Re: Diversity
BigSLittleP,
"The problem is you are assuming a meritocracy exists already."
Well done, that encapsulates the problem exactly.
Minorities of all types are fighting a losing battle *because* the level playing field does *not* exist even though the non-minorities think otherwise.
The white-male and to a lesser degree the white-female always had a better chance than *any* non-white group. They thought they won because they were the *best* and the other people of the same background obviously agreed and bolstered the view they won fairly.
There is no way that can be verified to *force* a fair recruitment process where everyone is judged against a set of equal defined standards. (Standard questions and answers are not very useful to diferentiate potential hires other than eliminate the obviously unsuitable *but* when you go outside the defined standard questions then it is easy to skew the results to your own prejudices.)
From a basic psychological perspective people like people that are like themselves, hence men like to hire men, white like to hire white etc etc (combine multiple sub-sets of your choice !!!).
Presently the white-male is feeling the same unfairness of the system that all the minorities have suffered for generations. It is not right for them *just* as it was not right for the minorities *but* the positive bias is there because there is no way to correct the problem that cannot be 'gamed' to apply all the old and well used methods that have been honed over decades and even today are adapted to work around any so called laws that are there to even the playing field.
So rather than complain, come up with a working fair process that *all* people would be equally judged by and push it with the management of your company.
Bias and discrimination is *always* there, just in the past it was 'OK' because it did not impact the majority 'White-male' so nothing was done to fix the problem !!!
P.S. In my experience, companies that bandied about the word 'Meritocracy' usually had no understanding of what it actually means and used it to cover up the old processes that ultimately still allowed 'Favouritism', 'Cronyism' and after the fact skewing of assessment results by managers who could override the automated systems !!!. For some people this will not be news !!!