Saints only Premier League club not to sign up to FA diversity code

[hypochondriac]

29 minutes ago, notnowcato said:

Not true.  Unless you are counting the Police as one of the top jobs in the country.

Poor choice of words on my part apologies. "the vast majority" would have been more accurate. The police is clearly a rather unique case and you could argue the armed forces as well. 

[hypochondriac]

11 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

Crikey, that’s quite the statement 😮

 

TBF it seems there is more context to the tweet than what he's written. It's still an unhinged rant about systemic systems of structural institutions though which is a shame because he's spoken a fair bit of sense in the past. Never mind. 

[Lighthouse]

18 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

TBF it seems there is more context to the tweet than what he's written. It's still an unhinged rant about systemic systems of structural institutions though which is a shame because he's spoken a fair bit of sense in the past. Never mind. 

Yep, it's quite difficult to read. To give him the benefit of the doubt, I think he meant it in the third person, although it still comes across as a bit of a haphazard rant.

[saintquin]

55 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

Crikey, that’s quite the statement 😮

 

 

 

 

John Barnes

 

@officialbarnesy

 

Read the full thread... i didnt say i dont like white people... i said some black people may wrongly feel that they have been discriminated against by white society and then say “thats why i dont like white people”... im not saying “thats why “I” dont like white people”

 

[oldskoolsi]

On 27/10/2020 at 19:05, Turkish said:

Would you be annoyed at the job if you only got it above other candidates because of your skin colour to tick a box in a code.

there an awful lot of talented none white hetrosexual people out there. The fact that people think it’s nessasary to help them By making a percentage of employees tick a diversity box because they’re not capable of getting jobs themselves is embarrassing and patronising to the thousands of talented black, gay, Asian etc people out there. 

As a male infant teacher, which is a rarity,  I'm pretty sure I've got a job more than once because of my sex.  Do I feel guilty?  Do be honest the paycheck and job security go a long way to making me feel not so bad.  I'd imagine most others would feel the same  if, all others things being equaql, they got a job because they ticked a box.

[Turkish]

2 hours ago, notnowcato said:

I've seen plenty of black and Asian road crew and manual construction workers.  Seriously, give your head a shake. 

How many is “plenty”?

[Turkish]

25 minutes ago, oldskoolsi said:

As a male infant teacher, which is a rarity,  I'm pretty sure I've got a job more than once because of my sex.  Do I feel guilty?  Do be honest the paycheck and job security go a long way to making me feel not so bad.  I'd imagine most others would feel the same  if, all others things being equaql, they got a job because they ticked a box.

Fair enough, I maybe wrongly assumed people would have a bit more self respect than to be happy to take a job Because they met a companies quota rather than them both being the best fit for each other needs and ambitions 

[Manuel]

11 minutes ago, oldskoolsi said:

As a male infant teacher, which is a rarity,  I'm pretty sure I've got a job more than once because of my sex.  Do I feel guilty?  Do be honest the paycheck and job security go a long way to making me feel not so bad.  I'd imagine most others would feel the same  if, all others things being equaql, they got a job because they ticked a box.

It's an interesting point.  And if it's important as a child to see both men and women as competent teachers and role models in the classroom, then it's not much of a stretch to see that a mixture of ethnicities within the school would also be of benefit for the same reason.  Perhaps the fact that the balance tips in favour of men at interview might encourage more men to consider infant teaching as a career.  So maybe in teaching quotas make some sense.  Not in business though.  I can't see them as being necessary there.  

[mrfahaji]

15 minutes ago, Turkish said:

How many is “plenty”?

In fairness, I haven't seen many road workers full stop when I drive on the motorway. Plenty of roadwork signs and cones though.

[mrfahaji]

14 minutes ago, Manuel said:

It's an interesting point.  And if it's important as a child to see both men and women as competent teachers and role models in the classroom, then it's not much of a stretch to see that a mixture of ethnicities within the school would also be of benefit for the same reason.  Perhaps the fact that the balance tips in favour of men at interview might encourage more men to consider infant teaching as a career.  So maybe in teaching quotas make some sense.  Not in business though.  I can't see them as being necessary there.  

Let's say there are 10 white people and 10 black people of the calibre required to work for your company. They're all 'good enough' but you don't necessarily know how they rank amongst the 20.

You currently have an all white workforce. You advertise the job, the 10 white people apply but only 2 of the black people, because they see your all-white workforce and feel intimidated, or maybe just uncomfortable that they won't fit in. Although the best candidate is white, you decide to take one of the black candidates on.

Next time you advertise a job, and every time after that, because you have a mixed workforce, all 10 (well 9 now) of those potential candidates who are black now apply for the job. So you have 19 people to choose from rather than 12. Perhaps one of the black candidates who didn't apply before is actually the best qualified for the job, and is going to be a future star at your company.

Probably worth that initial 'hit' in taking an inferior candidate for the long term benefit of having a bigger talent pool to select from, isn't it?

 

I realise this is a simple scenario, but it feels like many people just can't conceive of any way in which quotas can possibly be a good thing, because they look at the immediate future and only look at it from one angle. My original post was actually questionning the policy, yet I have been so taken aback by the dismissive and narrow minded tone from so many responses I've ended up almost championing the directive, which was not what I set out for at all!

[Manuel]

Mmmm, not sure I buy it.  Generally speaking employers hire from the surrounding area.  If the surrounding area is mixed race then it figures that your workforce is likely to be so.  There may be some remote parts of the UK that remain very white but then if you are living there, you'd know this and would expect the local industries to reflect this.  

There is no benefit to the individual, society or business to have untapped talent.  If it's out there, business will want it.  

[aintforever]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

How many is “plenty”?

Well the never-ending roadworks on the M27 seem to be mainly Asian staff from what I’ve seen.

[hypochondriac]

1 hour ago, mrfahaji said:

Let's say there are 10 white people and 10 black people of the calibre required to work for your company. They're all 'good enough' but you don't necessarily know how they rank amongst the 20.

You currently have an all white workforce. You advertise the job, the 10 white people apply but only 2 of the black people, because they see your all-white workforce and feel intimidated, or maybe just uncomfortable that they won't fit in. Although the best candidate is white, you decide to take one of the black candidates on.

Next time you advertise a job, and every time after that, because you have a mixed workforce, all 10 (well 9 now) of those potential candidates who are black now apply for the job. So you have 19 people to choose from rather than 12. Perhaps one of the black candidates who didn't apply before is actually the best qualified for the job, and is going to be a future star at your company.

Probably worth that initial 'hit' in taking an inferior candidate for the long term benefit of having a bigger talent pool to select from, isn't it?

 

I realise this is a simple scenario, but it feels like many people just can't conceive of any way in which quotas can possibly be a good thing, because they look at the immediate future and only look at it from one angle. My original post was actually questionning the policy, yet I have been so taken aback by the dismissive and narrow minded tone from so many responses I've ended up almost championing the directive, which was not what I set out for at all!

It's narrow minded to think that discrimination based on skin colour is not a good thing? I've always been a big minority in my line of work and I can honestly say I've never been put off applying for a job because the majority are a different gender or skin colour from me. If you're genuinely intimidated by a group of people because they are a different ethnicity to you then I would suggest that you would be the one with the problem who needs to change. 

[mrfahaji]

26 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

It's narrow minded to think that discrimination based on skin colour is not a good thing? I've always been a big minority in my line of work and I can honestly say I've never been put off applying for a job because the majority are a different gender or skin colour from me. If you're genuinely intimidated by a group of people because they are a different ethnicity to you then I would suggest that you would be the one with the problem who needs to change. 

No, it's narrow minded not to consider that these intiatives might have a positive effect. Instead of saying "these are the problems with it, but what good might come from it? Does the good outweigh the bad? This is my experience, but what about people who has different experiences from mine?" Everyone is just writing it off as a bad thing, so I'm trying to offer a counter argument, hopefully to make people think about another angle. If everyone was on here saying "how great, about time too!" then maybe I'd put forward some of the arguments that you and others have made as a counter the other way!

When you're not a minority, isn't it quite patronising to tell those that are that there is no problem or say "maybe you're the racists after all"? (etc) As a qualified middle class white male, I don't have much to gain on a personal level from this kind of thing, I just think maybe my own experiences aren't necessarily reflective across the board, and if people say they experience discrimination - while I am sure there are some cases that are made up or exaggerated - perhaps it's important to listen and to ask if we should do something about it if we can.

[hypochondriac]

23 minutes ago, mrfahaji said:

No, it's narrow minded not to consider that these intiatives might have a positive effect. Instead of saying "these are the problems with it, but what good might come from it? Does the good outweigh the bad? This is my experience, but what about people who has different experiences from mine?" Everyone is just writing it off as a bad thing, so I'm trying to offer a counter argument, hopefully to make people think about another angle. If everyone was on here saying "how great, about time too!" then maybe I'd put forward some of the arguments that you and others have made as a counter the other way!

When you're not a minority, isn't it quite patronising to tell those that are that there is no problem or say "maybe you're the racists after all"? (etc) As a qualified middle class white male, I don't have much to gain on a personal level from this kind of thing, I just think maybe my own experiences aren't necessarily reflective across the board, and if people say they experience discrimination - while I am sure there are some cases that are made up or exaggerated - perhaps it's important to listen and to ask if we should do something about it if we can.

Ever heard the phrase "the ends doesn't justify the means?" I'm not that interested if there is an eventual benefit. Its far outweighed by the negative effects of the racial discrimination in the first instance and the ongoing suspicion it places on the employees as diversity hires. 

How do you know I'm not a minority? I just told you that I was in my line of work so I do know what I'm talking about and besides it's not like all women or black people actually support all this discrimination anyway as they aren't some sort of hive mind. Isn't it significantly more patronising to pretend that all minorities believe the same things or all act the same way due to their skin colour or gender? Oh and of course you can be a minority and racist that's not a particularly controversial statement to make. I don't need to know that you're middle class and white though it's telling and a bit depressing that you feel the need to make it part of the discussion.

There's plenty of minorities on opposing sides of this argument so who are the ones I should be listening to exactly? If there's examples of blatant discrimination against anyone in the workplace then it needs challenging and if necessary action needs taking against the employer. I'm simply not going to support discrimination because there's an inequality and a feeling from some that they are discriminated against. Imo the short term benefits of racial quotas are far outweighed by the longer term negative effects that have already been outlined.

It's also much more interesting to hear what you actually think about the subject rather than feeling the need to play devil's advocate just because one opinion seems to be in the minority on here. 

Edited 30 October, 2020 by hypochondriac

[Turkish]

2 hours ago, mrfahaji said:

Let's say there are 10 white people and 10 black people of the calibre required to work for your company. They're all 'good enough' but you don't necessarily know how they rank amongst the 20.

You currently have an all white workforce. You advertise the job, the 10 white people apply but only 2 of the black people, because they see your all-white workforce and feel intimidated, or maybe just uncomfortable that they won't fit in. Although the best candidate is white, you decide to take one of the black candidates on.

Next time you advertise a job, and every time after that, because you have a mixed workforce, all 10 (well 9 now) of those potential candidates who are black now apply for the job. So you have 19 people to choose from rather than 12. Perhaps one of the black candidates who didn't apply before is actually the best qualified for the job, and is going to be a future star at your company.

Probably worth that initial 'hit' in taking an inferior candidate for the long term benefit of having a bigger talent pool to select from, isn't it?

 

I realise this is a simple scenario, but it feels like many people just can't conceive of any way in which quotas can possibly be a good thing, because they look at the immediate future and only look at it from one angle. My original post was actually questionning the policy, yet I have been so taken aback by the dismissive and narrow minded tone from so many responses I've ended up almost championing the directive, which was not what I set out for at all!

Sorry but this talk that black people don’t apply for jobs when the work force is mainly white is either utter b0llocks or the people you’re talking about need to have a word with themselves. The population of the UK is something like 86% white so if they’re frightened at the thought of having to work with more white people than black then they will never apply for a job anywhere. In addition to this as has already been pointed out a lot of the clamour for a more diverse work force is for top jobs, you’re not really going to command much respect leading a work force if you’re the type of person who’s so frightened that they might be minority group in a company they wouldn’t even apply to it unless they insisted a percentage of the work force were the same as yours. it sounds more like another excuse from the virtue signallers to me. 

Edited 30 October, 2020 by Turkish

[Dusic]

17 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Sorry but this talk that black people don’t apply for jobs when the work force is mainly white is either utter b0llocks or the people you’re talking about need to have a word with themselves. The population of the UK is something like 86% white so if they’re frightened at the thought of having to work with more white people than black then they will never apply for a job anywhere, it sounds more like another excuse from the virtue signallers to me. 

How about within football, where the population of UK professional players who are not white is far higher than 14%, yet the proportion in management, coaching and administrative roles is much less representative, and many suggest they are not considered and/or are put off applying for these roles?

Is that an excuse?

[egg]

8 minutes ago, Dusic said:

How about within football, where the population of UK professional players who are not white is far higher than 14%, yet the proportion in management, coaching and administrative roles is much less representative, and many suggest they are not considered and/or are put off applying for these roles?

Is that an excuse?

What about the players? The percentage of black players is far higher than the percentage of black people in society. The percentage of Asian players is far lower than the percentage of Asian people in society. Do we start giving less black players contracts, and more white or Asian player's contracts to meet quota proportions? Or, more sensibly, do we just accept that ability is probably responsible for the proportions in the various roles across the whole football industry? 

[Turkish]

29 minutes ago, Dusic said:

How about within football, where the population of UK professional players who are not white is far higher than 14%, yet the proportion in management, coaching and administrative roles is much less representative, and many suggest they are not considered and/or are put off applying for these roles?

Is that an excuse?

Why would they be put off? They know that their players at clubs they work for will have a high percentage of people of the same colour as them. Maybe they just don’t want to go into management? Maybe they’d rather do what David James,  Rio Ferdinand and Ashley Cole have done and go into media rather than put themselves through what a manager has to go through. 
 

certainly being black didn’t stop Chris Houghton, Paul Ince or Darren Moore getting premier league jobs despite all being fairly average managers. 
 

I don’t buy that a top sportsman, super confident, super competitive who has been at the top of their profession suddenly becomes a wet lettuce terrified of being in a minority when it comes to becoming a coach or manager. 

Edited 30 October, 2020 by Turkish

[Jeremy]

13 hours ago, East Kent Saint said:

Sounds like the “they were just savages before we took over their country” excuse for colonialism. Still a great divide in NZ from my own visits . How many Maori MPs are there , more than native Australia MPs in Australia?

Totally agree with both of the first two points. NZ is a pretty racist country. That's why I gave my party vote to the Maori party in our recent election.

I'm not Maori. 

Edited 31 October, 2020 by Jeremy

[Turkish]

18 minutes ago, egg said:

What about the players? The percentage of black players is far higher than the percentage of black people in society. The percentage of Asian players is far lower than the percentage of Asian people in society. Do we start giving less black players contracts, and more white or Asian player's contracts to meet quota proportions? Or, more sensibly, do we just accept that ability is probably responsible for the proportions in the various roles across the whole football industry? 

Certainly if you look at the England squad from 10 years ago there were 9 black players in there. With these former players now management age I don’t look at the likes of Glen Johnson, Ashley Cole, Emile Heskey and Shaun Wright Phillips and think if they were white we’d be looking at the new Alf Ramsey

[Lighthouse]

Honest question - has any black former player actually come out and said, "I really want to get into management but I’m scared/intimidated/dissuaded because I’m black." I see a lot of people, black and white, saying this but it’s always about other people.
 

I lived in Lincoln for a while when Keith Alexander was Imps manager. Maybe he just wasn’t high profile enough but if there was a glass ceiling then surely people like him have already broken it. That was 20 years or so ago now and we’ve had hundreds of retired black players since then.

[Turkish]

3 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

Honest question - has any black former player actually come out and said, "I really want to get into management but I’m scared/intimidated/dissuaded because I’m black." I see a lot of people, black and white, saying this but it’s always about other people.
 

I lived in Lincoln for a while when Keith Alexander was Imps manager. Maybe he just wasn’t high profile enough but if there was a glass ceiling then surely people like him have already broken it. That was 20 years or so ago now and we’ve had hundreds of retired black players since then.

David James made these comments a few months ago and he’s right. Good to see, apart from his saves in 2010 I’ve always quite liked him, although can’t remember too many top managers having been goalkeepers.

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/david-james-goalkeeper-manager-diversity-football-a9607296.html

[hypochondriac]

18 minutes ago, Turkish said:

David James made these comments a few months ago and he’s right. Good to see, apart from his saves in 2010 I’ve always quite liked him, although can’t remember too many top managers having been goalkeepers.

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/david-james-goalkeeper-manager-diversity-football-a9607296.html

Wow some sensible comments for a change. Fair play to him I hope he gets his wish and does well. 

[Dusic]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

Why would they be put off? They know that their players at clubs they work for will have a high percentage of people of the same colour as them. Maybe they just don’t want to go into management? Maybe they’d rather do what David James,  Rio Ferdinand and Ashley Cole have done and go into media rather than put themselves through what a manager has to go through. 
 

certainly being black didn’t stop Chris Houghton, Paul Ince or Darren Moore getting premier league jobs despite all being fairly average managers. 
 

I don’t buy that a top sportsman, super confident, super competitive who has been at the top of their profession suddenly becomes a wet lettuce terrified of being in a minority when it comes to becoming a coach or manager. 

I think its more about the perception of not being given an opportunity in management or boardroom level rather than being "terrified":

https://www.google.com/amp/s/talksport.com/football/716439/jermain-defoe-exclusive-rangers-coaching-career-celtic-title-bid/amp/

Whether there is truth in the lack of opportunity, I simply don't know, and neither does anyone here because we are looking from the outside with no real knowledge on it and have never been in that position. 

But if that is the perception from people of a minority background who have had successful careers within football then are you saying that they are wrong? From what position of knowledge are you forming that opinion? Because you can name 3 Managers who are black and got jobs in the PL across a period of 30 years?

The fact they perceive it shows that there is a problem.

 

[hypochondriac]

"The fact they perceive it shows there is a problem." Presumably then you support current hate crime legislation where an incident is deemed to be a hate incident if someone perceives it to be an action motivated by hate. Insane. 

In no way does the perception of a problem actually mean that the problem is necessarily real. 

Edited 30 October, 2020 by hypochondriac

[saintwbu]

2 hours ago, Turkish said:

David James made these comments a few months ago and he’s right. Good to see, apart from his saves in 2010 I’ve always quite liked him, although can’t remember too many top managers having been goalkeepers.

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/david-james-goalkeeper-manager-diversity-football-a9607296.html

Last time I heard (a couple of years ago) the number of black football coaches with the necessary level of coaching qualification to be a professional manager was absolutely minuscule. That may have changed now, but it’s difficult to justify complaining about opportunity when there’s no one in a position to take advantage of the opportunity. 

Kieron Dyer was on Sky last Saturday bemoaning lack of opportunity. Then asked how he’s finding it he essentially said ‘oh it’s okay for me, i’m at Ipswich where I knew all the coaches and that got me my opportunity’. So what you’re saying Kieron, is that you got a chance because of who you knew, just like 90% of people in your industry. 

[Turkish]

8 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

Crikey, that’s quite the statement 😮

 

Looks like it didn’t take long to find a black man who feels superior due to skin colour https://wwos.nine.com.au/cricket/ben-stokes-marlon-samuels-spat-wife-slur-covid-19-isolation/6d139602-3cdf-4757-9924-5d72e17ca8f6?ocid=Social-WWOS

[Matthew Le God]

Quote

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8884259/Southampton-Premier-League-club-NOT-sign-FAs-Leadership-Diversity-Code.html

Southampton revealed to be the only Premier League club NOT to sign up for the FA's new equality drive in which clubs pledge to meet diversity targets, including 25 per cent of coaching recruits coming from Black, Asian or of Mixed-Heritage backgrounds

Every human on the planet is of mixed heritage background. Where do you draw the line? 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64, 1/128, 1/256 etc?

[Manuel]

Surprised the press haven't been all over Barnes' rantings.  Thought that was the norm these days when celebs post something daft on Twitter. 

Perhaps we're entering a new era of sensible media.  

[East Kent Saint]

Not much knee taking in the rugby so far !

[oldskoolsi]

21 hours ago, Turkish said:

Fair enough, I maybe wrongly assumed people would have a bit more self respect than to be happy to take a job Because they met a companies quota rather than them both being the best fit for each other needs and ambitions 

It's very easy to talk about self respect when you don't know people's life situations and need for money.  Personally I get a self of self respect doing a job I know I'm good at and feel like I'm contributing to society.  Also I did say all other things being equal but feel free to ignore that.  

[mrfahaji]

22 hours ago, hypochondriac said:

Ever heard the phrase "the ends doesn't justify the means?" I'm not that interested if there is an eventual benefit. Its far outweighed by the negative effects of the racial discrimination in the first instance and the ongoing suspicion it places on the employees as diversity hires. 

How do you know I'm not a minority? I just told you that I was in my line of work so I do know what I'm talking about and besides it's not like all women or black people actually support all this discrimination anyway as they aren't some sort of hive mind. Isn't it significantly more patronising to pretend that all minorities believe the same things or all act the same way due to their skin colour or gender? Oh and of course you can be a minority and racist that's not a particularly controversial statement to make. I don't need to know that you're middle class and white though it's telling and a bit depressing that you feel the need to make it part of the discussion.

There's plenty of minorities on opposing sides of this argument so who are the ones I should be listening to exactly? If there's examples of blatant discrimination against anyone in the workplace then it needs challenging and if necessary action needs taking against the employer. I'm simply not going to support discrimination because there's an inequality and a feeling from some that they are discriminated against. Imo the short term benefits of racial quotas are far outweighed by the longer term negative effects that have already been outlined.

It's also much more interesting to hear what you actually think about the subject rather than feeling the need to play devil's advocate just because one opinion seems to be in the minority on here. 

Fair. Perhaps I didn't need to introduce 'who' I am into the discussion, but no need to find it depressing - I wasn't trying to score points, just thought it might be relevant to know that I'm not arguing from an obviously biased position (I basically don't tick any of the boxes that apply!) My comment about the minority was a general observation, both to the comments on here and in the world at large. I do actually agree with some of what you say, and I'm not claiming that you don't know anything, more suggesting that there might be other circumstances which you, or I, or many people on here, don't have experience about and therefore we shouldn't assume we have all the knowledge/answers.

Re what I actually think: I'm not playing devil's advocate for the sake of it. My position is that these things are not black and white (no pun intended). I'm interested to read or debate shades of grey, and if I think people are arguing for one extreme or the other without any consideration or tolerance for the opposing view that naturally goes against where I stand. In fact in my first post on the matter I say that I think quotas for interviews could be a good thing (because it helps overcome that faceless prejudice), but going so far as having a quota for actual hires seems a bit much (for some of the reasons you've even mentioned yourself) - and I was looking for someone to convince me otherwise! Instead all I read was a barrage of criticism for the idea. There shouldn't be any question that discrimination and even abuse has existed and still exists in our country, and I find it hard to believe that doesn't spill over in some ways into subconcious discrimination in less obvious settings. To what extent is of course open to debate, but if people say they have experienced it, I am prepared to at least consider that it might be true.

Your opening sentence is what maybe sets us apart - and to be honest I'm fine with that view. If some positive discrimination now helps with equality of opportunity further down the line, I'd probably say it was worth it. And that can apply to race, gender, class etc for all kinds of issues. You don't think it's worth it or right, and I can understand why and on that point maybe we can agree to disagree. Hopefully you can see that my posts have been trying to offer different possible angles (some hypothetical rather than literal scenarios which some people on the board seem unable to grasp) rather than necessarily a criticism of you or your points.

[hypochondriac]

I will reply in more detail (I don't have time at the moment.) but what I will say is its a pleasant surprise to receive a polite reply.