"...A Dutch person with a criminal record has a better chance of finding a job in the Netherlands than someone with a non-Western background and no criminal record, according to a study done by researchers from a number of Dutch universities. Their conclusion is that when looking for work in the Netherlands, ethnicity is more important that criminal records, NOS reports..."
"Study: Ethnic minorities less likely to find work in Netherlands than Dutch convict":
What? No one's going into other countries anymore (except the US but this is largely against the will of the people and even this has stopped for now) and colonizing them. The closest would be the mass immigration into developed countries which this prevents. This also robs developing countries of their best workers and keeps them poor.
Please educate yourself, you could just Google it. Your bio proudly says you’ve been banned for politics 3 times - I will stop engaging with your obvious racist trolling now.
The Dutch were colonisers who owned and imported slaves from various darker-skinned countries. Their descendants continue to live in the Netherlands now and face constant discrimination and peril, like this tax dept scandal.
Further, like all “developed” countries, the Netherlands relies on a constant stream of “illegal” immigrants from developing/colonial countries, to support the country’s labor requirements.
Given all this, your argument literally makes no sense.
EDIT: If you listen to them they'll agree, most are even vocally anti-White. Israel itself doesn't allow White people to immigrate because they don't want their demographics diluted.
Even on this ridiculous basis, the tax authorities weren’t even so thorough as to assess if they were discriminating against migrants. Merely looking non-western was sufficient. Having the “wrong” nose or hair or skin color or name, or whatever superficial bases they used, doesn’t make you a migrant. Especially given Dutch history with its colonies, there are a lot of such people who have been living in NL for generations.
> people with a "non-Western appearance" were subjected to stricter controls
South Africa has a pretty heterogeneous population from an ethnicity perspective and they are very protective of locals when it comes to jobs (including some frequent rioting against foreigners)
If you’re from up north, i.e. not southern Africa then you will most likely suffer discrimination.
So yes, it’s not a particularly Dutch disease, it happens everywhere, including for example Mexico where Mexicans are preferred over foreigners in the great majority of jobs.
The US is more an exception to this where we’re welcoming of foreigners by and large —with exceptions of course.
There are several places in the world welcoming of foreigners. The US is not particularly welcoming on an absolute scale due to draconian immigration processes and the rise of an authoritarian political party.
Germany too! I've heard multiple first-hand accounts from highly educated people who immigrated to Germany for work. They enjoy the high quality of life and feel welcomed in their community.
> The US is not particularly welcoming on an absolute scale due to draconian immigration processes and the rise of an authoritarian political party.
Compared to most other developed countries, The United States has a surprisingly permissive immigration policy. Have you seen the requirements to immigrate legally to a country like Switzerland, Australia, Japan, or Israel? The trouble is that so many people want to immigrate to the US - and there’s no feasible way to just let everyone in - the waitlist is massive. We even have a lottery system, where most other nations demand an above average net worth and some kind of in-demand skill. Despite all of this, to some it seems “draconian” that we don’t just rubber stamp everyone who shows up wanting to get in.
>” the rise of an authoritarian political party.”
I know what you’re alluding to, but both the Republican and Democratic parties have been around since the 1800’s. And, I gaurantee you their modern view on immigration is far more welcoming than how these parties treated immigration in the past.
> The US is not particularly welcoming on an absolute scale due to draconian immigration processes and the rise of an authoritarian political party.
However, the US is the only country I have seen where the integrated immigrants refer to themselves as Americans and are proud to be Americans almost nationalistically.
When I go over to Canada, the non-American immigrants, refer to themselves as Canadian-X, e.g. Canadian-Chinese, Canadian-Pakistani, Canadian-Cameroonian, etc.
Is this surprising? Not if you've been following the case or know many Dutch people. It should be upsetting if you're Dutch. It means that your supposedly egalitarian and democratic society isn't open to everyone. Judging and discriminating based upon skin color and ethnicity is morally reprehensible. Especially in a negative fashion. Full stop.
A majority ethnicity does not excuse racism. If anything it makes it worse.
It’s upsetting because Netherlands prides on being progressive and treating people equally regardless of sex or ethnic background.
Note there are many Dutch people who are ethnically from North Africa or other non-white regions and they are systematically discriminated against. Netherlands treats white British citizen in Netherlands who can’t speak Dutch better than a Dutch person who looks Moroccan.
> It’s upsetting because Netherlands prides on being progressive and treating people equally regardless of sex or ethnic background.
Oh no, not anymore. That age is long over, since 9/11 or even before (9/11 was the trigger I suppose). Also, Portugal and USA have a more progressive drugs policy than we (NL) do.
It is "slightly" upsetting taken into account this was the reason the latest government resigned, and the same prime minister who lied to parliament about it for 6 years...is the head of the new government!
Same prime minister also deletes daily his personal official communications :-)
it is. Nearly 75% of the population is homogenous so your point is moot. The Netherlands is no outlier in this regard and systemic racism is common in most ethnostates - see France for example, where the segment of population with at least one non-ethnically french parent is even higher than in NL. The problem is just as bad if not worse.
I'm not racist, so I genuinely don't know: are eastern Europeans considered a separate race?
Because it's sort of a public secret that if you hail from one of those countries which joined the EU in the 21st century, you're going to be looked at with suspicion. I suppose it has something to do with the type of people who went to the Netherlands for work right after that was made much easier, but nevertheless it's there.
Ah so then NL shouldn’t allow other Europeans in either? Or is this opinion only about non-white people.
Either way, the Dutch should’ve thought of that before colonising and enslaving other countries. And then importing slaves to their “Dutch only” land. Quite odd.
How can you look at this data and know it’s “racism”? There’s so many unexplained confounds that you can’t account for. It’s “interesting” data, but using it to definitively draw conclusions seems malicious and pseudo scientific.
The distinction is "institutional racism" vs "personal racism". Is it possible that nobody had deliberate malicious intent in this matter? Completely. But what "institutional racism" deals with is if one race is disproportionately affected by a policy over others, which is more often than not caused by socioeconomic factors that weren't considered during the creation of the policy. Usually, it's only ignorance at play, but it's still not good to create a system that has a "net racist" effect without at least trying to understand why.
> “institutional racism" deals with is if one race is disproportionately affected by a policy over others, which is more often than not caused by socioeconomic factors that weren't considered during the creation of the policy
How do you prove these things are caused by socioeconomic factors? At a minimum we have nowhere near the genetic understanding to control for those aspects. At a higher level, human society, culture, and the systems created by it are infinitely complex. Grouping people on 1 axis then saying the reason for this grouping is “socioeconomic” seems…optimistic at best.
There are so many reasons one racial grouping may be disparately impacted by something. We should focus on fixing the downsides of that impact for all people, not asking why X arbitrary category we came up with doesn’t match Y (because the answer to question is far beyond our technical ability).
And our metric of success cannot be “x group more affected” - if we make that our metric, we’ll find a way to hit that target, correct or not.
This sounds very nihilistic, or maybe libertarian I can't tell the difference. My point is, we must do something and as engineers we work based on data. Now you can argue successfully that data is not perfect, but if the alternative is (institutional) paralysis, then what? A state cannot afford to be that zen regarding the well-being of its citizens.
This sounds authoritarian, or maybe progressive. I can't tell the difference. My point is that data without context is almost worthless when crafting policy.
I agree we must do something! It's much more reliable to talk with individuals and assess instances of racism, discrimination, etc. on a case base case basis (taking into account other evidence). We don't have to be paralyzed.
This is another case where those of us that view the world through the lens of race are again moving the racist goalposts.
Enacting a policy without race in mind, then have that policy impact one race more than another is not racist unless the intent was specifically to oppress a given group. Are laws against killing racist, even though some groups are disproportionately represented in the statistics?
Intent absolutely matters, but I submit that despite intent outcomes are often just as important. Not regarding race in the construction of a policy is not necessarily racism. But if the outcomes of a policy disproportionately negatively effect one or more races, then surely we should rethink that policy.
Obviously someone who intends to do harm is worse than someone who doesn't, but hopefully, you realize that people can do bad things unintentionally, and that outcomes are just as important as the intentions that led to them.
My family is of Dutch origin. The husband of my niece is from Moroccan origin. He has his own business. He experimented with giving her last name, and suddenly he got way more clients (all pre-covid btw). So they married and he changed his last name to hers. It kind of adds to the problem on one hand but on another this type of assimilation of culture is something you can find throughout history. Yes, foreigners are welcome, but they must adapt and leave a large part of their own cultural identity over time. Its a never ending struggle, and sometimes it goes with more violence (ie. Uyghur concentration camps) than elsewhere. Also, I have a family member who worked at the Dutch tax dept. customer service who got a burnout over this very issue. Because they knew it was wrong.
Sort of the same thing happened to my mom's family. Her grandparents immigrated to another country (not US) and the natives were very hostile to them because of their last name.
They changed it to a native sounding last name and were able to integrate into society.
However, on her side of the family, some of the relatives choose to go back to the old last name, so when we have reunions there is a mix of people with the native and original last name.
Wow. This is such a deeply personal reply. Thank you to share about your experience. Please don't think this is only the Netherlands. The United States still has similar issues. If you have a name that "sounds Black" on your CV, you are much less likely to get a call for interview. It is sad, and it bothers me to no end. The same will be for people who have traditional Islamic/Moslem names (Muhammed, Siti, etc.).
What makes me most hopeful: These investigations and reporting demonstrates a functioning democracy is able to audit itself -- either internally or externally via media. Years ago, I had a Japanese co-worker. We were discussing recent news events in Australia. For whatever reason, Australia was in one of those mini-bubbles of political corruption. To him, it seemed like everyday was some new corruption in Australia! He asked me -- in all seriousness: "Is Australia a corrupt country? Look what we see in the news." I am not Australian, but I mentioned that it was positive the gov't and media was investigating and being transparent about it. That part was the most important to me. In the end, he seemed satisfied with my explanation -- and not excusing the scandal.
> Yes, foreigners are welcome, but they must adapt and leave a large part of their own cultural identity over time.
It's part of a larger problem in the Netherlands. There is a lot of segregation in the Netherlands based on social class and education level. A Dutch person immediately judges someone's social class based on looks -- clothing, tattoos, obesity, hairstyle, et cetera. And lower social classes are predujiced against.
And people with non-Western, especially Moroccan or Turkish names are recognized as immigrants and automatically thought of as lower class. People with Western foreign names are thought of as "expats" and mentally put into the highly educated / high social class group.
Yes, foreigners must adapt, but I hope that over time as Dutch society becomes more integrated with the world, this aspect of Dutch culture will also be weakened. This racism is a side effect of our classism.
Although similar in nature, it is to be expected that people of similar features and likeness to themselves have the advantage. This is something everyone is equally guilty of and is not specific to any particular organisation or group. But structurally labeling non-westerners for tax fraud is unacceptable. Turn someone away at the border or give them the same treatment as dutch citizens.
I dont entirely trust the randomised study for CV'S Because the dutch criminal record system doesn't allow for such discrimination in the first place. When applying for a job that, for example, lets you handle the cash register then you have to apply for a VOG ( Verklaring omtrend Gedrag AKA certificate of conduct )
Which for operating cash registrar you can get your VOG even if you've committed every crime in the book exept if you've previously mishandled money.
Dutch government is inept at solving problems appropriatly. I dont think the people hurt by the fraud investigations will ever be properly compensated.
"it is to be expected that people of similar features and likeness to themselves have the advantage"
Do you think Chinese prefer to hire their own over European-looking people? Or Arabs in the Arabian gulf prefer to hire their own over European-looking people?
I would be kinda shocked if there wasn't some data supporting that? Japan isn't China, but I've heard lots of stories about westerners trying to move there and struggling to get jobs or be accepted into communities. I'm sure this varies by countries, and maybe China is more welcoming of immigration in general, but I would expect some level of subconscious biases in hiring there too.
"...
For the study, the researchers sent out 500 fictional application letters and CVs and looked at the responses they received. The letters were all about the same in content, but on the CVs ethnicity and criminal record were systematically varied. The types of crime were also varied - violent crime, money crime and sex crime.
..."
As a Dutch person I feel deeply ashamed and disgusted by my government. As far as I am concerned the tax scandal wasn't 'only' institutional racism, it was genocide.
Kids were systematically (over 1100 cases) taken away from their parents based on explicitly racist policies and placed in foster homes. This is a very deep black mark on our history to come.
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a large 'group' of people (be it ethnical, racial, religious, etc). Removing young children from their parents to be placed outside the group is a "tried and tested" method of doing so. In fact, it's so common it was included in the five acts of the Genocide Convention and has a separate subsection on its Wikipedia page:
This might need a bit of unpacking to ensure that people don't come away with the impression that you're talking about "great replacement" white supremacist bullshit here. Assuming, of course, you're not.
> But institutional racism is not the same as racial hatred, Van Rij (CDA) emphasized before the Council of Ministers. There were also concerns about the legal consequences of such a confession.
The mental gymnastics displayed by the government in this scandal, is both hilarious and disgusting.
They want to explicitly differentiate that institutional racism and everyday racism are “different” as if it makes things better - though the former is arguably equally or more harmful as the state has all the power.
Further, they acknowledge there has been discrimination, but do not want to “admit” there was racism - just because it has legal implications. This is exactly like immoral companies settling lawsuits with no admission of guilt, to avoid consequences.
Do they properly control for important confounding factors such as Dutch language proficiency both spoken and written? Alternative hypothesis could be that someone with insufficient command of the official language has hard time finding job at the Tax Authority.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 145 ms ] thread"Study: Ethnic minorities less likely to find work in Netherlands than Dutch convict":
https://nltimes.nl/2017/07/06/ethnic-minorities-less-likely-...
While it doesn’t have to surprise /you/, the victims are used to racism so they aren’t surprised either.
However, it definitely upsets them because they’re discriminated against and negatively affected, while you are not.
I mean, historically that's not accurate at all.
can't have it both ways
What? No one's going into other countries anymore (except the US but this is largely against the will of the people and even this has stopped for now) and colonizing them. The closest would be the mass immigration into developed countries which this prevents. This also robs developing countries of their best workers and keeps them poor.
Modern colonialism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocolonialism
The Dutch were colonisers who owned and imported slaves from various darker-skinned countries. Their descendants continue to live in the Netherlands now and face constant discrimination and peril, like this tax dept scandal.
Further, like all “developed” countries, the Netherlands relies on a constant stream of “illegal” immigrants from developing/colonial countries, to support the country’s labor requirements.
Given all this, your argument literally makes no sense.
EDIT: If you listen to them they'll agree, most are even vocally anti-White. Israel itself doesn't allow White people to immigrate because they don't want their demographics diluted.
> people with a "non-Western appearance" were subjected to stricter controls
If you’re from up north, i.e. not southern Africa then you will most likely suffer discrimination.
So yes, it’s not a particularly Dutch disease, it happens everywhere, including for example Mexico where Mexicans are preferred over foreigners in the great majority of jobs.
The US is more an exception to this where we’re welcoming of foreigners by and large —with exceptions of course.
Compared to most other developed countries, The United States has a surprisingly permissive immigration policy. Have you seen the requirements to immigrate legally to a country like Switzerland, Australia, Japan, or Israel? The trouble is that so many people want to immigrate to the US - and there’s no feasible way to just let everyone in - the waitlist is massive. We even have a lottery system, where most other nations demand an above average net worth and some kind of in-demand skill. Despite all of this, to some it seems “draconian” that we don’t just rubber stamp everyone who shows up wanting to get in.
>” the rise of an authoritarian political party.”
I know what you’re alluding to, but both the Republican and Democratic parties have been around since the 1800’s. And, I gaurantee you their modern view on immigration is far more welcoming than how these parties treated immigration in the past.
However, the US is the only country I have seen where the integrated immigrants refer to themselves as Americans and are proud to be Americans almost nationalistically.
When I go over to Canada, the non-American immigrants, refer to themselves as Canadian-X, e.g. Canadian-Chinese, Canadian-Pakistani, Canadian-Cameroonian, etc.
A majority ethnicity does not excuse racism. If anything it makes it worse.
Note there are many Dutch people who are ethnically from North Africa or other non-white regions and they are systematically discriminated against. Netherlands treats white British citizen in Netherlands who can’t speak Dutch better than a Dutch person who looks Moroccan.
Oh no, not anymore. That age is long over, since 9/11 or even before (9/11 was the trigger I suppose). Also, Portugal and USA have a more progressive drugs policy than we (NL) do.
Same prime minister also deletes daily his personal official communications :-)
"Dutch government resigns over child benefits scandal": https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/15/dutch-governme...
"Dutch PM has been deleting text messages daily for years"( Dutch): https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/premier-rutte-w...
I don't feel that's still very homogenous.
It sounded like you pointed at the supposed homogeneity of the Netherlands as if it were an excuse.
Because it's sort of a public secret that if you hail from one of those countries which joined the EU in the 21st century, you're going to be looked at with suspicion. I suppose it has something to do with the type of people who went to the Netherlands for work right after that was made much easier, but nevertheless it's there.
Ah so then NL shouldn’t allow other Europeans in either? Or is this opinion only about non-white people.
Either way, the Dutch should’ve thought of that before colonising and enslaving other countries. And then importing slaves to their “Dutch only” land. Quite odd.
How do you prove these things are caused by socioeconomic factors? At a minimum we have nowhere near the genetic understanding to control for those aspects. At a higher level, human society, culture, and the systems created by it are infinitely complex. Grouping people on 1 axis then saying the reason for this grouping is “socioeconomic” seems…optimistic at best.
There are so many reasons one racial grouping may be disparately impacted by something. We should focus on fixing the downsides of that impact for all people, not asking why X arbitrary category we came up with doesn’t match Y (because the answer to question is far beyond our technical ability).
And our metric of success cannot be “x group more affected” - if we make that our metric, we’ll find a way to hit that target, correct or not.
Enacting a policy without race in mind, then have that policy impact one race more than another is not racist unless the intent was specifically to oppress a given group. Are laws against killing racist, even though some groups are disproportionately represented in the statistics?
Intent matters.
Obviously someone who intends to do harm is worse than someone who doesn't, but hopefully, you realize that people can do bad things unintentionally, and that outcomes are just as important as the intentions that led to them.
Also you cannot apply US or CA values to the rest of the world.
They changed it to a native sounding last name and were able to integrate into society.
However, on her side of the family, some of the relatives choose to go back to the old last name, so when we have reunions there is a mix of people with the native and original last name.
What makes me most hopeful: These investigations and reporting demonstrates a functioning democracy is able to audit itself -- either internally or externally via media. Years ago, I had a Japanese co-worker. We were discussing recent news events in Australia. For whatever reason, Australia was in one of those mini-bubbles of political corruption. To him, it seemed like everyday was some new corruption in Australia! He asked me -- in all seriousness: "Is Australia a corrupt country? Look what we see in the news." I am not Australian, but I mentioned that it was positive the gov't and media was investigating and being transparent about it. That part was the most important to me. In the end, he seemed satisfied with my explanation -- and not excusing the scandal.
It's part of a larger problem in the Netherlands. There is a lot of segregation in the Netherlands based on social class and education level. A Dutch person immediately judges someone's social class based on looks -- clothing, tattoos, obesity, hairstyle, et cetera. And lower social classes are predujiced against.
And people with non-Western, especially Moroccan or Turkish names are recognized as immigrants and automatically thought of as lower class. People with Western foreign names are thought of as "expats" and mentally put into the highly educated / high social class group.
Yes, foreigners must adapt, but I hope that over time as Dutch society becomes more integrated with the world, this aspect of Dutch culture will also be weakened. This racism is a side effect of our classism.
Or maybe harder to communicate with?
I dont entirely trust the randomised study for CV'S Because the dutch criminal record system doesn't allow for such discrimination in the first place. When applying for a job that, for example, lets you handle the cash register then you have to apply for a VOG ( Verklaring omtrend Gedrag AKA certificate of conduct )
Which for operating cash registrar you can get your VOG even if you've committed every crime in the book exept if you've previously mishandled money.
https://www.government.nl/topics/identification-documents/qu...
Dutch government is inept at solving problems appropriatly. I dont think the people hurt by the fraud investigations will ever be properly compensated.
Do you think Chinese prefer to hire their own over European-looking people? Or Arabs in the Arabian gulf prefer to hire their own over European-looking people?
"Solving the Problem of Amsterdam’s ‘Black’ and ‘White’ Schools": https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/06/amster...
But there is still work to do.
Kids were systematically (over 1100 cases) taken away from their parents based on explicitly racist policies and placed in foster homes. This is a very deep black mark on our history to come.
https://nltimes.nl/2022/05/11/1675-children-removed-parents-...
Genocide literally means "the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group"
Nothing of the sort happened. Words and their definitions matter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide#Forcibly_transferring...
"Allen die zich in Nederland bevinden, worden in gelijke gevallen gelijk behandeld".
The mental gymnastics displayed by the government in this scandal, is both hilarious and disgusting.
They want to explicitly differentiate that institutional racism and everyday racism are “different” as if it makes things better - though the former is arguably equally or more harmful as the state has all the power.
Further, they acknowledge there has been discrimination, but do not want to “admit” there was racism - just because it has legal implications. This is exactly like immoral companies settling lawsuits with no admission of guilt, to avoid consequences.
Despicable!
https://www.ft.com/content/9996a65e-0996-4a08-aa65-041be685d...
https://nltimes.nl/2022/01/25/tax-authorities-used-nationali...