Originally Posted by
lardy
Good post.
With positive discrimination, I often see the argument 'it should be the best person for the job'. But who is the best person for the job? How can your average recruitment person tell? The interview and selection process is good at finding suitable people, but identifying the best is beyond the ability of most of us, as we can't see into the future. So if you have 4 people who probably all can do the job just as well as each other, then the panel will have to find some other way of selecting between them, and on a sub-conscious level humans are drawn towards people similar to themselves.
So a panel of white people may be drawn towards the white candidate, just as a panel of Chinese or Indian people may be towards the Chinese or Indian candidate. No one is being racist, we're wired that way.
In 10 years, that candidate may be on the panel, and it all continues. Positive discrimination tries to break that cycle, and like everything else, it's not perfect every time.
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