Job of the Week: White people need not apply

Job of the Week: White people need not apply

News

norman lebrecht

November 01, 2024

London’s state-funded South Bank Centre is seeking a Director of Communications.

Ethnic minorities only.

People with hearing difficulties are preferred.

From the SBC website:

We are looking for an experienced Director of Communications to lead Southbank Centre’s communications strategy, elevating our profile, and advocating for our mission to a wide range of audiences and stakeholders….

This is a very exciting time to join the Communications team as the Southbank Centre is approaching its 75th Anniversary in 2026, and we are looking for someone that will help shape and share our story through a new and engaging communications strategy.

We welcome applications from people from a Black, Asian or Ethnically Diverse background or those who are D/deaf or disabled. If you wish to discuss reasonable adjustments such as a BSL interpreter for your interview please indicate this on your application form. Interviews will take place at The Southbank Centre. If you would like to speak to someone about any adjustments or concerns you can also email hrteam@southbankcentre.co.uk and we will be in touch with you to make the necessary arrangements.

By attracting people to work for us from a broad range of backgrounds with diverse attitudes, opinions and beliefs we can continue to look at the world with fresh eyes and find new ways of doing things. 

Comments

  • Rachel says:

    Where does it say ethnic minorities only?

    • CBR says:

      “We welcome applications from people from a Black, Asian or Ethnically Diverse background or those who are D/deaf or disabled.” This means we DON’T welcome WHITE.

  • WU says:

    The objectively most suitable person should get the position, no matter who or what they are. Everything else is discrimination. And supports the right-wing arguments.

    • Pianofortissimo says:

      Even in radical, self-injurious Sweden this annoncement would be against the law.

      • V.Lind says:

        I think the gist of it would be against the law in Canada, too, but the current occupant of the Communications office has seen to it that the wording does not actually breach the law. As Rachel notes above, it does not specify minorities only.

        The intention, however, is clear, and indeed I would think applications from able-bodied whites would get very short shrift.

  • Anon says:

    The BBC has the same criteria. No whites.
    It’s discriminatory.

  • Monopoliser says:

    Oh dear – looks like Norman has the wrong end of the stick on this… The line that starts “We welcome applications….” is seen in almost all job advertisements nowadays, often to fulfil an internal DEI policy. I appreciate the wording isn’t quite so clear, but this interpretation is pretty facetious.

  • Pianofortissimo says:

    A very deplorable state of things. What use for a director of communications? Out with them all, and other do-nothings, and raise the musicians salaries and technical staff instead.

  • David A. Boxwell says:

    The “or” indicates that whites with a specific and “approved” disability are also eligible.

    • John Borstlap says:

      My PA, bogged down by the burden of strict spelling requirements, and looking for another job, asked me whether spelling dislexia is a disability. Checking the Handbook of Reparatory Positive Discrimination revealed it is only a disability in persons of diverse background, and she is blond. Now she is hectically searching the net for other possibilities which means I have to type this comment myself.

  • Herbie G says:

    “By attracting people to work for us from a broad range of backgrounds with diverse attitudes, opinions and beliefs we can continue to look at the world with fresh eyes and find new ways of doing things.”

    What happens if the old, tried and tested ways worked perfectly? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. One Stenning is more than enough for the UK.

    • guest1847 says:

      If it were working perfectly, how do you explain the 65% decrease in concert attendance in the US over the past 40 years

      https://www.cultureforhire.com/blog/sppa

    • John Borstlap says:

      It’s the modernist obsession to get rid of the past in any form, under the delusion that anything new is THEREFORE better than anything that exists already, entirely independent from context or quality or effectiveness. The reason of this is scientific progress, which is then projected on any other field. It is a case of mass neurosis.

  • John Borstlap says:

    The understandable urge to correct injustices from the past leads to the wish to balance-out discrimination with opposite discrimination, with the result that injustice in the past is repeated in the present, only into the other direction.
    This is perfectly logical, but overlooks the fact that the victims if this moral correction have not the slightest responsibility for injustice committed in the past by people they have no other connection with apart from ‘race’.
    So, the injustice is simply be reproduced – unknowingly, and is again a form of racism. And the new victims look at the world in a flabbergasted state – they have to pay for something they have not done.

  • Dihn says:

    Any wonder why US UK and AU are global laughing stocks?

  • Wannaplayguitar says:

    If a high brow cultural palace like the Southbank has an unabashedly 60+ yr history of programming mostly aspirant white-centric entertainment, then it surely makes sense to occasionally shift the narrow focus appeal and loudly (yes very loudly because people are shy) welcome the cautious and culturally reticent audiences to cross the thresholds of these hallowed temples.

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