NationStates Jolt Archive

I get sick and tired of the phrase "institutional racisim/sexism" being bandied around all the time just because a certian instution does not have a breakdown of its workforce that is a microcosom of society. One example of this is prision. The British prision population has a black population that is vastly disproportinate to the black population of the entire UK. Now the reason for that may be that in general black people commit more crime. Saying that kind of statement often hollars crys of "Racisit" but actually look at what I am saying. Black people may commit more crime but there is nothing to suggest that its because they are black. The racial demographic of the prision does not prove a causal link between race and the reason behind commiting crime. Just because there is a disproportinate number of black people in prision, does not mean that they are more likly to commit crime because they are black. The same goes with governments and multinationals with women. They complain that women are not half of the heads of government or half the CEO's of multi-nationals and thus there is something up with the system. They dont consider wherther or not the same number of women as men want to be CEO's or if the women who do are just not as good as the men who do. Again, its not because they are women that they are not as good. They may just not be. And this is the nub. Causal links are placed all over the place when in fact the issues are generally far more complex.

it IS a complicated issue and certainly not every unbalanced situation is caused by discrimination.

it should, however, raise an alarm that there MAY be discrimination at work. it needs to be looked at and considered. i dont know what the situation is in the UK but in the US some of the disproportion in prisons is caused by racism. not necessarily because black people get convicted more than they should be because white people are given more breaks.

with women in high executive positions, the problem may be one of TIME. there havent been enough women on the exectutive carreer paths for long enough to have made it equal at the top. of course discrimination is at the core of why fewer women have made their way to that level in their careers that they should be considered for CEO of a major corporation.

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