Hello everyone -
I believe this is my first thread here in politics, but I have run into this issue quite a few times recently, and am curious as to what your thoughts are...
First of all, I would like to get a couple things out of the way.
I am not in any way, shape, or form racist or discriminitory, however, lately I have been noticing more and more how being a white male seems almost frowned upon by the government.
I am a younger white male, age 20, that went to a high school where whites were the minority. Although I can't say that I never, ever heard any terrible comments about someone's race, it seems to me that racism is quickly becoming more of an unpleasant memory for most of us than an actual issue.
Granted, I am not trying to say that it doesn't happen anymore, as I am sure it still does, but in my humble opinion, most members of Generation X and after (at least in my area) have few racial issues.
Anyway, here are a couple of stories that I would like to share for discussion, in an attempt to justify the title.
Example #1
I am in the lending business, and there are a variety of laws regarding ECOA (equal credit opportunity act). A portion of this consists of the HMDA reports, which basically is a government issued form that reports the race of people that we lend out to using a home as collateral.
The lending guidelines that we follow are federally governed, and after filling out the application, I submit it to be underwritten (approved, denied, ect.) Recently, on more than one occasion, I have submitted poor credit applications that were denied when "white, non hispanic" was checked. I realized on one application that I had made an error regarding the HMDA information and I wanted to correct it when the denial was sent out. However, when I resubmit the application with "black" checked, and no other information changed, it came back as approved. I have tested this on many applications that I have submitted for "white, non hispanic" by switching the racial information to a different race, and a good 20-30% of the time they'll come back approved.
This annoys me quite a bit. Simply because someone is white, it seems, they must meet more stringent requirements to qualify for a loan. Equal, in my mind, should be just that - not favoritism for one race or another.
Example #2
A friend of mine, who is a Hmong Female, was recently hired as a electrician on a large government project. However, they began laying people off, as they must have overestimated the number of people that they would require, and instead of laying off my friend, who has no experience in the field, they laid off several far more experienced white males. In fact, they didn't lay off a single non-white worker.
Again, this pisses me off, as the people, regardless of race, that are less experienced should be laid off first unless there are other circumstances (ie discipline, ect.).
My friend was actually so angry that she was favored over veterans in the field, due to the tax-breaks she can offer the company (minority & female), she quit. I certainly respect her for it, but I don't see any issues with anyone taking advantage of any "edges" that they are given.
Sorry for the longer post, just wanted to give you guys the full story...
I am very interested in your comments
