Does anybody else see programs like Morgan Stanley's "Bridging the Gap" as comparable to Jim Crow Laws?

Actually it's worse, because there's not even a crappy version for only white/straight people. Other banks have similar programs as well. You're supposed to apply if you're black, Hispanic, or gay. I'm not quite sure why sexual orientation should even come up applying for a job. The racial part seems to violate the Civil Rights Act. How is this not blatant segregation and discrimination? Imagine if they had an internship where only white straight people were told to apply.

 

Get the fuck over it dude. Programs like this pale in comparison to the effects of nepotism (in which white males have the greatest advantage). Society isn't truly meritocratic nor will it ever be, outcry from the most privileged demographic in society about discrimination is a joke.

 
paidoff:

Get the fuck over it dude. Programs like this pale in comparison to the effects of nepotism (in which white males have the greatest advantage). Society isn't truly meritocratic nor will it ever be, outcry from the most privileged demographic in society about discrimination is a joke.

All you're doing in your post is making illogical generalizations and stereotypes about what it means to be a white male. For every black or Hispanic looking to get into banking there's a poor white kid with no connections looking to get into banking. Why should the black or Hispanic person have an advantage over the white kid? I have trouble seeing this as anything, but racism. It's unfortunate that many of our big corporations blatantly violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and practice racism without consequence.

 

As I look out over the open plan lay out of my office and see professional staff comprising 70% white males, 5% white females, 15% ethnic East Asian males and females and 10% ethnic Indian males, I feel your outrage, mastertrader89. Clearly the system is against us white men. Where's our parade, huh!?

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SSits:

As I look out over the open plan lay out of my office and see professional staff comprising 70% white males, 5% white females, 15% ethnic East Asian males and females and 10% ethnic Indian males, I feel your outrage, mastertrader89. Clearly the system is against us white men. Where's our parade, huh!?

And I'd wager most of those white males had connections and opportunities that most white males don't have. Do you think most of those white males grew up in a trailer park? So what you're basically saying is fuck all the white males in the country who don't have connections, only blacks and Hispanics should have special opportunities, because they represent diversity. How is this not racist? As for your post about police searching ethnic minorities and the treatment of Muslims, that's wrong too, but my post was specifically about the illegal racial discrimination on Wall Street, seeing as this is Wall Street Oasis.

 

In a perfect world where we could create systems that account for each and every disadvantage and provide perfect equitable treatment, the disadvantage of the white males you have in mind would be recognised and he'd get an equitable chance, whereas, say, a well connected middle class kid who grew up in a good neighbourhood, went to a good school etc but happened to be gay or Hispanic would not get advantaged over the white trailer park kid.

We live in an imperfect world. Banks don't have time or need to create these systems. White trailer park man is not going to look as good in diversity photos in IB marketing materials. Tough luck for him.

It's unfair. Unfair to white men (of disadvantaged backgrounds). Probably feels almost as bad as having your ancestors enslaved, your grandparents being made to sit at the back of the bus or people crossing the road late at night to avoid walking past you or your workmates cracking jokes about Mexicans.

Maybe this unfairness feels as bad as it must to the few black guys who work in my IB and must look out over the sea of white around them, with smatterings of "yellow" and subcontinental "brown". Perhaps they can empathise with your arguments about the institutionalised racism of these programs which means there may be not 1, but perhaps 2 black guys among the 150 or so professional staff on the floor.

Any white male who can meet the pre-qualifications for "Bridging the Gap" that don't depend on him being something other than a white male (eg tertiary degree relevant to finance) very likely has enough other opportunities to escape his trailer park and doesn't confront as much institutional bias as those who benefit from the program.

I haven't said "fuck those white guys" (although I'd be happy to say that - fuck 'em), but I can't take seriously white American guys complaining about being discriminated against when, from an outside white male's perspective, your US society is pretty easy for white guys, not so easy for anyone else.

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Best Response

I hear your point. The one different is that if a white kid from a trailer park makes it to a decent college, gets decent grades, gets an interview and borrows a suit from a roommate, he can basically fake it, shoot the shit as if he's just another upper middle class kid from (insert target/semi-target school) and show that he can fit in. Now a black/hispanic kid can do this too, but the difference is no matter how polished he is, the first thing anyone will notice about that kid is race (whether or not it is noticed and judged consciously or subconsciously). I think plenty of people with both good and bad intentions are subconsciously racist. For example, when I am looking at profiles for a company or when I have gone in to a super day and I see/meet a black banker I usually think (wow, tough to get into banking if you are black, good for him.) So, even though my thoughts are benevolent I am racist. That does not have anything to do with white kids from a trailer except for the fact that like me everyone notices race, unlike me not everyone thinks benevolently, and none of that will ever be an issue for a white kid.

Just one other piece of thought behind the need to have "make-up" policies. It seems to me that America is a meritocracy and probably has been for a long time. Pre-1964, however, there was not much opportunity for colored people no matter how much merit they had. I go back and forth on whether or not I agree with giving a leg up to today's black generation for what was done to their parents/grand parents. The reason that it does make sense is that a naturally fairly smart family with good values in the black community could not have made those connection 50, 60, 70, etc. years ago that would put a kid in today's generation in a good position to become a banker. Trailer park whites on the other hand probably were not in such a different position 80 years ago then their upper middle class to wealthy white counterparts. From that standpoint maybe its the trailer park kid's families fault that he does not have any connections, not an old law. Don't mean to offend any poor whites.

 

I work in NY but I'm not from the United States, so I had to look up Jim Crow laws. Wikipedia says:

Some examples of Jim Crow laws are the segregation of public schools, public places, and public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants, and drinking fountains for whites and blacks. The U.S. military was also segregated, as were federal workplaces, initiated in 1913 under President Woodrow Wilson, the first Southern president since 1856. His administration practiced overt racial discrimination in hiring, requiring candidates to submit photos.

Are IB hiring programs aimed at providing white male-dominated banking cultures with a more blended ethnic mix "equivalent" to these examples of Jim Crow laws. Yes, mastertrader89, yes they are. You're damn right.

I'd previously thought that socio-economic injustices like inner city poverty, legal injustices like police stop-and-search practices focusing on particular ethnic minorities and procedural injustices like the treatment of Muslims at US border crossings were a little higher on the list of injustices that needed correction. But you're right, OP, this is the #1 injustice in America today, it's equivalent to the injustice of the Jim Crow laws and it must be stopped.

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Even being a poor white male, networking is easier being white as well as getting into some douche frat that has rich alumni hooking up bros with jobs. My problem with your post is not that it assails programs like this but that u ignore much more glaring inequities in society because this one doesn't provide an advantage to you. Never have I seen a post or heard someone complaining about how the frat system is destroying this country by putting partying bros in jobs they are unqualified for, I can assure you this happens more often than programs like this letting in unqualified candidates (you have to be on top of your shit to get in these programs through official tables whereas all frat favoritism is basically under the table). Clearly what you want isn't more equality and meritocracy but to have inequalities that don't benefit you, eliminated.

 
paidoff:

Even being a poor white male, networking is easier being white as well as getting into some douche frat that has rich alumni hooking up bros with jobs. My problem with your post is not that it assails programs like this but that u ignore much more glaring inequities in society because this one doesn't provide an advantage to you. Never have I seen a post or heard someone complaining about how the frat system is destroying this country by putting partying bros in jobs they are unqualified for, I can assure you this happens more often than programs like this letting in unqualified candidates (you have to be on top of your shit to get in these programs through official tables whereas all frat favoritism is basically under the table). Clearly what you want isn't more equality and meritocracy but to have inequalities that don't benefit you, eliminated.

I actually kind of agree with what you're saying, but there were more blacks in fraternities in my school then you'd think. Having multiple black friends from a decent school myself, I don't think they were really any different from my white friends. I feel like they could connect with employers just as well as any white person. However, most of them went to law school and had no interest in the finance industry. I personally prefer a meritocracy, but I don't know if that'll ever be realistic.

 

Banks are private institutions and they have these programs because it makes them more profitable. If you have a problem with a business doing something to make themselves more profitable, you might be in the wrong field.

 
job.resume:

Banks are private institutions and they have these programs because it makes them more profitable. If you have a problem with a business doing something to make themselves more profitable, you're basically a socialist.

By that logic if you don't allow a bank to dump all its trash in the ocean you're a socialist. Wouldn't true socialism imply that the government owns the banks? Most people are somewhat socialist by definition to a certain extent since most people believe in public courts, fire departments, schools, etc. The word seems to have been completely butchered. I'm guessing you're arguing to repeal the Civil Rights Act for 1964 which would allow banks and all private businesses to discriminate which is a very libertarian position. It's an interesting position, because the laws are actually hard to enforce, it still wouldn't make the discrimination right. I think it's currently an illegal practice, but I'm opposed to it more for moral reasons (view it as racist) then legal reasons. I don't believe just because a business is private I have to refrain from bashing its policies. I have every right to bash them in my opinion.

 
mastertrader89:
job.resume:

Banks are private institutions and they have these programs because it makes them more profitable. If you have a problem with a business doing something to make themselves more profitable, you're basically a socialist.

By that logic if you don't allow a bank to dump all its trash in the ocean you're a socialist. Wouldn't true socialism imply that the government owns the banks? Most people are somewhat socialist by definition to a certain extent since most people believe in public courts, fire departments, schools, etc. The word seems to have been completely butchered. I'm guessing you're arguing to repeal the Civil Rights Act for 1964 which would allow banks and all private businesses to discriminate which is a very libertarian position. It's an interesting position, because the laws are actually hard to enforce, it still wouldn't make the discrimination right. I think it's currently an illegal practice, but I'm opposed to it more for moral reasons (view it as racist) then legal reasons. I don't believe just because a business is private I have to business bashing its policies. I have every right to do so in my opinion.

I edited my comment to be less douchey. But I just wanted to highlight the fact that this is a program the bank chose to implement on it's own because it wanted to. Not something the government or anyone else forced it to do.

 
job.resume:

Banks are private institutions and they have these programs because it makes them more profitable. If you have a problem with a business doing something to make themselves more profitable, you might be in the wrong field.

What Morgan Stanley is doing violates both the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. If private companies can do anything they want for profit then we should just abolish all of the laws. And if judges can literally write new laws that violate the spirit and letter of the actual law passed by Congress then we should just abolish representative democracy and let the 9 Harvard lawyers on the Supreme Court issue royal decrees.

 

I'm not an American and I've only been here since the beginning of this year, so I can only judge by the outcomes I see. I also appreciate this discredits my arguments about the causes.

Based on largely on my uninformed opinion, I think the lack of "minorities" in banking sends a message that discourages people from those backgrounds seeking a career in banking.

From an outsiders perspective, US culture only seems to be willing to promote, say, black success in sports and entertainment. Both can be lucrative, but only if you get to the top.

My background is Australian Irish Catholic. In our history of oppression in Australia by a hostile Anglican ruling class (which oppression pales to that of others and is virtually non existent today in Australia), the AIC community set up schools to produce generations of accountants, civil servants etc - ie a strong class of prosperous, if mediocre, middle class families on which future success could be built.

I'm cool with A A programs because I think they are alternate ways to produce the same outcome within the constraints of the weird system you guys have going here in the US. A weird system where some white men think that A A programs are seriously equivalent/comparable to Jim Crow laws.

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In terms of other institutional bias, I've come across people at my shop who "between us [white male] guys" say some pretty racist things.

My read on US culture, possibly misinformed, is that everyone is incredibly well trained not to be verbally discriminatory, but you guys cannot not think about race politics, given it is such a constant issue here, even if unspoken. I'm just starting to learn some of the code words people use (eg "urban" = black).

Few counties have tried the multicultural experiment and is not easy, so I do give the US full credit for trying. It's not like Australia or any other country is doing a better job with these types of issues. I feel sorry for the US getting so much shit for its race relations from the rest of the world who aren't as far down the multicultural path.

If anything, my impression is that Europe does it much worse, but exports less culture so less people are aware of its problems.

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SSits:

In terms of other institutional bias, I've come across people at my shop who "between us [white male] guys" say some pretty racist things.

My read on US culture, possibly misinformed, is that everyone is incredibly well trained not to be verbally discriminatory, but you guys cannot not think about race politics, given it is such a constant issue here, even if unspoken. I'm just starting to learn some of the code words people use (eg "urban" = black).

Few counties have tried the multicultural experiment and is not easy, so I do give the US full credit for trying. It's not like Australia or any other country is doing a better job with these types of issues. I feel sorry for the US getting so much shit for its race relations from the rest of the world who aren't as far down the multicultural path.

If anything, my impression is that Europe does it much worse, but exports less culture so less people are aware of its problems.

Kind of like Australia, the US is a nation of immigrants. Obviously, most of the world is much more homogeneous then the US so racial issues probably don't come up as much. I've heard you guys have your own racial tensions with the Aboriginal population. I don't know if your government uses affirmative action for them. I just don't see addressing discrimination with more discrimination as helping to solve the problem you want to solve. I think it only makes racial tensions worse. I know some minorities who don't like affirmative action, because a lot of people assume they got their opportunities through affirmative action instead of by merit.

 

Australia's Aboriginees are something like IBs to have these policies. Whether it's just good PR or because they see value in diversity, some have decided to implement them. If you don't like it, don't apply to work for those IBs which have those programs.

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ITT we have a lot of talking about things that one has never experienced and will never understand, so let's just stop being ignorant to the fact that one doesn't understand the struggles of different races regardless of what ones personal opinion on the matter is. Life is about more than just your own personal opinion.

The answer to your question is 1) network 2) get involved 3) beef up your resume 4) repeat -happypantsmcgee WSO is not your personal search function.
 
ITT we have a lot of talking about things that one has never experienced and will never understand, so let's just stop being ignorant to the fact that one doesn't understand the struggles of different races regardless of what ones personal opinion on the matter is. Life is about more than just your own personal opinion.

You're right. I humbly offer you +1 SB.

Those who can, do. Those who can't, post threads about how to do it on WSO.
 

Idk why DCD focused on point 2 when 1/3 are far more important. Stryfe, DCD talking about his ancestors being in poverty for a thousand years in Europe is completely irrelevant because once they were done being "indentured" they were just your average poor white family whom literally had 300 plus years to better themselves in America, comparing that to African-Americans who haven't even had 50 years to do the same is absurd. I just would like to see more discussion about pure meritocracy and less of this AA bashing because there are more egregious issues perpetuating lack of equal opportunity. Problem is, those issues usually benefit white males so we'd rather ignore those and focus on AA because it's visible and easy to target. After all, there aren't enough URMs that will object compared to white males.

 

I was just thinking about this, and I want to add to my last comment about the applicability of the supreme court's decision in California v. Bakke on school admissions to situations dealing with businesses hiring people.

I think that it is totally inappropriate to take anything other than one's ability to perform a job or -- at the very least-- their purported capacity to learn to perform a job into account when making hiring decisions. In the case of college admissions, if an individual is given preferential admission due to some extraneous factor such as his race, and then that individual performs poorly while at the school, no one is effected other than that individual. In short, If I do shitty on a test, the only person who is negatively effected by this is me. Alternatively, the affects of poor performance on the job can prove disastrous or-- at the very least-- be markedly more far- reaching than those that would occur if I perform poorly in school. Because the aforementioned case deals with medical school, I while use medical school and being a doctor in my example. If I fail a test in medical school, no harm no foul, nothing other than my grade point average and possibly my confidence has been negatively affected. Alternatively, if I am a doctor, and I perform poorly while treating a patient, I could literally kill the patient.

I will concede that when you apply this example to other professions, the detrimental outcome may not be so extreme, it certainly still exists. If I am an investment banker working on a multi-billion M&A deal, depending on my role, a mistake could potentially fuck up the entire deal and cost the firm a shit load of money. Given the fact that a large proportion of bankers' pay is a year end bonus based on the performance of the firm, my fuck up is potentially costing my co-workers thousands of dollars in bonus pay. Quite frankly, this is unacceptable.

I'm not saying that people who are hired "fair and square" never make expensive mistakes; however, I just think that the people who are negatively affected by those mistakes are far greater at the professional level than at the educational level.

 
matayo:

i get what you're saying, but you have to be insane to compare these to jim crow

I changed equivalent in the title to comparable. I admit that equivalent was too inaccurate of a word. Obviously, the Jim Crow Laws were much, much worse. The comparison comes from the fact that they both involve segregation and discrimination.

 

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