When you apply for most jobs in Canada, escpecially government jobs, you come across the 'visible minority' question at the end of the application. You are asked to state your 'ethnicity' and if you are a visible minority, or better yet aboriginal, you will have a better chance of getting the job. One application I looked at today actually specifically "strongly advised aboriginals and visible minorities" to apply in the job description - not specifically stating they would have a better chance but it was quite clearly implied. Being just as unemployed as my "visible minority" equivalent of course I find this very frustrating - but that is another debate I'm not getting into today.
On the other hand I'd like to discuss what counts as a 'visible minority'. Can I count myself as a visible minority? To most of the population on an unofficial basis I quite clearly am. The official definition of 'visible minority' refers to skin colour - but what about hair colour?! If we considered hair colour as well as skin colour then there wouldn't be any debate... I am quite clearly part of the smallest visible minority group in the country. I mean if we are going to superficially favour people with a certain skin colour why can't we extend that to hair colour as well? Why don't we include height too? Shall overly tall people and overly short people continue to be discriminated against?! Oh the injustice...
Don't even get me started about how I feel about ticking off the 'white' box when identifying my 'ethnicity'. I think next time I'll go for the 'other' box. And when asked to specifiy I'll just write 'I can legally work in this country, you don't need to know anything else'.
1 comment:
hahahhaa Oh, Stephy. I love you.
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