The opening of my latest column at EveryJoe:
“Irrational and unjust discrimination in the workplace deserves exposure and condemnation. But what about rational discrimination? Consider the following cases.
“You are the chair of the hiring committee for a new president of a historically-black college. So you discriminate in favor of black candidates and against non-black candidates.
“You are the owner of a fitness club, and you want to hire an attendant for the women’s locker room. In screening applicants, you discriminate on the basis of sex: no males are considered.
“You are the chief of detectives in a city where there has been a series of unsolved crimes in a Latino neighborhood. You decide to send one of your detectives undercover to investigate. So you discriminate against all other ethnicities and assign a Latino detective.
“Discrimination is an essential cognitive function, and like all cognitive functions it can be done well or poorly. We are an intelligent species, and our intelligence works by noticing similarities and differences, categorizing things according to those similarities and differences, and acting appropriately …” [Read more here.]
Last week’s column: Is Racial Tolerance the Best We Can Do?
You wrote: “Our question today is not political.”
In today’s world, it’s ALL political. If you’re not willing to address that, the rest of what you say is meaningless or at best philosophical gymnastics.
Here’s the deal. Blacks and women can discriminate against white males anytime they like. White males are not allowed to discriminate against anyone ever. That’s mostly all you need to know. Note that your examples happen to fit with that.
Relevant to the above: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/396798/abolition-private-life-kevin-d-williamson
Superb disentangling of the issues. How often these days is the baby of a necessary concept thrown out with the bathwater. I remember a news story on TV some years ago of a female senior who won the “right” to be hired as a performer by a strip club. While I see beauty in women of all ages this is hardly the model the club was built on – one’s personal feelings about such establishments notwithstanding.