What is the Cost of Discrimination?
kosmo - See all 471 of my articles
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No, we’re not going to talk about the impact of discrimination on victims. Nor or we going to talk about the effects of programs intended to level the playing field.
Instead, we’ll take a look from the other side – what is the impact of those doing the discrimination?
When you discriminate in the workplace, you are immediately throwing out qualified candidates. Sometimes you might even be throwing out the most qualified candidate. What does this cost you? Money.
I really can’t grasp to concept of discriminating in the workplace. I am a team coordinator for my company. When we bring new people on board, the main focus is to add competent people. There’s no hidden agenda to add only Caucasians, or men, or tall people. It’s all about the skills. And why not? Competent people make your life easier, regardless of their gender, race, or sexual orientation.
For decades, the professional sports leagues were for whites only. Then pioneers like baseball’s Branch Rickey realized that there was a large untapped potential. Rickey signed Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson to break the color barrier, and other teams followed suit. Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947; the last team to integrate were the Red Sox when they added Pumpsie Green in 1959.
Even after the racial barrier were broken, stereotypes prevailed. African-American players were not allowed to play the more cerebral positions (quarterback in football and pitcher in baseball) – with the reasoning that the race simply didn’t have the intelligence necessary for those positions. Some teams were quicker than others to realize that this was hogwash (Bob Gibson?) – and those teams reaped the benefits of being a step ahead of the curve.
As pretty much everyone knows, I am a huge sports fan. This really helped foster an idea of racial equality (or at least ambivalence) at an early age. My first introduction to players was often on the radio. The players were simply a name and a stat line. I liked the players with the good stats and disliked the bums with the bad stats – race had nothing to do with my decision.
Not even writers have been immune from discrimination. British novelist Mary Ann Evans wrote under the pen name of George Eliot to make sure that her works were taken seriously. More recently, a female writer on Men With Pens used the pseudonym James Chartrand for the same reason.
The world of politics in the US has long been dominated by white men. Inroads have been in recent decades, but minorities and women are still under-represented in the federal government. This, of course, defies all logic. We’re not even talking about “haves” and “have nots” in these cases. We’re often talking about people with impressive academic credentials. Why would an African-American woman with a law degree from Harvard be less qualified than a Caucasian male with a law degree from Yale? (Unless, of course, you’re of the opinion that Harvard is vastly superior to Yale). Certainly, they have are more alike than different.
Is there still room for a glass ceiling in the 21st century? Certainly. But it should be used appropriately – to keep the incompetent from rising to positions of power.
Kosmo is the founder of The Soap Boxers and writes on a variety of topics, including the Fiction Friday original short stories. You can purchase some of Kosmo's work at the company store. Like Kosmo's writing? You can leave a tip. Like this site? Subscribe via RSS, Subscribe via Email, or Follow us on Twitter. The permanent URL for this article is:http://www.thesoapboxers.com/what-is-the-cost-of-discrimination/
Safe At Home
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The ball sailed high into the air before smashing into the window of a house situated deep in right field of the makeshift diamond. Jeffrey Snyder grabbed his glove and prepared to make a hasty exit to avoid the wrath of the homeowner. “Wait a minute,” came a shout from over his shoulder. Jeff stopped [...]
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Join The Coffee Party
The Angry Squirrel - See all 7 of my articles
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The summer is getting into full force of triple digit temps and the political landscape is soon to start to boil over once again as elections start to near. However, this month I really couldn’t find a topic that has not been rehashed over and over by now to draw my interest to encompass a [...]
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Review of Dreamhost
kosmo - See all 471 of my articles
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The Soap Boxers, as well as other domains within the realm of Kosmo, is hosted by Dreamhost. I stumbled across Dreamhost quite by accident. When I began blogging, my friend Lazy Man took me under his wing and provided my with free hosting under his own Dreamhost account. So, what do you get with Dreamhost? Domain [...]
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When LeBron James left the Cavaliers for the Heat as a free agent, I was disappointed, along with much of the country. I would have loved to see him win a title with his hometown Cavs. However, I have been surprised at the amount of backlash against not only LeBron, but the NBA’s new Holy Trinity [...]
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Jumping to Conclusions – Again (Shirley Sherrod, BP, and the Lockerbie Bomber)
Martin Kelly - See all 41 of my articles
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Last week The Crunchy Conservative had an article about Shirley Sherrod (the woman at the USDA who was dismissed after a tape of her speech before the NAACP was released. This tape apparently exposed her as a racist (anti-white as she is African-American) and using her position within the government to penalize a white farmer. [...]
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How Much Money Should You Leave Your Kids When You Die?
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From time to time, when reading the advice columns, I read articles about parents who are concerned that they are spending too freely in retirement and will have little money to leave to their children when they die. Sometimes, there are even letters from grown children who are concerned that their inheritance is being spent. [...]
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The End of The Casual Observer
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Yes, you read that correctly. The Casual Observer will cease to exist in the near future. In the beginning, the site was a lone Casual Observer (kosmo) expounding on topics that interested him. Over the past 18 months, the staff has grown, and we have people jumping up on their soap boxes to talk about [...]
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Shirley Sherrod, The White House, And The NAACP
The Crunchy Conservative - See all 7 of my articles
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Shirley Sherrod made comments at an NAACP event that were “taken out of context”. She was fired, sorry, asked to resign,wait…fired, from her position at the USDA by the Secretary of Ag (and Iowa’s (my) former Governor) Tom Vilsack. Now, she’s been given a “unique” rehire opportunity back at the USDA. Really? So are we [...]
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A Can of Spam
kosmo - See all 471 of my articles
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We’re going into a short quiet period here at The Casual Observer. Changes are afoot in the near future. What sort of changes? Well, if I told you, that would ruin the surprise! We get a LOT of spam comments at The Casual Observer. What is the point? When people leave a comment, they can [...]
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