Sadiq Khan: There are too many &quot;white men&quot; on Transport for London

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I am not backtracking or something iike that. I did not said anything that is not true. It is just people like you who are not able to tolerate different opinion. Attack my arguments instead of wanting to bann me.

Peoples opions can be racist. E.g. yours.

Reply 81

Straighthate

how long before we can rename it to londonistan?

Reply 82

slaven

Original post by MrSplash

Peoples opions can be racist. E.g. yours.

Well in this case, this woud meant that reality has a racist bias. You cannot change this. I cannot change facts.

Also, I am maybe black. What now?

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 83

wildleaves

Original post by MrSplash

Just stop and use some common sense.

That is not an argument. Nice try though.

Reply 84

MrSplash

Original post by Straighthate

how long before we can rename it to londonistan?

Why say that? You from London?

Reply 85

username1148663

Original post by MrSplash

Ethnic minorities face far more discrimination in obtaining work and promotions so I dunno why despairing as if you got problems.

Sorry if I want to live in a world where judgements of people are based on their abilities and the content of their character rather than sex, race and religion.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 86

username521617

That's some dumb, patronising tokenism from the newly appointed Sheikh of Londonabad. :colone:

Reply 87

jon2016

Original post by Dodgypirate

He's already pulling a "Trudeau".

He's picking TFL's staff based on diversity and not skill "because it's 2016" (note: satire).

This is why I voted Green Party, not because I support them, but because I didn't want to vote for Labour or the Tories.

LOL if anything greens are even more politically correct than labour

Reply 88

raspberr1es

Original post by EUTyranny

London's transport authority is far too dominated by white men, Labour's mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan said today.

There are currently 13 white men on the Transport for London board and just three women. Khan said he would ensure the board better reflected the "diversity" of Londoners if he becomes mayor.

"I will reshape TfL's board," he said during a speech in Brixton this morning."It needs to better reflect London's diversity in the interest of Londoners.

Did you know there are 16 people on the board of TfL?

Read More:
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2016/03/30/sadiq-khan-there-are-too-many-white-men-on-transport-for-lon

Whoever is on the transport for London board should be there based solely on merit, not on their ethnicity or gender just to fill up quotas or tick boxes. This guy has been mayor for 1 day and he's already getting on my nerves.

Reply 89

MrControversial

Original post by Wired_1800

Surely, there are merits to quota filling. Having more women on the TFL board should help to improve women and their leadership profile. Regardless of race, for a board that has just 3 women, the TFL is basically telling women to "go back to the kitchen". This is because I am certain that there may be more qualified women to be on that board than those men.

To me, I think there are merits to quota filling in certain situations, where women and ethnic minorities are not represented. If not, we can all go back to 1836.

There are well thought out arguments against affirmative action. You basically almost never do it. It's a once in a bluemoon thing that can only be justified by the most extreme circumstances. There are no such circumstances here and there are better ways to support equality. Equal opportunity is the crux of that and affirmative action is against equal opportunity.

The error in your approach here it that you propose to artificial manipulate the circumstances solely to make things look good. It is make up that the make up of the board should not literally be make up. I think that is actually condescending toward women but also superficial, naive and prejudice. You have taken a statistic, deemed that it does not fit in with your ideals and attacked it without asking any questions about that statistic or why it is like that.

The thing is that even if you want to look at this as a matter of image affirmative action does more harm than good. If you get it slightly wrong it becomes a racist or sexist policy. It can pitch the races and sexes against each other as once you give an unfair advantage like that you attack the others. Secondly there will be absolutely no respect for women who got there simply because they were women for the sake of image. You'll create doubt around minorities or the under-represented that they are really deserving. It will create a minority privilege stigma.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 90

ImmunetoShaming

The exact distribution, as permitted by an algorithmic determination, of what amounts to equality as determined by 64 million different interpretations (the population of the UK) of equality:

25% men
25% female
25% alternative genders
25% gender unidentified

This needs to be further subdivided to account for everyone's identity:

50% white
50% non-white

This needs to be further subdivided to account for everyone else's identity.

10% < 6ft tall.
10% Muslim.
10% Christian
10% Hindu
10% Sikh
10% Buddhist
10% Homosexual
10% Bisexual
10% Trisexual
10% Asexual

Of course, religion and sexuality doesn't appropriately reflect our diversity. We must subdivide further:

10% fat
10% slim
10% hairy
10% bald
10% brunette
10% blonde
10% English
10% non-English
10% rUK
10% FOR EXCEPTIONS.

Of course, we could just utilise Sadiq's methodology:

if whitemen > 50%
puts "racism"
elsif
nonwhitemen > 50%
puts "empowerment"
else
puts "Islamophobia"
end

Reply 91

Camila Cabello

Original post by democracyforum

That is actually disgusting and racist. Reported.

Reply 92

MrControversial

Original post by Camila Cabello

That is actually disgusting and racist. Reported.

It's actually hilarious. I have no idea if the people who made it are being deliberately satirical or accidentally.

Reply 93

Camila Cabello

Original post by MrControversial

It's actually hilarious. I have no idea if the people who made it are being deliberately satirical or accidentally.

I don't think it is satirical at all.

Reply 94

dozyrosie

Original post by EUTyranny

I wonder how many Jinn Mr Khan will invite onto the authority.

Reply 95

MrControversial

Original post by Camila Cabello

I don't think it is satirical at all.

It is clearly satire, whether intended or not.

The hashtags make me wonder but I actually think it deliberately is satire. The non-white figure is wrong, it's actually the amount that are non-white British. Also London/London Bridge or a London Bridge is not falling down and the houses of Parliament are not exploding or at least weren't when last I checked.

Reply 96

raspberr1es

Original post by Oblivion99

Did he even say that? Chasing off the propaganda of biased newspaper. White people painting themselves as vulnerable victims now because theres a Pakistani Mayor LOL. Pussies.

nothing like a good old stereotype.

Reply 97

Oblivion99

Original post by raspberr1es

nothing like a good old stereotype.

not a stereotype love, but factual and true :smile:

. painting yourselves as victims once again, well done :smile:

Reply 98

Wired_1800

Original post by MrControversial

It is not an error and, yes, I propose that the system should be artificially manipulated, through Affirmative Action, based on circumstances across the lines of race, gender and so on.

I disagree that AA is a once in a lifetime act, it is increasingly happening at top Universities (e.g. Oxbridge, Harvard, Manchester, UCL, Princeton etc), it is also happening in industries from grass root employment to board room appointments. There is even a push in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) jobs to push for more women in the industries and they have started from the young age with millions of pounds being invested in women education for STEM-related jobs. if you read this 2011 paper from the UK Government, you will see that it is Government objective to attain 40% of women on boards as soon as possible. First from artificially manipulating board selections to favour qualified women before having a truly meritocratic system of board appointments.

I think that it is an insult, in the case of TFL, to say that only 3 women were qualified enough to be appointed on the board over 13 men. Please be aware that I am not using race, but arguing about the gender imbalance.

I agree that "Equal opportunity is the crux of that and affirmative action is against equal opportunity", but there is no true equal opportunity. Society has intrinsic biases with regard to gender, race, sexual orientation and religion. With these biases and injustices, we can never attain real equal opportunity.

To me, affirmative action works to give an extra hand to someone from a disadvantaged background, who is equally qualified. I never argued that women should be picked off the "streets" and handed board membership positions. If you read my other comments, you will see that I wrote that, if two candidates were going for a position on the board e.g. TFL, given that both man and woman is qualified, I would go for the woman, regardless of her race. Yes, this is to artificially balance the board until when the world becomes truly meritocratic.

Affirmative action is a good thing in many aspects of life. For example, a kid from an inner London state school, who has worked really hard against the hardships and odds to maintain excellent results throughout his schooling, when competing against a kid from Eton, who, on paper, does not have the same hardship and odds stacked against him, should be admitted to Cambridge over the Eton kid. I know that I am causing a row with this statement, this is because both students are equally qualified academically, but the poor kid would never really compete with the Eton kid on non-academic levels.

We are going to disagree on the merits of affirmative action, but like I have written on this thread, it needs to be done until society becomes truly meritocratic, where every person has an equal chance in life. I strongly doubt it will ever happen, so I think that AA will be here for a really long time.