A report commissioned by Harriet Harman, the equalities minister, recommends a change to the race discrimination laws. It proposes introducing the shortlists for four consecutive general elections to redress the underrepresentation of ethnic minorities at Westminster…
At present only 15 of the 646 MPs are from ethnic minorities, and only two of those 15 are women. (The Times)
Hasn’t it been realised that this sort of thing is discrimination yet? They may try to make it sound ok by tacking “positive” on to the front of it, but discrimination is discrimination, no matter who it is pro or anti. Any MP who gets selected and elected through a process like this will always have an inferiority complex, because they didn’t fight a fair fight to get there - they got there instead because they were a member of *insert minority group of choice*.
Equality means fighting on a level playing field, regardless of any minority or majority group status. The best person should be selected for the job, regardless of any special ‘minority status’.
This entry is filed under Equality, Harriet Harman, Race, Random News. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Can this be fought off on legal grounds? Discrimination is discrimination, regardless of who you are trying to help/block out.
You can kinda see the logic behind positive discrimation - get people used to minorities being in positions and they’ll be more likely to vote for / promote them. But it’s a terrible idea on an individual level: People from a minority background see their position undermined as the common assumption becomes that they’re there because of their skin / gender / etc. rather than their abilities.