Thread: Indigenous applicant not black enough for the job

Indigenous applicant not black enough for the job

Deborah Snow

November 4, 2010

Not black enough?

Aborigine 'humiliated' to hear she might not look 'indigenous' enough to promote Aboriginal employment initiative.

A YOUNG Aborigine was ''shocked'' and ''humiliated'' to hear she might not look ''indigenous'' enough for a job promoting the Aboriginal employment initiative GenerationOne, founded by the mining entrepreneur Andrew Forrest. Tarran Betterridge, 24, a Canberra university student, applied for the post through an ACT company, Epic Promotions, which had been asked to find five people of ''indigenous heritage'' to staff a stall at Westfield in Canberra handing out flyers for GenerationOne. Ms Betterridge was interviewed for 20 minutes on October 20 and told she was ''perfect''.




However, the interviewer, Emanuela D'Annibale, said she first had to check with her client, an agency called Let's Launch, because of guidelines specifiying it wanted ''indigenous-looking'' people for the job.

Ms D'Annibale then took Ms Betterridge's photo, but denies forwarding it. Ms Betterridge's mother is white and her father is a Wiradjuri man from the Dubbo area. When Ms Betterridge phoned the next day, Ms D'Annibale told her she was not needed as Let's Launch had already found enough casual employees. Yesterday Ms D'Annibale confirmed working to guidelines that required at least some recruits to ''look'' indigenous.

Ms Betterridge was ''lovely'', she said, but ''if you're promoting Italian pasta, and you put Asians there, how's that going to look? Wouldn't you pick an Italian to promote the Italian pasta?''

She would have liked to hire Ms Betterridge anyway because ''she was really nice, she had so much knowledge and background … but the reason we needed at least one person who looked indigenous [was] so that it would be friendlier to indigenous people''. ''I wouldn't have picked her for Aboriginal at all … to me she looked like an Aussie girl.''

She said Ms Betterridge hadn't been hired because the agency didn't need five people. Ms Betterridge is ''shocked a company that wants to increase indigenous employment would question hiring a person because they do not meet the colour standard''. The chief executive of GenerationOne, Tim Gartrell, expressed repugnance at the claims last night. He said he instructed those responsible to apologise, and would no longer use the recruiting contractor's services.

''The comment made by a recruiting contractor is completely inappropriate and doesn't reflect the views, practice or ethos of anyone in GenerationOne,'' he said.
Despite this, the NSW Aboriginal Land Council seized on the episode to attack GenerationOne, accusing it of abetting ''staggering'' discrimination against Ms Betterridge.

''For them to deny an Aboriginal student a job - a real job - because of the colour of her skin shows that GenerationOne is not interested in walking the talk,'' its chairwoman, Bev Manton, said.

Let's Launch was not available for a formal response last night, but unofficially denied issuing the guidelines quoted by Ms D'Annibale.

Doesn't look like Dad had much indigenous blood either - many like this around Redfern , don't have to prove blood line, only have to be accepted as aboriginal by the community to receive benefits. ( usually, acceptance determined by the number of slabs provided for community use).

Originally Posted by DroversDog

Indigenous applicant not black enough for the job
''I wouldn't have picked her for Aboriginal at all … to me she looked like an Aussie girl.''

There you go, evidence that Aboriginals are not Australian. Give us Ayres Rock back!

Fucking whinging skank.

Surely, in a modern country, a job is rewarded on the merits of the applicant not their heritage/skin colour?

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

Surely, in a modern country, a job is rewarded on the merits of the applicant not their heritage/skin colour?

Go on, back to planet Marmite.
There's a good dog.

^Excellent point. I always wondered about Barbara Walters, or Baba Wawa. Strange career choice to be a TV interviewer when you can't pronounce your own name. I always thought her interviews should have had sub-titles. Even weirder is that she was successful at it.

^Not to forget Greta van Whatever on Fox whose voice could strip paint.....

Originally Posted by Dug

There's a woman reporting for CNN with a nasty speech impediment. Unfortunately her name is rosemary. Or as she would say it "this is Wosmawey for CNN" fucking hell.

Originally Posted by Dug

There's a woman reporting for CNN with a nasty speech impediment. Unfortunately her name is rosemary. Or as she would say it "this is Wosmawey for CNN" fucking hell.

....worth repeating..........

There's a woman reporting for CNN with a nasty speech impediment.
Unfortunately her name is rosemary.
Or as she would say it "this is Wosmawey for CNN"

There's an ugly sow on BBC world service as well, pikey I think, who keeps talking about "Irarn", "Afghaneestarn" and "Pakeestarn".

Most irritating.

Well can't discriminate against the speech impaired you know.

Originally Posted by Dug

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

Surely, in a modern country, a job is rewarded on the merits of the applicant not their heritage/skin colour?

Within reason.
For example I always thought it would make good sense not to hire someone with a speech impediment to read the news.
Unfortunately CNN are staying rigidly politically correct and not letting something like someones ability to do the job get in the way of commonsense.
There's a woman reporting for CNN with a nasty speech impediment.
Unfortunately her name is rosemary.
Or as she would say it "this is Wosmawey for CNN"
fucking hell.
I'm sure if marmite advertised for bikini models and the applicant with most modeling experience and qualifications was some big bloke called Bruce, marmite would hire him, it'd be the right thing to do.

So you're agreeing with me by trying to disagree? Err, OK then.

Hey what about that ugly half hitch Germaine Greer ? she claimed to be an honoury aboriginal a few years back - give her the job!

Originally Posted by Davis Knowlton

Not to forget Greta van Whatever on Fox whose voice could strip paint.....

mate her face would scare frankenstien

If you ask me the biatch can't face rejection and did her best to get something out of this.

I don't see anything wrong with the requests of the agency.

Originally Posted by Jesus Jones

If you ask me the biatch can't face rejection and did her best to get something out of this.

I don't see anything wrong with the requests of the agency.

fair call.....

I've got a friend that grew up in South Africa.

During the Apartheid years he wasn't white enough to get any job.

Now he's not black enough..

Originally Posted by TizMe

I've got a friend that grew up in South Africa.

During the Apartheid years he wasn't white enough to get any job.

Now he's not black enough..

.....ain't life a bitch....