United Airlines to open flight school later this year in hiring push, plans to increase diversity

If it's predicated upon race, then it's institutional racism.

OTOH if this new flight school will be open to all, no problem.

So which is it?

 

The fact that a person is not doing something does not mean they don't want to be doing that something.

 

Of course it does. I wanted to study archaeology, but I didn't work hard enough to be rich enough to commit four years to learning something that then wouldn't land me a job. So I studied something that would easily get me plenty of work, instead. I know people who wanted to be doctors, and when asked why they didn't pursue that (knowing that even the poorest person can, because those student loans are very easily repaid on a doctor's salary), they eventually admit that they didn't want to do the hard yards in high school - essential for entry into medicine.

If you're suggesting that POC aren't making such choices for themselves, you're basically saying that you deny them the agency you allow to white people.

 

I understand your point but disagree about your using it as a blanket statement as the reason why they may not have pursued a particular career of interest. You simply can't speak for them (and neither can I, for that matter).

As you know, this topic is pretty heavy and there are many moving parts so I'm going to try to break it down in the hope that we can continue the conversation in manageable parts as we HOPEFULLY work toward understanding each other's positions a bit better.

Back in 2016, some pilots filed a lawsuit against United Airlines.

Full disclosure - My ex works for United Airlines so I've seen and heard about some of these things directly.

So, just five years ago some pilots made formal complaints and filed a lawsuit against an airline for racial discrimination and harassment in the workplace. What this tells me is that there is an internal management problem. Many people will dismiss it as them being whiners or playing the race card but the statistics clearly show the racial breakdown for pilots and managers in the company. Just FIVE years ago.

What this means is United Airlines has had to make some internal changes to their hiring models to balance the ship. In other words, they aren't launching this pilot program out of the goodness of their hearts. They have to appease their stock holders and, for the moment, that means a show of acceptance and diversity. This practice is very common especially in big companies called on the hot seat for favoritism.

With that said, I have no doubt that many minorities (race and gender) will apply for the program. They will go through the same training and development that other pilots have had to complete to obtain employment at the airline. My best guess is this first graduating class will take the brunt of hostility and animosity as being "quota hires" but they will flourish nonetheless.

Again, I hope you can read this in the spirit in which it is written - with sincerity and hope that we can meet somewhere in the middle and learn from one another.

 

I'm sorry to say that I just don't buy that. No business is going to ignore the best suited to the job, then give that job to someone less suited. Especially not a large organisation, where every strata of the hierarchy is answerable.

The only situation in which they MIGHT avoid promoting AA pilots to Captain (or whatever) would be because their customer base has some lack of confidence in African Americans in roles of such huge responsibility. If that's true, then the work that needs doing isn't in patching the leaking bucket, but in figuring out why leaks exist. What is it about African Americans that reduces public trust? Clearly it has nothing to do with race, since African and Indian (and other dark skinned groups) don't have those issues in the West when it comes to professional roles. EG, the beautiful clipped and perfectly enunciated English of the educated African pilot, would be incredibly reassuring to passengers about to head into the skies. Ditto the posh and vocab-rich English of the educated Indian migrant. Same applies if you're about to undergo surgery in their hands. You get my drift. So what's really going on here?

 

You are entitled to believe or not believe anything you want. I've done some work in the HR field and I've been directly told more than once to not interview and/or hire X (black, Asian, gay, etc.) group. It happens every day.

I believe you are oversimplifying the problem with a back-handed attempt at "blame the victim". While it may be true there are some factors that contribute to some people having biased views against X group, it is also true that some have biased views against X group, period. We are witnessing some of that issue now with Asian-Americans just as happened with Arab-Americans after 9/11. The reality is we know more people within our own demographic than we really know about others outside it so it's easier to not generalize or stereotype them. We see this quite often in news reports. Nobody lumps all white people together when a white mass murderer goes on a rampage. Yet, we do that with every other ethnic group. We (collectively) and often subconsciously judge ALL the people within that subgroup on the actions of one person within that group. Here lately, we are seeing quite a few people very angry about what they consider to be racism against white people. In actuality, it's not really racism against white people but inclusion of non-white people. And, probably for the first time, some white people are experiencing exactly what non-white and females have been experiencing all along (who are/were often told to get over it).

With that said, I strongly believe the only way to solve a problem is to be honest with ourselves about how we contribute to the problem. That is not for the purpose of laying blame or to push guilt onto others but to openly recognize that not ALL people (or any subgroup) is ALL of one thing. There's more to addressing racism than saying "Well, Obama was a black POTUS so racism doesn't exist" or "Kamala was elected so sexism doesn't exist." Statistics clearly show that non-white people are still disproportionally treated as "lesser" in our society (and probably around the world, but I've never lived outside the US so don't know where that all fits in other countries) and it's short-sighted to conclude that is something solely based within the person who is being targeted.

 

Since so few are pilots, it is apparent they don't want to go through all the training necessary to be a pilot.

 

That is not a conclusion one can make with any degree of accuracy. There are many reasons a person isn't do the job they want to do.

 

Sure. They might lack the necessary skills.

 

Maybe it would help to check out some stats on job satisfaction surveys. MOST people aren't doing the job they want to do.

 

The question before us is "why not?"

Forcing an artificial equity is not the answer. Some progressives thought it bad that there were so few female engineers. They started programs to encourage women to study STEM. As it turned out, women washed out of STEM programs at amuch higher rate than men and washed out of STEM careers at a much higher rate than men.

 

First, I'm female, and I'm not white. My husband and kids are black. I'm from a working class family. I worked minimum wage jobs while I put myself through university. My husband did the same. It'd be better for you to discontinue the assumptions.

Second, Non-White Americans top your income and education statistics - ahead of whites. You are woefully out of sync with reality, my friend.

Third, if you (as a white person) care about racism, the very best thing you can do is mind your own business. Beyond that, stop viewing POC as 'less than' you, and in need of your all powerful assistance.

 

They can't accept that, because they can't accept that much agency on the part of coloured people.

 

Outside of some kind of physical disability preventing it, no there aren't 'many reasons'. There is only one reason - we don't want it badly enough.

 

Reminds me of a very revealing outcome of 2020 lockdowns. In my country, homeless people were given free hotel accommodation for as many months as they needed it (within reason, of course), and access to any support mechanism they needed to get clean or change their lives. It was just the "lucky break" that Proggy types always claim is what's needed to cure homelessness.

What do you think happened? Easy to guess of course. It didn't make a jot of difference. In fact the majority of them actually left early because they couldn't stand having to behave a little bit. The rest just fell straight back into their old habits as soon as they got out. About 1% actually made use of the "lucky break" - and in reality these are the people who'd have ended up making good regardless.

Just imagine what that obviously futile exercise cost the tax payer. It was absolute insanity. They should have herded the homeless out to some disused military base way out in the country, and provide nothing but basic housing and basic meals. The serious would still have used it to change their lives, but at least we wouldn't have wasted all that money on the 99% who were never going to.

The naivety of the Progressive Left is absurd. They actually believe the b@stards who tell them this stuff (that homeless people just need a lucky break, etc).

 

Me too.

 

Oh man, I’m jealous of your setup there! I just use a gaming laptop which runs everything great, but I’ve only got a 17” screen. I’ve got pretty good controllers though , with my T.16000m HOTAS and rudder pedals. But yeah your cockpit there is awesome! I need that.

 

It runs on two 4k Projectors that overlap each other for a screen that is 12 ft by 4 ft. Great for flight sims

 

1. Please point out what assumptions I made.

2. Statistics prove you wrong.

3. What authority do you think you have to tell someone else to mind their own business? Control issues?

I never once said that black and brown people are "less than" me or need my assistance so stop with the projection.

 

Pure nonsense.

 

Nope. Going to their flight school is no guarantee of a job.

It is a way for them to make more money, the school cost close to 90 grand

 

And how does that pan out when they don't get their precious "diversity" because not "enough" can pass the "standards of training"? We've had decades of seeing how that's handled.....

 

1) I'll bet you assumed that I'm a white male.

2) No, those ARE your statistics. Non Whites are ahead of whites in America. It's been the case for some years now.

3) The authority of indignation.

4) You don't need to say it out loud. It's underlies the very idea that brown people need to be saved by white people.

 

What's the difference between two kids, both from equally poor families in very similar circumstances, but one knuckles down at high school and earns a scholarship to Law School, while the other flunks out and gets into drugs/crime etc?

And how do you explain the adult struggling in a minimum wage job, and so deciding that their kid won't have the same struggle - thus choosing to sacrifice their own time and comforts to support the above kid who worked hard at high school? What's the difference between that parent, and the parent of flunking kid?