has been pointed out to me, that what I meant to say was 'positive measures' rather than 'positive discrimination'.
Positive discrimination is of course illegal and selection for recruitment or promotion should be based solely on merit.
Positive measures are however a different matter. I post the following quote from the Equality Online web site.
http://www.equality-online.org.uk/equali...ction.html
Although they are not legally required, positive measures are allowed by the law to encourage employees and potential employees who are members of particular groups which are under-represented in particular work. Discrimination at the point of selection for work, however, is not permitted in these circumstances.
Such measures are important of the development of equality and diversity practices. It is therefore recommended that, where there is under representation of particular work, the following process should be taken wherever appropriate and reasonably realistic:
Job advertisements designed to reach members of these groups and to encourage their applications: for example, through the use of the ethnic minority press, as well as other newspapers.
Use of the employment agencies and careers offices in areas where under-represented groups are concentrated.
Recruitment and training schemes for school leavers designed to reach members of these younger aged groups.
Encouragement to employees from under-represented groups to apply for promotion or transfer opportunities.
Training for promotion or skill training for employees of under-represented groups who lack particular expertise but show potential: supervisory training this may include language training.
Positive action is not about giving more favourable treatment to particular groups in the recruitment process. Positive action in training is lawful, provided certain criteria is met.
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2nd December 2005, 06:06 PM
But if you're not getting the applications, you can't apply positive measures anyway.
In April 2001 the population of the UK was this:
White: 92.1%
Ethnic Minorities: 7.9%
The rest of the statistics can be found here
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=273
This may be part of the problem, there just aren't enough ethnic minorities to make an impact, If we think proportionately of the amount of archaeologists to the amount of people working in general in the UK the archaeologists must be a tiny minority.
I don't see people as colours, I take them as I find them, so I can't understand why the lack of minorities in this profession is such a big issue to some. I am trying hard not to sound offensive to anyone, and I apologise if I do, but archaeology is NOT racist just because we don't attract ethnic minorities, its a ridiculous suggestion.
(Just to say I understand how serious an issue racism is in the big wide world, and my comments refer purely to the situation in archaeology)
