White people taking advantage of the Indigenous People's Program?

My bank has an Indigenous People's Program, where the goal is to promote various banking jobs across FO/MO/BO to Indigenous Peoples who may have fewer opportunities than other groups.

However, I'm looking at the people within this program at my bank, and they all appear white? They all have European last names, and some of them I can tell are mixed because their facial structure does look indigenous, but there are some which are really questionable, and if it were the case that white people were taking advantage of these Indigenous People's opportunities, this would be greatly disappointing.

Like, there is a fully ginger white male in this program, he looks fully white, and from my studies of biology, this is a recessive trait and would require majority white blood. Are white people taking advantage of this Indigenous Peoples Program and are there any checks in place to verify an applicant's Indigenous heritage?

 

But this goes back to the argument of what is the goal of this program: Is it to provide opportunities to visible minorities who grew up with a disadvantage and with less opportunities?

Or to a white male with ginger hair who "identifies" as Indigenous with no further checks in place?

 

OP you will be in shock when you find out there are white mexicans

 

Yes absolutely true, but I think the poster's point is that being a "white" Mexican often means not facing the same level of discrimination as people of color.

Also, if you know anything about Mexican culture, you know that is true even within Mexico. There is a lot of discrimination for people with darker skin. (Side note, there are also black Mexicans, who face even more discrimination). Turn on your favorite Mexican soap opera and tell me how many dark-skinned actors are on the screen.

 

Oh I completely missed OP's point. I am fully aware of the colourist ideologies that define lighter skin as more attractive and black skin as evil or ugly in socio, economic and political spheres.

 

But let's say that white Mexicans comprise 5% of the total Mexican population (and they tend to be overwhelmingly not discriminated against, and have good opportunities), and the recipients of a Bank's Diversity Program are 95% white Mexicans. Don't you see how there is a problem?

 

Go cry me a river. The idea of certain races getting preference over others is already ridiculous. It should be based purely on one’s disadvantages growing up financially and the opportunities they didn’t have. At this point, I don’t even care if someone’s trying to game this ridiculous system for their advantage.

 

OP,

While what I think you're saying makes sense, just be aware that this is a touchy issue for some people.

As an example, one of my very close friends is what appears to be a white girl. However, her family is from Mexico and her whole life, she has identified as hispanic and is very hardcore about her culture, identity, immigrant rights etc. It's basically a huge part of who she is.

She really has never experienced any serious form of discrimination. However, if you ever pointed that out to her, she would completely explode on you....probably would end the friendship. So, it's kind of complicated. I think your observation above is mostly correct but I don't think those applicants necessarily feel that they are gaming the system. They may feel as if they are part of the discriminated minority even if they've never actually experienced discrimination. So when you drop a truth bomb regarding the appearance of some of these applicants, you may get the exact sort of blowback that you're getting above.

Not exactly the same but it's kind of like telling someone "Sure, you speak English, and love football, and celebrate the 4th of July, and have been raised for 20 years by an American family, but you're not really an American because you don't look like one. So, you don't qualify for the American Heartland scholarship or whatever".

The issue above really has more do with whether the person has been discrimanted against, but just trying to show with this example that someone can be legitimately a part of minority group even if they don't look like it.

 

Yes, thanks for the feedback. As a white person, I just wanted to advocate for more fairness in the process and to understand others' perspectives on these types of diversity programs to make sure no one was gaming the opportunities reserved for people with less opportunities. It could also be the case where the candidates hired were representative of the applicant pool for the program.

After seeing this discussion, I agree that this is a sensitive topic and I definitely would not talk about this in person and do not intend to cause any harm on anyone's achievements. This was a purely anonymous forum and it has been an eye opening discussion. I merely wanted to make sure that no one was gaming the system in these diversity programs. Thanks everyone for keeping conversation civil.

 

Cool and note that I agree that a few people probably are gaming the system!

Also, even if people are offended, it is still an interesting and debatable question on the intent of these programs.

As you point out, the program is for "Indigenous People". So should a person who is ~80% related to conquistadors be able to participate in this program?

Think about that for a second, First, their ancestors enslaved indigenous people and took their land, and now their descendants have the balls to apply to the Indigenous People's program. We may all share in the same cultural identity today, but from a multigenerational perspective, that is pretty fucked up.

 

"Hispanic" is not a racial category; it's a geographic/linguistic category. There are white hispanics (ancestors from Europe), black hispanics (ancestors from sub-saharan Africa) and Native American hispanics (ancestors from Central or South American prior to 1492). And combinations of those.

It's true that the word is often used as a proxy for Native American, but I've never heard of any institution suggesting that it's illegitimate for a Mexican of mostly European ancestry to describe themselves as hispanic.

Your comment gets at the broader issue that personal disadvantage doesn't necessarily map that well onto race.

 

Yes, it's a really problematic term. If a really white person from Mexico can be Hispanic, can a Spaniard from Spain also qualify as Hispanic? Might as well right?

This is also an issue on the Native American side as well. You could be 80% Native American but if you're born on the wrong side of the border, you're Hispanic. If you're almost completely white and 20% Native American but born in the U.S., you could potentially qualify as Native American.

Real problem is that we need to have a grown up conversation about race and racism in this country but it's not possible yet as some of the first posters on this thread have already shown.

 

I mean you know the answer already- hoping you’re actually just posting to start a convo. One question I’m wondering is, you definitely know a lot of people disagree principally with the idea of the programs; a larger amount have general lack of ‘respect’ toward the program. If someone is dishonest about this program or process it comes from a place of disagreement or lack of respect on the idea of the program. Though the program is not “intended” for them, if they can benefit from something like this why shouldn’t they enroll or involve themselves in this? They principally and strongly disagree with you- maybe in the same passion and fervor you have for seeing these programs succeed. Or they don’t have respect for it- why shouldnt their actions be respected just because they are not what you idealize? As they are similar in the same principle of this program existing to push a certain narrative and image without actually accomplishing anything, it’s practicing self-interest under a certain guise. I hope you see my points as logically valid, and not just different/ wrong to your POV.

I would challenge how you think about diversity programs because of who shows up! Maybe the answer is not doubling down, because it is hard to self qualify personal pain or victim hood to something so general (if the identifier is skin color, ethnicity, and the general struggles therein etc. then that is a very superficial mark, which is why many black, immigrant Harvard or white looking ginger kids can wreck these programs and so many disagree with them).

I’d really hope you scrap the superficial identifiers for deserving these opportunities- it’s not black people, brown, LGBTQ. it’s the poor black, disadvantaged brown, or gay kid who ran away from home at 16 for not being accepted at homer that struggled. If instead you need to write an essay about your personal struggle or situation including: financial status, personal adversity, etc. we would get a much richer (in character) group of kids who actually deserve it on a better objective basis. Socioeconomic status, etc. will mark poor blacks etc. in a proper proportion to those who deserve it.

But the 16 year old gay kid who moved out or struggled with homeless, achieved highly, went to a good school, got good grades? They’ll get hired anyway for their story and in their preparation because they have capacity already. After what they truly went through, how can they not get an IB offer if they tried? Why do you want to “make sure” people are using these programs “properly”? Why double down on something that truly is wrong and doesn’t work?

 

Thanks for this.

Yeah, even if they were dishonest and don't respect the program, it's surprising that HR would just let them get away with it.

When it comes to a disadvantaged group like the Indigenous peoples, I truly feel as if they have lesser opportunities and taking from them is truly selfish.

 

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