I confess, I'm shocked

And I didn't think I could be shocked.

A bunch of allegedly libertarian commenters in this thread do not seem to grasp the idea that there is any sort of operating manual for society other than what is legal.

Someone may have the legal right to say abusive things to their spouse, refuse to hire Catholics, or use racial epithets. Indeed, I think they should have the legal right to do all these things. But that doesn't mean that I believe people who do do those things are right. I am not going to smile approvingly and say "Normal human impulse." Society--in the person of you and me, excercising our own precious right of free speech--should discourage these sorts of behaviors. We don't need laws precisely because the hidden order embedded in our culture does a (mostly) very good job at controlling behavior in these areas.

Society operates on rules. But the legal system is just the tip of the iceberg. 95% of the rules that sustain us--"Don't jump the queue"; "be polite to your mother in law"; "send a thank-you note"--float below the level of our consciousness. They are not codified anywhere, and through long socialization, they have become so natural to us that we are rarely aware of them at all. Libertarians are supposed to appreciate and celebrate the awesome weight of this emergent order, not complain that expecting people to behave like civilized adults without supervision is really just an extension of the state's cold, dead hand.

Comments

Heh. Does this mean you're not going to surrender your libertarian decoder ring?

Posted by BP Beckley | January 16, 2008 2:15 PM

I'm not shocked. This is precisely why I self-identify as a conservative rather than a libertarian.

Granted, both conservatives and liberals have a mirror-image problem, trying to make at least some things that they disapprove of illegal.

Posted by Rob Lyman | January 16, 2008 2:20 PM

The artificial links between people set up by the government and its activities allows the "natural" links between the individual and his family, clan, class, to be weakened without having society fall apart. Is freedom from constraint by your family, clan, and class not as valuable as freedom from constraint by the government?

Posted by BP Beckley | January 16, 2008 2:22 PM

Your post put integration and segregation into a legal context, both comparing it to crimes and referring to state school activities (which are often compulsory to students who are enrolled).

I agree that societal norms are important and not everything that is legal should be done.

Unfortunately, there seem to be a growing number of people who believe that anything that should not be done SHOULD be illegal.

Posted by Earnest Iconoclast | January 16, 2008 2:35 PM

Ahh, yes, right here in Hayek--"do as thou wilt is the whole of the law." There we go folks, nobody's allowed to disapprove of anything you feel like doing or there's a big ol' meanie-head statist

Posted by Jack | January 16, 2008 2:36 PM

The artificial links between people set up by the government and its activities allows the "natural" links between the individual and his family, clan, class, to be weakened without having society fall apart. Is freedom from constraint by your family, clan, and class not as valuable as freedom from constraint by the government?

After 30-40 years of seeing the effects of broken families, I’m surprised anyone could actually ask that question with a straight face.

Posted by Thorley Winston | January 16, 2008 2:36 PM

It's very odd they'd miss that point, because libertarians tend to be such extraordinarily well-socialized people. Hence the rarity of libertarianism among SF fans and software developers.

Posted by McNamara | January 16, 2008 2:41 PM

My libertarian mentor is James Bond.

Bond pursued pleasurable and materialistic activities, while having core values (serving his country, being polite and always charming).

Posted by thehova | January 16, 2008 2:47 PM

One of my favorite things that happened in the LA Riots in the early 1990s (I know, not a phrase you hear often, but stay with me on this):

When people went to stores to loot, it being California, they drove there. And when they parked they parked in the box painted on the ground where they were supposed to go. They did not park in handicapped spaces and they did not park over the lines drawn on the ground. We are socialized to follow the rules, even when we aren't following all of the rules.

I just always found that facinating and support for your statement that society operates under rules, and they get so embedded that we don't know when and when not to apply them. On the other hand some of those rule, to get them embedded, they had to initially be mandated (i.e. handicapped spaces).

Posted by Kate | January 16, 2008 2:49 PM

So in other words you'd rather associate with people who share your view of how to behave in society? And just because something is legal doesn't mean you want to be around people who engage in it? Sounds like freedom to associate is pretty important to you, and not something you'd want government involved in deciding for you. Which is pretty much what Rockwell said. You doth protest too much.

Please don't confuse the political philosophy, which argues for a moral foundation of individual liberty, with the personal morality some of those people may hold. It's the difference between thinking prostitution should be legal, and actually going to see a hooker. Too much of modern political discourse blurs these lines, such as the argument for banning smoking in privately-owned restaurants; "well I don't smoke and I don't like to smell smoke" - that's great, but irrelevant to the principle of private property rights which is at stake. Whether or not you engage in an action, or whether or not you think it has some value to society, should have no bearing on whether you think it should be illegal.
It's not the libertarians who don't understand the difference between the legal sphere and the societal sphere.

Posted by Frank N Stein | January 16, 2008 2:59 PM

A bunch of allegedly libertarian commenters in this thread do not seem to grasp the idea that there is any sort of operating manual for society other than what is legal.

I don’t think that’s a fair knock on your commenters. Look at what you wrote in your original post:

Anyone who has ever observed a two-year-old knows that lying, stealing, and using force to bully those of slightly lesser strength are also natural and normal human impulses. The point is, society is supposed to encourage us to control some of our less noble desires.

Note that at least two of the three things are usually illegal (lying is punishable by the law when it’s part of a fraud, perjury, and a few other instances). You compared actions which are prohibited by law with people who thought it was natural to want to be around people who looked like or shared the same or similar beliefs as they did. Since Rockwell’s piece was about he saw as the evils of “forced integration,” is it really that shocking that many of your commenters read your piece as equating “society” with “government action” – particularly given how often in the past when you’ve talked about the supposed obligations of “society” when it comes to things like health care, welfare, education, children, etc, you’ve yourself equated it with “government action.”

Reading through the comments, I don’t think it was so much that your readers thought that there weren’t social mores that operated independently of government but rather that your original post didn’t do a very good job of conveying your point.

Perhaps instead of attacking their supposed inability to make that distinction, it would have been more productive to either update your original post to clarify what you meant (as you tried to do in the comments section) or take a more congenial attitude in this post. Unfortunately I think this could turn into another situation similar to the ”but the Mexicans are brown that errupted last June on your old blog.

Posted by Thorley Winston | January 16, 2008 3:05 PM

"Sounds like freedom to associate is pretty important to you, and not something you'd want government involved in deciding for you. Which is pretty much what Rockwell said."

Absolutely it is important. Just as much as the right to denounce when someone chooses to associate with ideas that we find patently unacceptable and unrepresentative of us. If you are going to use the libertarian mantle to advance views on racial superiority, then you can expect other libertarians who find such views morally unacceptable to shout quite loudly that what you are doing does not represent them.

Posted by Mark | January 16, 2008 3:08 PM

Someone may have the legal right to say abusive things to their spouse, refuse to hire Catholics, or use racial epithets. Indeed, I think they should have the legal right to do all these things.

You really think it should be legal to discriminate in hiring based on religion?

Posted by Peter | January 16, 2008 3:09 PM

Megan,

Rockwell was correct- it is a natural human inclination to group one's self with others of similar characteristics. Humans have done this since they appeared on the planet. For example, you like to associate yourself with tolerant persons who act to place no barriers to association on the basis of class, race, religion, or politics.

As far as I can tell, none of the libertarians you are upbraiding are suggesting discrimination against other citizens via state power (there are certainly people, not all of which are libertarian-or even most- that want such legal restrictions, but I don't see them making comments on your blog), nor was Rockwell. They are simply asserting their right to associate with whomever they wish, free of government coercion. You and I may not agree with some of these freely taken choices, and we are free to debate the issue openly and hope to convince more to our positions, but we should not use government to enforce it since even we draw lines with whom we associate- lines that differ from those of even more tolerant people.

Posted by Yancey Ward | January 16, 2008 3:14 PM

No, Rockwell was saying that there's nothing wrong with saying "I don't like black people, and I don't ever want to know any". This is, not to put a fine point on it, wrong.

Posted by Megan McArdle | January 16, 2008 3:45 PM

Megan,

Why is it so surprising that many people who espouse libertarian principles--such as being against racial and gender employment discrimination laws--are doing so in bad faith? Cf. Glenn Reynolds.

Posted by Rickm | January 16, 2008 3:46 PM

Megan,

You are necessarily using your own definition of what is wrong with where people draw the lines on whom they will associate with. Of course, everyone does this, as I pointed out above. Some people think it ok not to associate with black people. Others think it ok to exclude liberals, conservatives, Yankee fans, or people who stink of cologne. Even if a majority of Americans believe as you do, it does not make your position "right" or the opposite position "wrong".

Posted by Yancey Ward | January 16, 2008 4:00 PM

The people who are disagreeing with Megan certainly aren't going to listen to me, since I hereby confess that I am in the business of enforcing antidiscrimination laws. But I want to state the case for such laws for the record.

"Freedom of association" is lovely, and nobody wants to stop you exercising it on whatever basis you want, if by "associate" you mean "invite over to dinner, hang out with, date, et cetera" But what Rockwell means by it is "hire, rent an apartment to, serve at a restaurant, allow to ride in the front seat of the bus, et those cetera."

If Joe of Joe's Eight-Stool Diner was once bitten by a Latvian and wants to put up a NO LATVIANS ALLOWED sign, I am for letting Joe alone, because he isn't worth bothering with. If however all the non-Latvians in a city come to an agreement that Latvians are a threat to something or other, and come to an agreement that nobody will enter into any kind of economic transaction with a Latvian, unless the Latvian submits to public humiliation, that's something entirely different.

For those unaware of history, that situation was prevalent in the United States, with respect to black people, within living memory, in many places (not only in the south). We as a society decided that was unacceptable, so we passed some laws.

The younger contingent of libertarians (which I tend to suspect is and always has been and will be a majority, but I invite correction) seems to have the idea that the free individual is the natural unit of society. Not true. Humans have a natural tendency to associate in groups, engage in conflict with other groups, and apply various forms of coercion toward members of their group who show signs of relenting in their hostility to the other groups. By intervening to damp down these tendencies, government improves the functioning of society on many different levels.

Posted by roac | January 16, 2008 4:15 PM

I said:
The artificial links between people set up by the government and its activities allows the "natural" links between the individual and his family, clan, class, to be weakened without having society fall apart. Is freedom from constraint by your family, clan, and class not as valuable as freedom from constraint by the government?

Then Thorley Winston said:
After 30-40 years of seeing the effects of broken families, I’m surprised anyone could actually ask that question with a straight face.

Huh. So, freedom isn't worth the price, eh? Well, the wording could be improved. Do you prefer the following?
Isn't freedom from constraint by your family, clan, and class valuable just as freedom from constraint by the government is valuable?

And by "freedom from constraint by your family" etc., I mean the freedom to leave the village you grew up in, the freedom to pursue a career that is not what your parents envisioned, etc. The obligations of parents to their children and the bonds between husband and wife aren't the only family/clan/class bonds that exist.

Posted by BP Beckley | January 16, 2008 4:30 PM

Right. It seems to me that a committed and principled libertarian needs to be even more concerned with non-coercive norms. Those norms just need to be maintained with social enforcement; the violation of them has to have social consequences, not coercive power.

After 30-40 years of seeing the effects of broken families, I’m surprised anyone could actually ask that question with a straight face.

It amazes me that people really think that families weren't broken in, say, the fifties. A family that gives the appearance of being in good shape while, say, the alcoholic father beats the mother and rapes the kids-- but stays together because, well, you just don't get divorced-- yeah, I'd say that's broken. But as long as we're keeping up appearances.

Posted by Freddie | January 16, 2008 4:30 PM

Freddie, this isn't the first time you've brought up the child-raping abusive alcoholic in the 50's. Nobody is defending him. Indeed, we doubt very much that the large(r than in the 50's on a percentage basis) number of children being raised by single mothers all have pedophile drunks for dads. But those children (and society) frequently suffer because of the absence of their non-abusive fathers--which absence is far more likely in the current legal and social climate.

Nor is there really any reason that you couldn't have a social norm against easy, selfish divorce, but also against pedophilia and domestic violence. Thus the tradeoff you imply favors 2007 over 1957 probably isn't even really necessary.

Posted by Rob Lyman | January 16, 2008 4:43 PM

Humans have a natural tendency to associate in groups, engage in conflict with other groups, and apply various forms of coercion toward members of their group who show signs of relenting in their hostility to the other groups.

Personally I think that reads much more accurately if we rephrase the final clause thusly:

"Humans have a natural tendency to associate in groups, engage in conflict with other groups, and apply various forms of coercion toward members of their group who show signs of deviating from major elements of their group's 'norms'."

Posted by anony-mouse | January 16, 2008 4:45 PM

Peter-
Yes- it is OK to make a hiring decision on whatever basis you want, but bad hiring decisions will reduce your profit and possibly destroy your business. It is your money that you are offering to a potential employee for his/her labor. If you only want to hire left-handed non-smokers, go for it.

Posted by m | January 16, 2008 4:50 PM

THIS thread?

I didn't think I could be shocked, but you just floored me....the only way I can explain your leading sentence was that this post was previously some OTHER content that you deleted, along with all or most of its comments.....

Or did you mean some previous thread, and - if so - would you please identify it?

Posted by Jens Fiederer | January 16, 2008 4:54 PM

m:
Yes- it is OK to make a hiring decision on whatever basis you want, but bad hiring decisions will reduce your profit and possibly destroy your business.

Unless there's some kind of unspoken societal norm which ALL businesses follow. Not that that would ever happen.

Posted by BP Beckley | January 16, 2008 4:56 PM

The quote was as follows:

"Wishing to associate with members of one's own race, nationality, religion, class, sex, or even political party is a natural and normal human impulse."

What I find interesting is the juxtaposition: Rockwell put race ahead of all other things, while I'd think nationality, religion but especially social class are way more important when people decide who to associate with. John the waspy lawyer doesn't have a problem with his friendly indian neighbour, Vijay the investment banker, and Jack the steel worker gets along great with his mexican coworker Raul.

Implicitly, Rockwell says that discrimination is not only a natural and normal human impulse, and therefore morally okay. He says,
"State-enforced segregation was not wrong because separateness is wrong, however," leading me to believe his only problem, morally, with segregation, is when it's enforced by the state.

And to have segregation, you not only need to associate with those of your own kind, you also have to *exclude*, knowingly, those who are not like you.

The statement, taken literally, is not racist. But he still comes across to me as a racist, or at least somebody who believes that racism is not morally wrong.

Posted by Hans | January 16, 2008 4:59 PM

Megan, as one who shunned you, my apologies (and you can keep your decoder ring). I (mis)read your post as saying that it was the government's job to force us to do The Right Thing. (I think I read Rockwell a bit different than you did as being opposed to the government forcing us to be anti-racist, versus being anti anti-racism in general. My take on what he said influenced my take on what you said regarding what he said, leading to my hasty revocation of your decoder ring). Next time I see something shocking from you, I'll assume your libertarianness is intact and it's just a misreading on my part.

Posted by Josh | January 16, 2008 4:59 PM

Yes- it is OK to make a hiring decision on whatever basis you want, but bad hiring decisions will reduce your profit and possibly destroy your business. It is your money that you are offering to a potential employee for his/her labor. If you only want to hire left-handed non-smokers, go for it.

What if I'm a racist who only wants to hire whites, and talented whites who don't object to such a policy are in wide supply, while talented blacks are in short supply due to a history of being denied educational opportunities? What's the wonderful market corrective for that situation? In fact that was routine business in large regions of the US for a hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Yet another reason why most people fail to identify with the Libertopian Market Delusion -- not becuase they're cranks who believe markets are bad/evil/corporately captured/tools of fascism, but because there are some unquestionable social wrongs that cannot be corrected within any reasonable lenght of time or private intervention.

Posted by anony-mouse | January 16, 2008 5:02 PM

Megan, I'd just like to point out that in your original post, it sounded a lot like you equated government with society, as in "discouraged by society" should mean "forbidden by law." That was the way I read it, and compared to many of your commenters, I'm an extremely charitable reader.

Posted by Randomscrub | January 16, 2008 5:13 PM

But if something is deemed bad by society, isn't it better for it to be explicitly prohibited by law, if for no other reason than allowing a would-be scofflaw to know unambiguously what the rules are, and through the courts, having a legitimate forum to clear his good name if roving bands of shunners try to sanction him? "Due process" ring any bells here?

Of course, I'm referring to things less trivial than queue-jumping or failure to write thank-you notes.

Posted by Matt B | January 16, 2008 5:54 PM

"What if I'm a racist who only wants to hire whites, and talented whites who don't object to such a policy are in wide supply, while talented blacks are in short supply due to a history of being denied educational opportunities?"

Because for all other minorities in our society this type of racism certainly kept them from decent jobs. Civil rights in this country were born because the majority of the country believes in them, not some law. Further a lot of the civil rights abuses in the past were due to laws passed specifically to force segregation or deny the right of voting to minorities. I'm fine with you doing that, but your competitor will find it easier to hire qualified candidates and will gain an advantage.

I have no qualms against the federal government passing laws that discrimination in public arenas (laws or hiring practices), but it shouldn't extend to private businesses.

Posted by JordanT | January 16, 2008 6:02 PM

Provide a link, Rob, or don't come at me at all.

Posted by Freddie | January 16, 2008 6:29 PM

What if I'm a racist who only wants to hire whites, and talented whites who don't object to such a policy are in wide supply, while talented blacks are in short supply due to a history of being denied educational opportunities? What's the wonderful market corrective for that situation? In fact that was routine business in large regions of the US for a hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

There is a market corrective for the situation in which you're a racist and don't want to hire blacks, while other people don't care -- competitors who don't have the same objection will hire them.

There's no market corrective if most people are racist, true. But I hate to break it to you: there's no government corrective for that situation, either. (At least not in a democratic society.) You can't pass laws against discrimination unless a majority of people support them. The very fact that such laws pass demonstrate that the society isn't as irredeemably racist as you posit.

Posted by David Nieporent | January 16, 2008 6:30 PM

Rockwell:
Wishing to associate with members of one's own race, nationality, religion, class, sex, or even political party is a natural and normal human impulse.

Meghan:
No, Rockwell was saying that there's nothing wrong with saying "I don't like black people, and I don't ever want to know any".

I can't speak to everything that Rockwell has written, but Megan's response here is a gross misrepresentation of the quote she used in her post. I'm a fairly devout Christian and, all else being equal, I prefer the company of those with similar religious views. That doesn't mean I hate non-Christians and refuse to have anything to do with them.

Similarly, as a white guy, I don't really have a problem with say a bunch of black people or Indian people preferring to hang out with each other instead of me, and I don't think I would feel any different in Africa or India, where the shoe would be on the other foot so to speak. Some distrust of me as an outsider would be unremarkable, unless it lead to violence or complete exclusion from the means of making a living.

Posted by Thursday | January 16, 2008 6:57 PM

a lot of the civil rights abuses in the past were due to laws passed specifically to force segregation or deny the right of voting to minorities.

A lot !== all

I grew up in Georgia in the 70s. The most popular restaurant in town would hire blacks to work in the kitchen, but never, ever to wait tables. And only white people eat there.

Funny thing is, I didn't even notice this until I'd moved north and lived in Chicago a few years and brought my northern girlfriend home to meet the folks. She immediately noticed this and asked me why. I had now idea. The answer was certainly not that it was required by law.

Funny thing is, that restaurant still does it. I don't think they're crazy racists -- I went to school with one of the owner's daughters -- but it just goes to show the overwhelming influence of tradition and culture.

Sometimes laws enforcement is necessary to change the culture. Sometimes it works, but it takes a long time. Sometimes it doesn't - see the War on Drugs.

Posted by Derek Scruggs | January 16, 2008 9:53 PM

Re: I have no qualms against the federal government passing laws that discrimination in public arenas (laws or hiring practices), but it shouldn't extend to private businesses.

Where we differ is that I regard "private" businesses as inherently public activities. "Private" refers to one's home and to a few organizations like churches and private clubs.

Re: There's no market corrective if most people are racist, true. But I hate to break it to you: there's no government corrective for that situation, either

Nonsense. While you can make a point (though not a well-supported one) that most people in 50s opposed Jim Crow, in large areas of the country that was not the case. And even today most businesses have only local markets and local competitors, so even if a majority of the whole country may oppose certain practices if those practices pass muster where the business and its market is sited then the market supplies no corrective.
And may I assume that you also oppose the 13th Amendment since slavery too should have died a natural death due to economic factors?

Posted by JonF | January 17, 2008 6:38 AM

It's always a bit amusing and a bit depressing to see adults struggle with the lessons that most of us learned when we were four.

Posted by MB | January 17, 2008 9:13 AM

I know I'm late but I can't resist posting something huge!

Humans have a natural tendency to associate in groups, engage in conflict with other groups, and apply various forms of coercion toward members of their group who show signs of relenting in their hostility to the other groups. By intervening to damp down these tendencies, government improves the functioning of society on many different levels.

You're missing the point that there's nothing wrong with sticking to groups.

Anti-discrimination laws are horrible. And the damn truth of it is, businesses that have hired without discrimination are the ones that have survived the best. Black professors were a rarity in pre-WWII university labs--specifically, no major university hired any black chemists. But private companies which had economic incentives to hire these black people hired them. Hundreds of black chemists were employed by private companies despite the generally below average education they received due to discrimination. Colleges are subsidized, anti-competitive machines. They have no reasons to do the best they can, so they can do what's trendy. Private companies need to do the best they can. When there's a surplus of talented young black chemists, they're going to be hired by private companies. Whoever doesn't hire them is going to lose lots of money, so when you're trying to make money... well, that's just really damn stupid.

The biggest cost of discrimination is put on the discriminator. If I deny black people from coming to my restaurant, I'm right off the bat losing 15% of my customers. In addition, people hate discrimination these days--I'd probably lose a lot more customers out of protest. I'd be out of business if I discriminate! It's such a basic economic principle.

Anti-discrimination laws make it so companies favor black people unfairly. It's dangerous to hire too many black people in proportion to their ability just as it is with white people. The example with black chemists works with workers of all kinds and all races.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 should be praised for getting rid of state-mandated segregation. While the benefits far exceed the costs, we should realize that mandated integration is not a good thing. It causes economic inefficiencies.

The free market only discriminates against discriminators. That's the best kind of discrimination there is! Imagine if we didn't mandate integration in the workplace. Those racist piles of crap wouldn't be in business today.

I'm sure people who are liberal-minded on this issue agree that blacks are a very important part of the economy. So if they're discriminated against, doesn't that mean that a business is going to lose lots of profits? What? I thought businesses were evil profit mongering contractions! Why would they do that?! PARADOX!

Unfortunately now we try too hard to integrate to the point of inefficiency: ironically we're now discriminating AGAINST whites.

Simply put, the market hires who's best. If there aren't any good black people for the job, then why should they be forced into the market? That's economically inefficient and unfair to the other people who are better and rightfully deserve the job. Good enough, that barely happens. All races of people in the workplace are important. Races are arbitrary to productivity, and greedy employers embrace this.

tl;dr you're an idiot trying to use age to justify your faulty position. We're young? Is that an implication that we're naive and stupid? You're the shallow-minded one. Take Econ 101 and have a good day.

Posted by John Keynes | January 20, 2008 5:15 PM

To you racist twits: Libertarianism cannot be racist as it recognizes no other than the individual.

If someone advocates a racist position, they are doing so from something other than libertarianism.

=====

Also, the assertion that some racists take advantage of libertarian principles to advance their own cause, cannot poison the well. I am so tired of these 'Guilt by Association' fallacies...

"You think that 1+1=2. But, Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson, Joseph Stalin, and Ted Bundy all believed that 1+1=2. So, you shouldn't believe it." This does not follow!

To quote one of the nay-sayers:

"It's always a bit amusing and a bit depressing to see adults struggle with the lessons that most of us learned when we were four."

Posted by liberty | January 22, 2008 10:44 AM

Frankly, I am tired of trying to support any form of equality on our country. We have a publicly funded broadcasting company that has a very "white" policy of recruitment and it goes unchallenged. If those organisations that directly influence the way our young people see life are allowed to operate with no black workers then how on earth can we fight such blatant racism.

I despair that people like John Keynes can actually believe that industry hires who is best - maybe they do - in Radio 1 as long as they are white and middle class!

Posted by Robyne | February 24, 2008 6:16 AM

Frankly, I am tired of trying to support any form of equality on our country. We have a publicly funded broadcasting company that has a very "white" policy of recruitment and it goes unchallenged. If those organisations that directly influence the way our young people see life are allowed to operate with no black workers then how on earth can we fight such blatant racism.

I despair that people like John Keynes can actually believe that industry hires who is best - maybe they do - in Radio 1 as long as they are white and middle class!

Posted by Robyne | February 24, 2008 6:16 AM

Frankly, I am tired of trying to support any form of equality on our country. We have a publicly funded broadcasting company that has a very "white" policy of recruitment and it goes unchallenged. If those organisations that directly influence the way our young people see life are allowed to operate with no black workers then how on earth can we fight such blatant racism.

I despair that people like John Keynes can actually believe that industry hires who is best - maybe they do - in Radio 1 as long as they are white and middle class!

Posted by Robyne | February 24, 2008 6:16 AM