ManndingoNupe, I think you misunderstood what I was trying to convey. At our company we do not want to hire anyone with a preference towards race. We DO want to hire the most qualified individuals, regardless of race. The only employment factor which is important to our company is making sure we hire the people who will perform their jobs most efficiently. This means hiring the most qualified and most experienced job candidates. I never wrote that all of the best candidates were white, clearly they are not.

The government FORCES us (through legal threats) to hire people based on racial preferences, aka quotas. We already do hire minorities & non-whites and have been doing this for years. The problem we have is that when we are forced to increase our percentage of latino workers from 3 to 5% within several months or face legal penalties, we are effectively forced to hire ANY latino who walks through the door. Whether they have the skills or not. That's what we are required to do to make the government happy. It's either that, or we pay heavy fines & face legal ramifications.

With time limits placed on us by the government and NOT ENOUGH qualified skilled minorities applying at our company within those time limits, we are forced to hire unqualified minorities over qualified non-minorities just for the simple fact of increasing the percentage of minorities in our workplace. This is a very poor employment practice because it leads to a lower level of quality within the workplace environment.

We WANT qualified workers. Whether they be black, latino, asian, white, etc. We NEED skilled & qualified workers to keep our company competitive. But, because of government intervention we are (currently) forced to hire anyone who is a minority just to increase the percentages of the racial mix within the company.

Take this for example: let's say next week we have 20 applicants for 5 positions, 14 white, 1 latino, 1 asian & 4 black. Out of those applicants the most qualified turn out to be: 3 whites, 1 asian & 2 blacks. Normally we would hire the 3 whites, 1 asian & 2 blacks because they are most qualified, even though we only need to fill 5 positions we would hire the 6th because there would be additional positions opening up soon any how (and finding qualified workers is tough). So we would WANT to hire the 3 whites, 1 asian & 2 blacks who are most qualified for the jobs. BUT, because of government intervention, we are forced to hire the 1 latino, 1 asian and 3 blacks - leaving us with 3 qualified workers & 2 unqualified workers. We are FORCED to pass over the few qualified white workers and hire the 2 unqualified workers just so the government feels we have the right percentages of racial mix. All we want is to be able to hire the most qualified, but often we are forced to hire unqualified because of their skin color. How can this be right/fair/equal treatment? What about those three white people who may be experts in their field but were passed over when the 2 unqualified workers were hired just to increase numbers? How fair is it to them? How well do these 3 qualified white people need to perform in order to get hired? Well, they could be the best workers and most privileged white people in the world and it really wouldn't matter right now because we are forced by the gov't to hire based on racial preference.

ManndingoNupe, How can this be close minded? Why should ANY unqualified worker be hired over a qualified worker? What's closed minded is thinking that forcing companies to hire unqualified workers over qualified workers is okay, because of race. It is not okay. I see every day how these types of policies are hurting companies in the corporate world.

How would you feel if a white underacheiving high-school student who just barely passed was GIVEN a college degree from your university just because that particular university does not have the right percentage of white graduates? While at the same time you had to work your a** off for the same degree? That's exactly what is happening with our company right now.