Job Selection Based on Skin Colour

This is an absolutely true event.   I heard it directly from persons who were present.

It was time to pick a Chief Medical Officer.   The candidates were being reviewed by a Board.  The absolute unequivocal best person was a white woman.   The members felt it was ‘sending the wrong signal’ to pick a white woman.

The second best was an Indian man.   He was tossed for the same reason the first was.

The third was a man so brown he might as well be white.

The fourth was Chinese.

The fifth was Indian.

The Sixth was a Black Woman.

Yes!

They needed a Black person to be the head to send the ‘right’ message, so contacted her and offered the position which she grabbed.

The White Doctor, who had been passed over, called to congratulate her, and offered to assist if necessary. She was thanked and plans were made how to incorporate her, because she was known to be a Medical Light.

The White Doctor was in the supermarket when a woman came running up to her and said; “Look, I voted for you, you were the best, and I didn’t think it was fair to pick someone on skin colour.”

The White Doctor had no idea what the woman was saying, but being a psychiatrist she made a ‘hmm’ sound and the woman went on to give enough information so that it was clear exactly what she was talking about.

The White Doctor left the supermarket, reached home, called the Black Woman who was now going to be the Chief and told her; “I was too free with my mouth… I can’t help you, I’ve got certain obligations and will be leaving the city shortly, so I’m sorry, but you can’t count on me.”

The Black Doctor accepted the explanation and went on with her life.   She took the position and was totally out of her league.   Further, she had recently married and her husband was not ‘alright’ with her long hours and absence, and decided to separate.   She was pregnant at the time.

She took medical leave, and the Board called the White doctor to ‘fill in’ while the Black Doctor was gone.   Feeling extremely ungenerous, the White Doctor made a number of demands, assuming they would not be fulfilled and she’d be discarded as she was in the first round.

She wasn’t.

They satisfied all her demands and she became the Chief Medical Officer for the next two years.   When the original choice returned she happily left the position and went to the North Coast to open her practice there.  The Original Choice couldn’t deal with the pressure, her marriage collapsed, she resigned.

The White Doctor refused the post when it was offered to her, and the Board appointed someone else.

The White Doctor said; “If they had given it to me the first time I’d have taken it and worked all those long hours, and put my private life on hold.   But they didn’t.    Having filled in for two years, it was not something I wanted to continue, so I walked away.”

I think of this now, when I look at certain ‘colour choices’, knowing that to be ‘politically correct’ the ‘Best’ candidate is often by passed for the one that ‘matches’ the current vision.

One wonders, for example, if Moonlight really was the ‘Best’ Picture, or was simply matching the current colour scheme.