Racism in the IT Industry (contracting or otherwise..)

[sasguru]

Only Anti-White/Anglo-Saxon discrimination. All in the City and its getting worse...

Stuff and nonsense. The City is the one place where ability is paramount and you can be purple with red stripes for all anyone cares.
Of course, the incompetent of all colours will always blame discrimination.

[janey]

Janey's here. Time for Light Relief, methinks ...

...although to be fair this time it's my fault. Anyway Janey are your boobies disappearing then? The answer may be silicon.

ah no, as discussed in other threads I am not cursed/fortunate enough* to have little 'uns

*delete as appropriate

[Leeda]

all i know is they dont like reptiles in the IT industry...

Issit cos they bite?

[bobsmithldn]

Do you have any evidence of it? have you experienced it yourself?

One of the posts on here, got me thinking about it.

***Nothing at all*** in the 14 years I've been working and I'm from a minority ...

[bobsmithldn]

Oh yes, in Denmark get it quite a bit. At one client it was so extreme I was forced to challenge: "Is it coz I'z black?". IIRC I discussed it on this very board previously. BTW I dropped that client, 'cause I won't work for such people, well, not unless they pay a higher rate.

Woz it a poonani you waz taking stick froem?

[lilelvis2000]

"but Whites do get paid more for the same work and hold most of the senior positions"

Sorry but if you are going to come up with a sweeping statement like that we are going to need to see some evidence to back it up. Do you honestly think in this politically correct nanny state that would be permitted by the powers that be???

perhaps not in the civil service but in the private sector why not? They'll do anything to bring someone in from India at 75% of the wage of a UK person.

Last client I had out of 150 staff there were no asian, blacks or anyone of any colour. Current client - no asians or blacks in the first 5 tiers of management.

Not scientific but one gets the impression that there are two glass ceilings.

[ziggystardust]

I think this site provides really useful information. However, I clicked on this link to genuinely find out what people's experience of racism is in the IT industry and I'm pretty disappointed to read the majority of responses are either sarcastic or not taking the thread seriously.

[cojak]

I think this site provides really useful information. However, I clicked on this link to genuinely find out what people's experience of racism is in the IT industry and I'm pretty disappointed to read the majority of responses are either sarcastic or not taking the thread seriously.

SO you have dug up a zombie thread from 2006 ????.

I let it through just to show you that we don't 'stifle' talk of racism (as I'm sure you would have prattled had I not let it through), and another reason which will become clear soon enough.

You obviously only bother yourself with the Professional forums.

[DS23]

how are weird and gilly?

[Dominic Connor]

Japanese Banks

Japanese banks do have a general problem with black people, not specific to IT.

The only person I know for a fact was fired because he was black was an IT civil servant, he wasn't actually competent, but the firing was because he was black.

I've been researching an article on statistical racism for The Register...

Its going slowly, since the only data source I actually trust is LinkedIn, since as a pimp I know how bad the "official" stats firms make up are.

So I've been experimenting with counting faces, using my skill and judgement to guess whether someone is white or not. I arbitrarily count Spanish people as white, but Arabs as not, etc. Obviously you can be an Indian citizen and be white and people often describe themselves in ways that make stats tricky, but my view is that racism is more about the colour of your skin than the legalism around your passport.

As a line of work IT has more coloured people than the population as a whole, about 11-12%, which implies less racism but some firms seem to vary from that quite a bit and when (or a hapless intern) get some time, their white/non white and male to female ratios are going to be done more thoroughly.

Libel laws being what they are, I suspect I'll be using phrases like "XX is not racist but the price they seem to have paid for an unusually high number of women is that they hire almost no non-whites", and yes there does seem to be at least one firm like that, a famous one as well, it would appear to have more white blonde women called Sarah than all types of coloured people put together.