This needs saying again, doesn’t it?

Positive discrimination is still discrimination. Just adding the word “positive” doesn’t make it so, but then not all discrimination is negative.

We discriminate constantly, all the time, if we have any sense. We discriminate against brands that we’ve had bad experiences with. Had a Ford that’s conked out on you? Well, you won’t buy a Ford again. That’s discrimination. You’re discriminating against Ford, and the result is that you end up with a better car. If you don’t, if you decide all brands are the same you risk repeating the same mistake over and over, wasting more and more money.

We discriminate against what things we’ll put in our bodies. We decide that a little bit of chocolate is okay, but getting frobble-jammed on Heroin isn’t. We discriminate against things that are bad for us, and the result is that we act in our own self interest. If we don’t discriminate then we risk our lives and sanity.

We discriminate, if we have any sense whatsoever, between those who are willing and capable and those who are not. If you’re looking for someone to build a website, what matters is whether or not they can build that website. Failure to discriminate here, to instead pick someone based on perhaps their appearance, or how much they might need the job, would be a complete disaster and a waste of everyone’s time and money. You can discriminate perfectly legally and to the mutual benefit of you both by discriminating against the incapable and the unwilling.

We discriminate between what sort of entertainment we like, based on the level of pleasure, relaxation or escapism it gives us. If we decided instead to discriminate based on what we think other people want us to enjoy, or what we think we should enjoy versus what we actually do enjoy or simply refuse to discriminate at all and passively take in whatever happens to be around us, we deny ourselves the opportunity of maximising our own pleasure. It is your duty in life to discriminate here.

The point is that discrimination, or ‘decision making’ is neither good or bad. The measure is the quality of the decision making and the criteria.

Positive discrimination is, simply put, very bad decision making forced upon someone else, with a cuddly word added to the front. I get that it’s nice to have role models in important positions, that some people benefit from being able to see success in others like them. But, you know, it’s not success. Not really. Who’s really won, when the intervention has been to force bad decision making on someone else? The individual who gets the job, perhaps, but at what cost? How does it feel to win a job or position by using powerful friends to rig the game in your favour?

I tell you how it feels: It feels shit. Role models that sell a lie as truth – which is all positive discrimination achieves – aren’t worth a thing.

Having to be better is hard. It’s unfair, too, that someone of equal ability might not be given the same chances in life based on something as arbitrary as race or gender, and that really, really bites. It does. The world doesn’t work the way I want it to.

But, in the long run – the really really long run – this necessity to be ‘twice as good’ as straight white men? That’s something that pushes everyone harder, makes us all better. I can live with it… certainly, I can live with that far more comfortably than having a job I haven’t earned handed to me on a plate.