Incredibly, they're still going to pick laundry workers based on race

Incredibly, they’re still going to pick laundry workers based on race

Here in the United States, making hiring decisions based on race common but technically illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the United Kingdom, they appear proud of the British Navy’s “century-old custom of having Chinese servants on warships,” and hate that it’s coming to an end.

You may expect this “custom” to be ending because the phrase “Chinese servants on warships” sounds like real old testament 19th-century racism, but that’s not the case. No, the Royal Navy is only ending the practice out of fears that laundry workers could hand military secrets to Beijing.

Those military secrets, according to the Telegraph, revolve around a collaborative effort between the U.S., UK, and Australian governments to produce more nuclear submarines to patrol the Pacific — an ocean famed for its proximity to the United Kingdom:

The move comes after Ken McCallum, the head of MI5 said China is trying to steal nuclear secrets from the UK and it was “high priority” for China to disrupt the UK, US and Australian partnership to build a new fleet of nuclear submarines.

…

However since the deal was announced, China’s spy agencies have tried to infiltrate the project and steal its secrets, Mr McCallum said.

Briefing journalists at a security summit in California last week, Mr McCallum said he could not disclose “specific” details of China’s attempts to hack into the project.

If you held some hope that the “security risk” thing was just a convenient way to end a blatantly racist practice, you’d be wrong. While the Royal Navy will stop employing — again, their wording — “Chinese servants,” the organization isn’t stopping race-based hiring altogether — it’s simply changing the race it hires for laundry. Now, those workers will come from Nepal.

This is one of those news stories that’s unfathomable in the year of our lord 2023, and yet here it is. Ending race-based hiring this late in the game would be absurd, but to simply swap out the race you’re hiring is mindboggling. Is the UK okay? What is happening over there?

link: https://jalopnik.com/british-navy-stops-using-chinese-servants-but-not-fo-1850959922

archive link: https://archive.ph/EuzeO

    • @Rednax@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4•8 months ago

      Yup. This entire article sounds like sensasionalism. They mention the word ‘race’ several times. But Chinese is not a race, it is a nationality.

      • @wahmingEnglish
        20•8 months ago

        It’s both, actually. There’s around 50M Chinese worldwide who aren’t born in China and have no connection to the country.

        • @Rednax@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6•8 months ago

          Good point. But if I read the article correctly, the UK navy has no issue with these non Chinese nationals.

          • @wahmingEnglish
            5•8 months ago

            Yeah just pointing out that the term can refer to the ethnicity as well, even if that’s not the case here

  • @vivadanang@lemm.eeEnglish
    30•8 months ago

    This has less to do with the UK being backward in my opinion than it does with the fucking navy. Steeped in tradition to the point of ridiculousness, Navies cling to their traditions for good and bad reasons. Some of them save lives. Some are just pedantic to the point of absurdity. I always recall Kelly Johnson’s 15th rule for the Skunkworks - Johnson had a 15th rule that he passed on by word of mouth. According to the book “Skunk Works” the 15th rule is: “Starve before doing business with the damned Navy. They don’t know what the hell they want and will drive you up a wall before they break either your heart or a more exposed part of your anatomy.”

  • @Fleur__@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18•8 months ago

    Love that they clarified that the reason they stopped a racist policy was not in fact because they stopped being racist.