Nationality =/= Ethnicity

[annwfyn]

I don't know if I'm being unreasonable here, but I've just finished filling in one of those diversity monitoring forms, and it really irritated me.

In it, they asked whether I was:

Black
Asian
British
Irish
Mixed Race

Is it just me, or does that seem to imply that if you are, in fact, Asian or Black, you don't count as British?

Comments

[taimatsu]

Yes. Usually the forms include 'White'. The phrasing there SUCKS.

[imagesandwords.livejournal.com]

That's really poor...

If you've got to record it (which to be honest I think we do in some cases) then the two should really be separate questions.

Not that there aren't other ways of doing it but I don't really suppose most people would approve of giving people a map and a colour chart and asking them to put an X on each in the appropriate place.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I quite like the existence of the forms. I think it is a valid thing to find out that, for example, some ethnic groups have a much higher rate of infant mortality, or to get actual statistics that point out that not only are 90% of judges white and male, most of them actually come from about 6 or 7 specific public schools. I think it's worth knowing these things.

But I do think that it's annoying to have one written up which seems designed to collect confusing statistics, whilst being kinda insulting to people who are not white, but who are definitely British, thank you very much.

[greebotrill.livejournal.com]

It does. However, we both know that "race" is a social construct and has no bearing in actual fact which makes it all the more galling.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Yes. That is a very valid point.

[adze.livejournal.com]

I thought they normally put "White British" on there.

That's not much better though, to be honest.

[quisalan.livejournal.com]

Nope.

From a marketing perspective and having had to design questionaires, I see it that causasian is not important enough as an ethnicity to count as worthy of it's own box.

Therefore, only ethnicities which are important enough to get information on get their own ticky box, everyone else is just lumped together. It's very likely there's some "positive discrimination" policy or research as a precursor to one.

Yes, the phrasing sucks, but the intent behind the questions bugs me more (I disagree with positive discrimination, although I know you don't).

[taimatsu]

Diversity monitoring in itself doesn't have to correspond to positive discrimination. I mean, you need to know if there are any X-skin-colour people in a particular situation before you know whether statistically there should be more or fewer of them, and only then can you decide if anything should be done to change that. But the questionnaire above is crap for diversity monitoring.

[quisalan.livejournal.com]

But the questionnaire above is crap for diversity monitoring.

I definitely agree with you there! Yes, it's badly worded, but picking out two specific ethnicities smacks of an agenda. And due to anti-discrimination legislation it cannot be for a negative purpose to those groups (if that makes sense) - if it was the creators could and would face criminal proceedings.

*shrugs*

I just tend to feel policies and choices should not be made on the colour of people's skins, for good or bad.

[elethiomel.livejournal.com]

Equally you can't be mixed race and Irish etc...

I think it's easier and better to separate ethnicity and nationality - this form seems to have a horribly hidgepodge of race, ethnic group and nationality all mixed in.

Mind you, I'm the sort of person who ticks other and writes 'English' (if Irish gets a separate option I don't see why English, Welsh and Scottish shouldn't!)

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I agree entirely.

I can sort of understand why 'Irish' appears as an ethnicity - I'm guessing it's the aftereffects of lots of prejudice against Irish immigrants during the IRA years. However, there's no reason you can't be Black Irish - White Irish would make sense.

Bah.

This is all wobbling towards my other rant about Americans who claim that their ethnicity is Scottish/Welsh/Irish. I always want to scream "NATIONALITY, NOT ETHNICITY!" at them, with an added comment of 'and your nationality is American.'

[pmp.livejournal.com]

I hate those forms, I always refuse point blank to fill in my ethnicity on anything that contains my name.

As for the phrasing, sod 'em and tick every single box. Don't leave it blank because they'll often fill it in for you. I bet you that what they're doing is gathering the forms that have Asian or Black selected and giving them preferential treatment. The day I discovered the phrase "Positive Discrimination" I ranted for ages.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I bet you that what they're doing is gathering the forms that have Asian or Black selected and giving them preferential treatment.

Damn those Black and Asian people, for all the positive treatment they get! Those silly Black people, for whom unemployment is twice as high as it is for White people, those Black and Asians who suffer from an infant mortality rate which is 100% higher than White Britons, those Black youths who are six times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police and are then twice as likely to go to prison as a White man who is charged with exactly the same offense. They just get it so damn easy.

Why oh why must our society keep favouring them in this way?!?!?!

[pmp.livejournal.com]

I think you're choosing to misinterept the sentiment...

What I mean is most forms that record ethnicity usually do so for the purpose of going "Gee, we don't have enough ethnic candidates, we'd better fast track some applications through"

It's not done because they genuinely want to act out against racism. They just want to use statistics to prove what a great job they're doing at boosting racial relations.


Very rarely are ethnicity forms used correctly and appropriately.


I personally find the concept of Positive Discrimination just as bad as any form of discrimination. You should try and act without any kind of discrimination, that said you'll never get equality because different cultural mindsets will have better or worse consequences, it's social evolution....

[imagesandwords.livejournal.com]

Those things you've mentioned there are horrible, and wrong.

Does that however mean that someone with the same qualifications as me and no other discriminating features should get an interview instead of me just because of the colour of his or her skin?

Positive discrimination pisses me off. Someone I know got invited to interview after failing an aptitude test.... the reason, they were dyslexic. What does this tell us? The aptitude test wasn't necessarily a good test of ability to do the job so they perhaps shouldn't use it!

[hareb-sarap.livejournal.com]

I always like filling those out, "other" and then a long list in the description box.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

I once had a fantastic conversation with an A&E nurse at Guys when I was trying to fill some forms in for Jeremiah (he had a bad asthma attack and had to be admitted at 2 am).

Jeremiah is half Sri Lankan, half German. And this was VERY complicated, for the nurse at A&E didn't have an option for 'other'. She had Asian, White British, White Other or Mixed - Asian/White British. No generic 'other'. And she really was a bit worried about lying on this form, but we couldn't find any way of actually writing down Jeremiah's ethnicity.

I was amused. I suspect this had more to do with it being 2 am and me being mildly high in sleep dep at this point, but at the time it seemed funny - more so because the nurse was so very badly thrown by this and so very eagar to try and find the right box for him.

[adze.livejournal.com]

I feel sure that there is no right box for jez, which may be something the world should be grateful for ;-)

[silver-blue.livejournal.com]

Basically you just want a ticky box that's titled "Awkward".

[skinny-cartman.livejournal.com]

I would have thought most "British" people would be considered "mixed" if people bothered to look..
That said putting "Romano-British", "Anglo-Saxon", "Nordic", "Anglo Norman", "Huguenot", "Ashenkazi" "Sephadic" etc. etc. down on a form might get a little confusing especially if you hadn't had a DNA test.
That's before you get into such things as odd little families from spanish guys shipwrecked after the armada or whatever..

Such profiling or whatever is incredibly difficult however, as you can have folks who may be "white" and "British" but recently naturalised as such and actually having say Bulgarian ancestry..
I'd agree that its important on some level however

[hareb-sarap.livejournal.com]

It is important, because ethnic minorities are disadvantaged in so many walks of life. Having the benefit of statistical analysis means that that case has the strength of Quantitative analysis.

[red-phil.livejournal.com]

I always tend to put mixed race, because pretty much everyone is.

[hareb-sarap.livejournal.com]

are they collecting information on race or ethnic groups...

[eladriell.livejournal.com]

White guilt strikes again...

The forms exist due to the tendencies of people who would Very Definitely identify themselves as black, Asian, Irish or white or whatever.

It makes people think that the company/goverment/whatever gives a flying fuck about them and supports cultural identities and is respectful of them, while allowing them to use it for profiling information about who might be twitchy on the basis of colour and sue them or blow em up with a bomb.

sad but true.

these are all phrases, meaningless when discussing race, less so culture in our social contexts, that have real bearing, insofar as asking people in the street to identify themselves.

I have to admit I've never heard of anyone who ISNT white putting anything other than black/asian/mixed..pissing about with semantics and getting flustered with this kinda thing, well, never heard many complaints from any of the Jordanians/Jamaicans/West Indians/Chinese/take your pick here that I know. Though I will bring the subject up later today to see.

On a side note, Diversity Monitoring sucks. Ability Monitoring should be mandatory.

[ozisim.livejournal.com]

And there wasn't an 'other' option?
See, I'm none of those...
though I suppose I could get by on Mixed, because they have separated out Irish.

We use a diversity monitoring form in our recruitment process, it gets separated from the applications so we don't know the exact break-down of the shortlisted or successful candidates, but it is handy to see the statistics on who applies for certain jobs over time in our sector.

Personally, I hate them. I find that I don't fit into a ticky-box with race over here... and I refuse to fill out the sexuality question on principle. (mind you, it is amazing how often there is an opt-out option in the sexuality question, where I've only seen an opt-out once in an Ethnicity Q.)

For comparison, our form has the following options. (though I don't like the fact that they have lumped all SE Asian cultures into Chinese with no other available choice.*):

ASIAN OR ASIAN BRITISH
Indian
Pakistani
Bangladeshi
*Other Asian background

BLACK OR BLACK BRITISH
Caribbean
African
Other Asian background:

CHINESE
Chinese

MIXED
White & Black Caribbean
White & Black African
White & Asian
Other Mixed background

WHITE
British
Irish
Other White background

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*And DON'T get me started on the whole asian/middle eastern, oriental/asian thing!