Collective Empowerment over Intrest group empowerment

innercitydub2

Including socio economic status into the Equal Status Act discussion.　

From birth I have grown up in a part of Dublin’s Inner City that statistically and visually is ranked as one of the most socially and economically excluded sections of Irish society. (Divided City report 2009)

Excluding the private gated affluent community’s along the docks riverfront. Members of this community would be classed as local traditional indigenous residents of Inner City Dublin, Falling predominately into the lower socio economic, manual labour category.

With regards to this it is a area long associated with oppression, discrimination, crime, poverty, drug use etc

Statistically, and visually I have also observed similar areas where social exclusion is as extreme, the Coombe, Fingals Parts of limerick etc.

The people that predominately make up these socially excluded sections of our society do not fall into any category that is considered oppressed under mainline academia perceptions or government legislation.

The nine grounds on which discrimination is outlawed by the Equal Status Acts is one prime example of this way of thought.
Under this a person or employer may not discriminate based on the following 9 grounds
Gender
Civil status
Family status
Sexual orientation
Religious belief
Age
Disability
Race colour, nationality, ethnic or national origins
Membership of the Traveller community
　
This also involves giving power to employers to implement positive discrimination.

A example of this would be a employer been legally required to recruit or promote a quota section of its workforce based on the above list.

Note In relation to this employers’ in the docklands region that came during the regeneration process claimed, they faced legal action if they where to reserve a certain section of its employment positions to social excluded residents as they did not fall into the 9 grounds of discrimination that would enable them to do so.

On another note I have also found this way of thinking to be full in force in my academic experience to date. There seems to be this interest group mentality emerging not just among lectures but students also where the main content focused on is based around the above 9 grounds.

This is also the case when we look at the number of humanitarian groups based in Ireland which all look to advance the interests and position of those they advocate, protest and research for.

Overall this leads me to question, what are we actually trying to achieve in terms of been humanitarian. Are we trying to improve society as a whole or are we just looking out for groups that we belong, associated with or touched by there plight?

Is the interest in improving class inequalities the last of peoples worry’s?
Do you agree with including socio economic status into the equal status act?

Or do you think we should get rid of the whole reserve quota program and create something new that is more collective rather than individual based.
　
Would like to get everybody’s thoughts on this.
Note I am under no circumstances trying to go down the ah look poor Irish people are been ignored, are problem is worse than all the rest, so please try not let this get into a tit for tat,
Id like some constructive arguments on the issue

Thanks.

Sleepy

I'd be of the opinion that every individual should be judged on their own merits and that positive discrimination is an idiotic, if well intentioned, idea.

silverharp

to be honest I think the biggest problem for disadvantaged people trying to get on in life are there own communities, families and peer group.

mikemac

I'll be back to this

OP, I don't know where in the city centre you're from.
But there are great series of documentaries on youtube

Just search for sheriff street and you'll find ones from the 60's and then they return in the 70's to interview the same people
Unemployment had gotten worse and many of the locals stated the local employers would not hire them.
So they had to fake their address

Just I see your point about employers not hiring locals and this is all covered in over two hours of video if you wish to research more

innercitydub2

Sleepy wrote: »

I'd be of the opinion that every individual should be judged on their own merits and that positive discrimination is an idiotic, if well intentioned, idea.

In my experience a great deal of Irish society I have come in contact with many people that feel this way also. I personally think giving certain groups priority over others because of imagined, perceived, discrimination that may have happened in the past associated with that persons sex, skin couler, age etc is quite ridiculous in a way.

Below is a example of where I see flaws in this system.
Take a person from Dublin that has grown up in poverty, his mother and farther are drug addicts and most of his family, cousins, relations,friends are in prison.

The person has little or no social, cultural, economic capitol that may be beneficial to there career progression.
Yet under all these circumstances he or she persists with there education breaks the mould and goes onto college.

Compare this with a person who is gay, or say doesn’t fit the age category a employer usually takes on for a job.
Both have hade middle to upper-class upbringings, private education, tons of social,cultural,economic capitol to there name.
　
The 3 go for a job in Google, with similar qualifications and experience.
On average the employer such as Google would be more inclined to pick the Gay person or older person if the department they are recruiting has a lack of this type of group among its staff.

Do you think this is fair, if anyone should the person who progressed from a life of poverty be more deserving of the job?

If so and you did recruit them because of there social economic circumstances your company such as Google could be taken to court for infringing the Equal status Act 9 grounds and employment law.

As a result i think this whole positive discrimination thing is pretty shady, and as you said yourself, alot of people are more in favour of people been judged on there own merits and not something that relates to them in the 9 grounds.

Emme

silverharp wrote: »

to be honest I think the biggest problem for disadvantaged people trying to get on in life are there own communities, families and peer group.

I agree. It's hard to change an entrenched mindset within a community (this can be an inner-city community with a sense of hopelessness, a misogynistic farming community or a snobbish affluent community) but when one individual manages to break the mould others will follow. I think this is one reason some Irish people do so well when they go abroad.

innercitydub2

mikemac wrote: »

I'll be back to this

OP, I don't know where in the city centre you're from.
But there are great series of documentaries on youtube

Just search for sheriff street and you'll find ones from the 60's and then they return in the 70's to interview the same people
Unemployment had gotten worse and many of the locals stated the local employers would not hire them.
So they had to fake their address

Just I see your point about employers not hiring locals and this is all covered in over two hours of video if you wish to research more

Hey mike yes, ive seen alot of them, my mother is on the Aliv o Alive O one, Shes one of the street traders which shes still doing today . Im from Liberty House, but live with my Da in Pearse Street now.

I seen that docuemntry where they talk about been refused because of there adress and backround. Tis a shame that 20 years on its still a problem. Im sure your aware when you look around the docklands, its not the locals on average that are living in all the new private gated apartments, nor is it much of the locals in the new employment that has come to the area.

Tale of two citys this part of the city has transformed into.

Sleepy

My other half's father is from Sheriff Street and has been working the docks since he was about 16. Earns a very decent living (far more than I do with post-graduate qualifications), reared his family in Artane and, in his 60's is in better shape than 90% of people I know.

Success in life is about hard work and some luck. Background, sexuality, religion, race etc. can be hurdles but if you're prepared to work, you'll vault over them. For most people who aren't prepared to work, they're an excuse for their lack of success, not a reason.

Manach

Really Old chap, a business is not there to advance any progressive cause. Monetary renumeration is the sole reason for its existence, anything else is just window dressing so as to entice people into believing whatever marketing hype it is selling. So taking people from "disadvantaged" backgrounds should only make sense if they have qualities which empower the company, such as a drive to succeed against the odds. From my own misogynistic traditional God fearing rural community POV.

mikemac

State Street in the IFSC Dublin cooperated with the National College of Ireland to get early school leavers from Dublin docklands in financial services

Of course at the same time they were making graduate staff redundant so you could say it was a PR exercise and cheap labour! :rolleyes:

Emme

mikemac wrote: »

State Street in the IFSC Dublin cooperated with the National College of Ireland to get early school leavers from Dublin docklands in financial services

Of course at the same time they were making graduate staff redundant so you could say it was a PR exercise and cheap labour! :rolleyes:

Maybe, but I know a lecturer who worked with people in Dublin's inner city. He said that the women, particularly street traders, would give any financial expert a run for their money. Raising large families on small incomes and often being the sole breadwinner made those women very savvy indeed.

Women like that should be running the country! :rolleyes:

If the inner city school leavers were anything like those women they would have been a fantastic asset to the IFSC. If NCIR trained them up what was wrong with the programme? Businesses aren't charities, they exist to make money.

There are lots of people in inner city and marginalised communities who have entrepreneurial and business skills but unfortunately some of them misuse these skills by working in crime. The sad fact is if they were born into an upper middle class background they could be just as criminally minded and get away with it like what some of our elite have been doing for years.