[WheredoIlive?]

Everyone is out of work!

I think it has nothing to do with race.

The economy is failing, I just saw a past town of mine nearly die and the place was 99% white, and right now the unemployment there officially on the books is 20%, and probably in reality 40% if not higher.

[sumukru]

There have been some excellent posts on this thread.

I think the truth of the matter is that no matter how open minded you are, you can never truly understand racism, stereotyping or bigotry until you experience it. And even then there are varying degrees of it.

For instance, when someone looks at me and assumes I am a fiery, green minded, liberal vegetarian, that is a stereotype. To me it is not a 'bad' stereotype, but I can guess those tags may not sit so well with others. For what it is worth, I don't fit all those labels, but I have literally had people tell me they could figure these things out about me without knowing me first.

So even things that we may personally consider inert is still a stereotype.

And obviously, to me being categorized as such wasn't a big deal to me. But if someone were to suggest I was lazy, uneducated, inept, violent, angry based on my appearance, that would be BEYOND a big deal. These are labels that people have to fight against everyday, and why? Because it is easier for people to group categorize and label than take each person they meet as an individual. It is a detriment to us all and it may work 'both ways' as I sometimes hear, but frankly if you are within the group that holds the power, it is NOT the same. Vegetarian labels do not equal Lazy labels. Being thought of as powerful is not the same as being thought of as uneducated.

As to the original post of "are whites taking all the jobs," I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised though; racism becomes more apparent when times are tough.

[electric_lady]

Originally Posted by sajae90

.Affirmative action is over now any way in Michigan, it isn't even valid anymore because people voted against in michigan, so they don't "HAVE" to do anything anymore. Hell, without affirmative action, almost NO minority or black would be hired unless they have networks and connections......come on now...and the majority of minorities DONT have that many connections since its less than 15% of us in michigan anyway.

At the last company I worked for in Michigan, a minority woman left for another job and we couldn't fill the much-needed position because all we had were white applicants.

[Sparrow_temp]

Why couldn't you hire a white applicant?

Originally Posted by electric_lady

At the last company I worked for in Michigan, a minority woman left for another job and we couldn't fill the much-needed position because all we had were white applicants.

[Bydand]

Originally Posted by electric_lady

At the last company I worked for in Michigan, a minority woman left for another job and we couldn't fill the much-needed position because all we had were white applicants.

May I be the one to call BS to this post? AA is long dead in the State, a company hires who is qualified, not who is the right color. Just noticed your location, how long ago did you last work in Michigan?

[MoheJohe]

WOW! This thread line is enough to make some of us want to throw up! My "white" husband was laid off after 20 years of loyal service a year ago. He has searched every day for a new job. He was even turned away for being "to experienced" ! He has only recently got a job offer in another state making less then he did before and we had to jump on it. Reading posts like this reminds me of what I will not "miss" in MI.
I was here 3 months the first time I went in a dollar store and overheard the cashier complaining to a friend behind the counter about how "all the white folks drive the nice cars". I couldn’t help but wonder why I didn’t get a new car when I moved to MI, where exactly do I line up?, I waited patiently at the counter for him to finish his hate fueled speech. The man then rang up my purchase and didn’t say a word of pardon or apology, I was invisible. I also watched MLK day get celebrated from Feb until the end of the school year at my step daughter’s "culturally diverse" school. She came home and told me “MLK and Rosa Parks freed the slaves”, she had never heard of the civil war. “White folks” fought in that as well, they do not teach that today. I picked up a flyer at my sons school during orientation offering a program that provided wonderful education and engineering ops, only to read the fine print.. "For boys of minority”, I took that to mean no white folks allowed.
Maybe I am “sensitive” , perhaps they “didn’t mean it that way” … Why then are these excuses ok when the act is done by a “person of color” and not ok when done by a “white folk”?
I understand all to well that racism exists, however, being diverse is not supposed to mean divided and equal does not excuse the elitist and callous behavior I have seen an abundance of in South MI. Real victims of hate exist in every color. These people have my support and sympathy for the hurt they have suffered. However, To see the over exaggerated claims and poor me's of people who have no grounds and are in fact only fueled by hatred, politics, and/ or socially imposed guilt for crimes they never committed is enough to make any one leave and not look back.

[MTUCache]

Originally Posted by Bydand

May I be the one to call BS to this post? AA is long dead in the State, a company hires who is qualified, not who is the right color. Just noticed your location, how long ago did you last work in Michigan?

Definitely not BS... while AA may be dead and gone, there are still a LOT of situations where companies need to fill openings with minority applicants. As someone who has worked for consulting companies who work closely with many city departments (Detroit, Pontiac, and other Detroit suburbs), I can tell you for a fact that the number of women working there makes a difference, the number of blacks working there makes a difference, and the number of people who live within a certain cities borders makes a difference.

If you're a manager at a company who does a lot of business with a city like Pontiac or Detroit and there are positions that need to be filled, you better believe that you're going to get some heat if none of those hires are people that the city wants to see at your company. It wouldn't be the least bit surprising to see a company lose hundred of thousands of dollars worth of consultant fees because their staff was no longer "black enough", or their staff lived in zip codes that were "too white". It doesn't matter what the rules are, or whether affirmative action is truly dead or not, the simple fact is that there are people who write their own rules and defy you to call them on it. If those are the people who are signing checks to your business, you play by their rules.

Note, this isn't just a Detroit or Michigan thing. DBE/MBE is huge all over the country when working with any governmental or psuedo-governmental agency, and that's just the "legal" part of it that actually follows the rules. By the time you start taking into account the underhanded and questionable powers that agencies have regarding their own decisions, you'd better believe there's a strong interest in hiring minority candidates for your company. If you want to work with the government, especially in an "urban" city, this is definitely a consideration.

[electric_lady]

Originally Posted by Bydand

May I be the one to call BS to this post? AA is long dead in the State, a company hires who is qualified, not who is the right color. Just noticed your location, how long ago did you last work in Michigan?

I last worked in Michigan in January of 2009. Not really all that long ago, eh? You can call it BS all you want, but a fact is a fact. That's what happened. If the purpose of this thread is to discuss and uncover the truth about a situation, perhaps we should listen to what everyone has to say, without calling something BS just because it "shouldn't" or "couldn't" be.

[RememberMee]

During the Great Depression Whites squeezed blacks out of the most undesirable jobs in MI, fact.

[MoheJohe]

Originally Posted by RememberMee

During the Great Depression Whites squeezed blacks out of the most undesirable jobs in MI, fact.

Although the economy is in the toilet now, I do not believe for a moment that civil rights of today are comparable with those of the 1930's.