Equal Opportunity is Only for White Breeders

[Pud]

This isn't news to anyone who has been on the receiving end of such bullshit:

http://news.yahoo.com/why-gay-men-dont-job-interviews-143400727.html

But, I'm sure I'll hear plenty of meaningless blathering and name-calling. Let the excuses begin.

[surgicalstrike]

Science really needs to step up the prenatal testing for birth defects. The only thing meaningless is a dude too afraid to ask a girl out and winds up finding another like-minded lonely nerd in which the two losers decide to find love in mud tunnels.

Srsly, who gives a fuck about queers ?

If every last one of 'em died right now it would be zero concern to me.

[Grim_Legion]

yeah i have more serious shit to worry about than jobless fags, if you really want to stir a worthwhile shit pot, look up SA's BEE law which in pure practical terms, means if you white and living in South Africa, you fucked, no job, no grant, no state pension. thank fuck im employed by and american company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Economic_Empowerment

haha .. just thinking if you gay and white in South Africa, might as well slit your wrists unless you going for a job interview in Cape Town at one of the many massage parlous or bath houses there. I think Cape Town is probably the next gay city after San Fran

[CrAnIuM]

This isn't news to anyone who has been on the receiving end of such bullshit:

http://news.yahoo.com/why-gay-men-dont-job-interviews-143400727.html

But, I'm sure I'll hear plenty of meaningless blathering and name-calling. Let the excuses begin.

I don't understand how this "study" shows anything in line with what the article claims.

How do they take into account the individual HR system at each company or the fact that HR dude A may be having a real shit day and just wants to go home early or even if the HR dude looked at BOTH resumes concurrently.

I'm gonna have to call BS. Especially in today's hair trigger legal system no HR dude is gonna chance being the one called on to the carpet for sexual orientation discrimination claims.


Also .. I generally call BS on all polls and studies such as this where no clear connection is shown.

[CrAnIuM]

Srsly, who gives a fuck about queers ?



yeah i have more serious shit to worry about than jobless fags




I care.

In the grand scheme of humanity what happens to one of us can happen to all of us. I recognize this but have withdrawn from the rat race as there is nothing I can do to alter opinions of people like you.

I can only hope that you will at least get to the point where you are not willing to stone your neighbor for being different and that you would speak out to the crowd gathering those stones and say that you will have no part of it.

[Zeabot]

How do they take into account the individual HR system
This is true. You can't just assume the population is going to consider all things equally every time. Also, they replaced the homosexual club with a left winged club. Who knows what kind of sway that may have had?

[Gzus]

Clever stuff
2807

[Firestorm]

I take almost anything posted on Yahoo news online to be about as accurate as Fox news is on television. A few hot button terms, a lot of blather and no real substance. This "article" was no different. Heterosexual left? I thought it was the conservative right? If you want to know if the article is slanted to trying to give the homosexual community, specifically gay men, yet another reason to whine, check out the list of "sources" for the article. Add to the equation that the only "mainstream" source is also the paying sponsor and you have something that's about as news worthy as a tell all from Madonna's pussy manicurist.

[Pud]

Especially in today's hair trigger legal system no HR dude is gonna chance being the one called on to the carpet for sexual orientation discrimination claims.

There are no legal or regulatory protections for homosexuals in the workplace. Some cities have fines. Austin TX, for example, charges a $200 fine if a company is found guilty of discrimination. Basically a parking ticket. The one statute that *might possibly* be twisted to fit is sexual harassment. But you have to prove that the offender was both in a position of power over you AND wanted in your pants. So, it's really only useful for self-hating closet cases assuming you can prove he/she is a closet case.

I'll buy your argument on similar grounds though. HR reps don't want to be responsible for "disruptive" hires. That is, they're concerned about how the the applicant will "fit in" to the company culture. Given the initial responses to this post, it's a valid concern.


I don't understand how this "study" shows anything in line with what the article claims.


You can't just assume the population is going to consider all things equally every time.


I take almost anything posted on Yahoo news online to be about as accurate as Fox news is on television.

Most of us filter information according to our own biases, and seek out that which confirms our point of view while ignoring that which conflicts. This has been proven over and over again and if you reject the notion that human beings think and act irrationally, then we have no basis for discussing this issue, or even being on a forum to do so.

The only possible way to counteract this tendency is to learn tolerate high levels of ambiguity (difficult to do) and never remain wedded to a particular position or set of "facts" (also extremely difficult to do).

Yahoo news is an aggregator. Fox news is a partisan promoter. There is a difference, and it's important to understand the value of each when assessing the social landscape. Fox, believe it or not, has content that is usually not available anywhere else. Plus, it has a huge audience, so it's incredibly important what sort of information shows up there. Yahoo has a heavy online presence and must also be understood within that context.

That being said, the study showed up in a peer-reviewed journal. This is also important to understand. It means that they used the same methods that politicians use when determining whether or not they are winning an election (in other words, quite accurate), and then crafting a message that will win. This is why money trumps all else in elections (and why elections are no longer true elections). The person with the most money can buy the best studies right on down to the micro level in order to understand what they need to say or not say to get elected. Political ads are NOT designed to convince anyone of anything. They are designed to APPEAL to what you already think, based on studies done by sociologists.

You know -- the ones who did this study and published the results.

[CrAnIuM]

Most of us filter information according to our own biases, and seek out that which confirms our point of view while ignoring that which conflicts. This has been proven over and over again and if you reject the notion that human beings think and act irrationally, then we have no basis for discussing this issue, or even being on a forum to do so.


I'm not rejecting anything, and there was no need to school me on human nature.

Seems to me that everyone can say that they are faced with bias in one form or another and as long as there is a dude in the system making decisions then there will always be those that will argue that they are the downtrodden Du jour.

[Pud]

Seems to me that everyone can say that they are faced with bias in one form or another
And everyone does. Just because there were poor white people in the Jim Crow South didn't negate or make untrue the fact that blacks suffered as the result of institutional racism.

This was a double-blind study controlled for liberal bias. What that means is that EVEN AMONG THE SO-CALLED PROGRESSIVELY MINDED, gay men experience discrimination in hiring. Please excuse me for shouting but it gets frustrating when a scientific study goes out of its way to mitigate for liberal bias (i.e.: errs on the side FAVORING the idea that no discrimination exists) and is dismissed out of hand simply because it doesn't comport with the reader's ideals.

Here's a fact: middle aged white men have been hit hardest by the ongoing recession. Why? Because they're the only ones left. Prior to this, it was racial minorities (i.e.: those most likely to be blue collar workers) and women (past recessions caused families to drop child care expenses by shifting the wife/girlfriend into off-shift part-time work).

So, middle-aged white men feel put upon (for the first time since the Great Depression) and simply can't understand that life has been like this for everyone else for the last 20 or 30 years. Gay men are part of this dynamic. The only advantage that gay men have is a two-earner no-kids household that allows for a slightly higher disposable income per person than the typical four-person "traditional" family.

Back to the jobs thing.

If there are 100 jobs available and ALL of them are truly available to you, the straight middle aged white guy (even though you're competing against 1,000 others to get one of them), but only 30 are available to the gay middle aged white guy (assuming he "admits" on his resume that he's gay), who stands the better chance of getting hired?

[surgicalstrike]

I'm not rejecting anything

Careful, he'll take that as an open anus.




there was no need to school me on human nature


That's true since you seem to agree that rubbing two pencil erasures together equals one love. Talk about not knowing your ass from a hole in the ground.

I'm outta here as I have no desire to read whatever else this dolt will type. (whilst jamming a pogo stick up the out spot)

[CrAnIuM]

and is dismissed out of hand simply because it doesn't comport with the reader's ideals.

I can't speak for the others that disagree with the study but I truly was confused with how the results were obtained is all. I'm not saying there is no merit in such studies but I'd like a bit of detail on the mechanics of studies such as this.

If I see three white dudes kicking the shit out a black kid and calling him nigger at each kick then I can put the two together to get at the racially motivated event. Things such as you are suggesting are much harder for me to get my head around, mainly because I'm not part of it directly, and that it is so overt and ingrained to be nearly invisible.

So my questioning is based on trying to understand more.

[CrAnIuM]

That's true since you seem to agree that rubbing two pencil erasures together equals one love. Talk about not knowing your ass from a hole in the ground.

For me it is not primarily the homosexual aspect.

I want to be able to do whatever it is I want, whenever it is I want to do it. Who the hell am I to deny others that same right?

I also do not want my government curtailing the freedoms of any class of legitimate US citizen.

[Zeabot]

I'm not pleased by the "results" of the study. I am extremely skeptical of ANY report that shows only the end result. The only hard numbers they reported were 1700 or so resumes sent out and the percentages called back. How many were liberal? How many were gay? If they sent out 1700 resumes and 1600 of them were gay and 100 were liberal, then maybe the liberals were just luckier and on average only 7% of ALL applicants would have been called back.
Secondly, why account for any bias like that? Usually, when accounting for bias, one adds more bias to the study. Why not just leave the gay part omitted? If they "ungay" resumes called got more interviews, despite not having a treasurer position in college, all other things equal, that would have held more weight for me.
Also, last I checked, when is a resume the only part of getting a job? Hell, resumes are almost a moot point in this day in age of 1000+ resumes received per job. Maybe the application questions were not answered the same? As I previously stated, the article gives no details on this part of the study. With 1700+ resumes sent out, it is almost certain they had several people ACTUALLY applying for jobs. What if one of the guys was a complete tard-o who could not get a job shoveling shit?
My point is this: I'm not saying "fuck homos." Rather, I'm just trying to say this study sucks balls and holds no merit, regardless of the outcome.

[Pud]

but I truly was confused with how the results were obtained is all.
I found the article to be poorly written also. But I've resigned myself to the fact that "journalism" is a misnomer these days and most of what shows up in mass media seems to have been written by middle school gym teachers. Wait -- scratch that. It's an insult to perfectly good middle school gym teachers.

I could have linked to the American Journal of Sociology (http://www.jstor.org/pss/10.1086/661653?searchUrl=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Ffilter%3Djid%253A10.2307%252Fj100067%26Query% 3Dgay%2Bmen%2Bhiring%26Search.x%3D0%26Search.y%3D0%26wc%3Don&Search=yes) itself. But, you'll notice that you have to be a subscriber to access the full article. Thus, you would need to understand -- and trust -- the peer review process that scholastic journals use to encourage analytical rigor in order to infer anything useful from the abstract itself. This would be a tall order for your readers, even if they were so inclined.

So, I'm left with making an assertion on my own which becomes automatically suspect given the dancing rainbow cow (not hippo) I use as an avatar. Or, I can prove my point beyond a shadow of a doubt. Sadly, even though I do so, it will not convince most people to change opinions they already hold. It's far easier to kick the shit out of me (virtually) while calling me a faggot than to face their own bigotry in light of incontrovertible proof. As far as you are concerned, it's in their best interests to obfuscate and confuse the issue with mountains of flying bullshit. This allows them to keep being bigots. They like to be bigots because it makes them feel good. They're addicted to the "I'm better than you" endorphin rush. This should explain why the Jim Crow South lasted so long.

I know from personal experience that the study understates the reality on the ground. But, I'll take what I can get in the form of incontrovertible proof.

The person who performed the study and wrote the report (http://scholar.harvard.edu/tilcsik/pages/research-and-publications) is using it to apply for his Ph.D. at Harvard University -- an institution not exactly known for its flaming liberalism. The purpose of publishing in a scholastic journal is to make his work available for everyone else in the world to find holes in his process, logic and/or conclusions AND for them to publish their own countervailing opinions based on their own studies. If it turns out he made it all up or skewed the results, or didn't use time-tested scientific methods properly, his work becomes tainted and all the money and time he spent up to this point on his education goes down the drain. In other words he has everything at stake on the accuracy and objectivity of his work REGARDLESS of his personal opinions on the matter.

Remember that there are Theology Ph.D.'s out there who have everything to gain by proving him wrong. If his work is not bulletproof, they'll tear it to shreds.

[Deadly_Toxin]

I feel the social stigma against homosexuals (particularily that men have against gay men) is... well... pretty hard to deny.

Straight men (not all obviously so forgive me if it seems I generalize) seem to have this fear of being hit on by the same sex. As if they are some sort of hot piece of man meat and all homosexuals are raging sexual predators out to turn them. It's complete homophobia.

Prejudice in the job application process however is ultimately unavoidable. Awareness is nice, however it can cause quota systems, which are total bullshit. A person should be hired because of a capability to do a job, not because 'we need one more female to work or we'll look sexist'. The fact is a place of employment can reject you for no reason at all, and proving that it was because of your race, gender, sexual orientation, appearance, weight, tattoos or (fill in blank) rather than an inability to do the job is pretty hard if not next to impossible.