Enforcing racial hiring quotas is probably the worst way to address inequalities amongst minority groups. It enforces the stereotype that minorities are inferior and don't deserve the jobs their appearance has given them.
If you look at, for example, blacks in the U.S., two things stand out rather starkly: Poverty and incarceration rates. On average, kids in wealthy, stable, two-parent families do better than kids in poor single-parent households. Poverty and incarceration rates for blacks in the U.S. are significantly higher than for whites or asians. To compound matters, schools/teachers in poor areas are often of poorer quality than schools in rich areas.
The U.S. has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world. The for-profit prison system and complicit judges/politicians have created this sad state of affairs. This needs to change. One way to accomplish this might be for state and federal governments to take control of the prison system. More public funding needs to be directed towards schools and youth programs in poor areas. More money needs to be focused on easing poverty. Give these kids back their parents, reduce the desperation of extreme poverty their families experience, and give them quality education. Do all this, and we won't still be talking about race-based hiring practices a generation from now.
In general, children are an investment in the future and the U.S. has not been investing in all children equally.
Edit: Note that I am Canadian. Disproportionate incarceration, poverty, and inferior schooling are all problems faced by (many) first nations communities up here, only with the added difficulty that acting to change any of these is guaranteed to turn into a political fecal-storm. The feds recently tried to improve the education system, but it basically blew up in their faces and undermined the AFN (assembly of first nations) in the process.
If you look at, for example, blacks in the U.S., two things stand out rather starkly: Poverty and incarceration rates. On average, kids in wealthy, stable, two-parent families do better than kids in poor single-parent households. Poverty and incarceration rates for blacks in the U.S. are significantly higher than for whites or asians. To compound matters, schools/teachers in poor areas are often of poorer quality than schools in rich areas.
The U.S. has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world. The for-profit prison system and complicit judges/politicians have created this sad state of affairs. This needs to change. One way to accomplish this might be for state and federal governments to take control of the prison system. More public funding needs to be directed towards schools and youth programs in poor areas. More money needs to be focused on easing poverty. Give these kids back their parents, reduce the desperation of extreme poverty their families experience, and give them quality education. Do all this, and we won't still be talking about race-based hiring practices a generation from now.
In general, children are an investment in the future and the U.S. has not been investing in all children equally.
Edit: Note that I am Canadian. Disproportionate incarceration, poverty, and inferior schooling are all problems faced by (many) first nations communities up here, only with the added difficulty that acting to change any of these is guaranteed to turn into a political fecal-storm. The feds recently tried to improve the education system, but it basically blew up in their faces and undermined the AFN (assembly of first nations) in the process.