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Author Topic: Not entirely sure if you guys can help me.  (Read 3670 times)

banehunter

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Not entirely sure if you guys can help me.
« on: February 19, 2014, 10:13:32 PM »

Basically, I have managed to finagle myself into a campaign advisor position for a politician in the States, and I have run into an issue that has really stone-walled me. My position ordains that I screen all the volunteers that attempt to join the campaign. I do other stuff besides just recruiting, but this is where I ran into my problem. So today a young man about 19-ish came into the office, wanting to join, and after asking a little bit of background information I found out exactly how f*cked this guy's life has been. Frankly I was impressed that he even had the sense to try and get it together, considering his incredibly crappy past, and try and work for the campaign. Then however it hit me, he was a young and impoverished African-American boy with a very broken nose and a very shady past, and that this would not fly with the heavily conservative voter base the candidate I was working for was trying to reach out to. As much as I hate stereotypes, the harassment and bereavement he would face while working here would not be worth the experience. I myself am not conservative, but a job is a job. I couldn't flat-out turn him away, even though I am on my way to being a politician myself I haven't become that soulless yet, so i told him to come in to the office next Monday. So guys got any opinions or ideas on what I should do? This is a touchy topic and I think a bit more diverse opinion will help me make the best decision.
 
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Sundog

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Re: Not entirely sure if you guys can help me.
« Reply #1 on: February 19, 2014, 11:56:07 PM »

Gotta love politics.

I'm not entirely sure we can help you either. I can appreciate your desire for perspective, but it's much more useful to know the perspective of someone who you know well as opposed to random internet people like us. This is the kind of situation you should be asking the people you respect most about. I suggests  you get in touch with one or more of the mentors/parents/professors/bosses/teachers you regard highly (even if you haven't talked to them in years), and ask for their advice. They probably won't give you good advice at first. It's hard to carry on a conversation and simultaneously unravel a messy situation like yours, so ask them to keep it in mind. Hopefully they'll think about it later when they can dedicate their full attention to it.

If you can talk to them face-to-face, all the better. This situation involves a lot of complicated information, and you've just summarized it using fewer than one hundredth of the bits in my avatar image. Text is a crappy way to communicate. I mean, we have to use little faces to indicate emotions for God's sake  ::)

I know I basically just suggested that you ignore me, and please feel free to do so, but I have a few thoughts that might bear consideration.
First, why would a black 19 year old with a troubled past want to volunteer to support a politician that caters to a voter base so extremely  conservative that these problems would arise? Are you absolutely certain you don't stereotype most conservatives as racist based on a vocal minority? Please don't take that as an accusation. I'm fully aware that I have no idea who you are, but I know how much fun it can be to bash on the loony tea partiers, and I know how easy and tempting it can be to generalize.
Second, depending on this guys personality, this situation could work to his advantage. Indignation can be an extremely potent motivator, and what's more unjust than being judged for your ethnicity and background? If he's the type of person who will work diligently and consistently to behave contrary to his stereotypes in order to disprove them he might just be an exceptionally good hire.

xenoargh

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Re: Not entirely sure if you guys can help me.
« Reply #2 on: February 20, 2014, 12:09:27 AM »

I don't know you or the kid, but given this data, I'd lean towards taking him, personally.

I presume that any campaign needs all the willing volunteers it can get, and that at this point, you're reasonably confident this young man isn't just blowing you smoke or expecting anything out of this but some experience and something cool on his resume.

If he shows up on time Monday and your gut says he's OK, give him a shot.  

If your gut's giving you tingles or you're just a little worried that it's not solid, wait and see what happens Monday.

That said, I'd lay worries about his image to one side, unless you've seen clear signs that he's not going to comport himself well with the public (like dropping f-bombs or making lewd jokes or whatnot). 

If he's a kid from a bad background, just the fact that he's there trying to get involved (and has educated himself enough to know that this is worth doing) says a lot, though. On balance, I'd say he's probably a pretty useful person just waiting to be taken seriously... and given a little responsibility, he may turn out to be a major asset.

Worst possible result is that your boss objects to even giving him a shot; but, being a politician, he probably won't be that stupid; "Republican Candidate for Governor Says No Blacks Allowed To Help Campaign" is, well, not exactly a winner's headline, y'know?  Past that... he goes out and runs into some people who give him a hard time, or they call your boss and cry because his skin color was wrong for their neighborhood.  It's unlikely to happen, though, provided he understands the rules, like dressing appropriately; few people these days are so racist that a black man wearing a tie behaving politely will merit a complaint or bad behavior on their part.  We just elected one as President, after all.
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icepick37

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Re: Not entirely sure if you guys can help me.
« Reply #3 on: February 20, 2014, 10:44:13 AM »

If you aren't comfortable making the decision on your own talk your way up the ladder.

I also think the racist stereotypes are overblown. Though obviously there's racist folk everywhere (most racist dude I ever met was in CA of all places).

If your guy is in actuality trying to connect to an actual base of racists, maybe you're in the wrong campaign anyway?  ( I dunno, not trying to tell you what to do, haha )
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banehunter

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Re: Not entirely sure if you guys can help me.
« Reply #4 on: February 20, 2014, 06:03:50 PM »

Thanks alot for your suggestions guys, I think I will go ahead and give the kid a chance. Regarding the candidate, he is running in a mostly liberal state, and most of the conservatives are either dead or dieing, so they are a bit overly traditional. In all seriousness I when I was phone banking many of the voters cited issues like "there is too many Democrats in office" or after they ask for my name then here a heavily Arab sounding syllable then immediately hang up. The kid though is surprisingly quite conservative, saying his experience in a foster home showed him the large amount of what he perceived to be freeloaders in the American social security system. If he was liberal I would have just given him a referendum to our opponent's campaign, though the other camp is pretty pathetic.
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Cruis.In

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Re: Not entirely sure if you guys can help me.
« Reply #5 on: February 20, 2014, 06:48:12 PM »

As someone from a black country who is black, stop calling him African American, I can't believe people even accept that term. Do you call white people european american? If so why not. They are black. You people are so afraid of race issues you can't call a spade a spade?

Anyway here is advice. You have a job to do. Your candidate is to win. You are not a social service. If giving him the job is a detriment to the campaign in any way you have failed your obligation to your candidate and you should resign. This is not about his skin or his childhood. It is about is he good for the campaign. He can get a job somewhere else.
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xenoargh

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Re: Not entirely sure if you guys can help me.
« Reply #6 on: February 20, 2014, 07:29:16 PM »

"African American" is a cultural self-designation in the USA, not a imposed phrase or a way to tiptoe around race.

If anything, it's meant in the opposite way; by identifying oneself as "African", one is reminding oneself and others that your ancestors very likely arrived here on the slave ships.  The "American" reminds oneself and others that you are a citizen with the same rights and responsibilities of any other citizen.

It gradually replaced "Negro" and "Colored" in the USA in the 1970s as more and more folks whose ancestors hailed from Africa decided to celebrate their heritage and reject the use of racist terms; a lot of folks in my generation and younger have "Africanized" names, for example.

I guess that might look odd, if you're in a country where most people are either your color or are "foreign"; in the US, where we have practically every culture and people on the planet hanging out somewhere, we're always a little torn between celebrating the culture of our ancestors and the fact that most of us are a wide mixture of heritages vs. our essential identities as citizens of the United States.  

For African Americans, it's even more complicated, given our very real history of slavery and oppression here.

I can see how that looks like "tiptoeing" around race, based on the literal reading of the language, but it's a lot more complicated than that; groups self-designate in our larger culture to remain culturally distinct within our larger melange structure.  For example, a lot of people identify themselves as "Irish Americans", because they're still pretty distinct as a sub-culture and take great pride in their roots.

For a lot of us, however, we just simplify, because our heritage is quite mixed after a few centuries.  

For example, I'm a pretty typical American, a little atypical in that my European heritage goes back to well before the Revolution... but if I used that terminology, I'd be a "Swiss German Iroquois Spanish English American", lol.  

But that's too long, so I just stick with "white guy", although with my beaky nose and brown eyes, sometimes people think I'm an Eastern European Jew, etc.  

It's just how things work here; we're from everywhere, and people here like to remember that for a variety of reasons, some of which are "politically correct" but most of which have to do with cultures wanting to remain distinct here :)

Anyhow, in the OP's case, he's dealing with a sensitive subject, since officially, a person's race is irrelevant here, but with older people (say, conservative voters in a Southern state) it might skew their perspectives a little in an encounter (for example, his accent might irk some people, if he cold calls them- on the other hand, it might energize others).

Racism here is very much less than it used to be and I'd honestly say that most of the USA is less racist than a lot of Europe and Asia are nowadays, but talking about it frankly can be risky in politics, if somebody takes offense or uses what you have to say out of context.  

Hence why he was asking for frank advice from behind his pseudonym, as it's a sticky subject here- most of us generally don't like racism and we'd like it to go away, in the abstract, but the reality is often a little more complicated, even in 2014.
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banehunter

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Re: Not entirely sure if you guys can help me.
« Reply #7 on: February 20, 2014, 11:17:55 PM »

Really I don't entirely understand how being called an African-American is insulting considering the parallels it draws between terms like Chinese-American or in my singular case Bengali-American, but the entire point of me addressing this crowd, is different aspect on the situation I can recieve here. I hope to use my experience from this campaign to jump start my career in politics, and for me I don't want my future job choices to end up inverting whatever morals I got throughout my years of education. Situations like this are expected in a position like mine, idealogy vs. a paying job, and alas in politics there are alot of factors that are frankly out of a person's control. Our clientele is the voter, and the voter is a hard to manage beast under the best of circumstance, and us campaigners try trick it into thinking it agrees with our ideals.
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TJJ

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Re: Not entirely sure if you guys can help me.
« Reply #8 on: February 21, 2014, 04:56:05 AM »

Quote
Then however it hit me, he was a young and impoverished African-American boy with a very broken nose and a very shady past, and that this would not fly with the heavily conservative voter base the candidate I was working for was trying to reach out to.

I guess you're familiar with the relevant employment discrimination laws?
As it sounds like you're skirting very close to what is lawful & what is not, you definitely should be.
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