Culture Shock : Part trois : Colors of life

X is committed to developing its policies to promote equal opportunities in employment. All applications will be treated on their merits, regardless of sex, age, marital status, disabilities, sexuality, race, colour, religion, ethnic or national origin. To monitor the effectiveness of our equal opportunities policy, we would be grateful if you would provide the information requested below. The information requested will be detached by us upon receipt of your application and will not be used during the selection process.

White-British

White-Irish

Any other white background

Mixed- white and black Caribbean

Mixed- white and black African

Mixed- white and Asian

Any other mixed background

Asian or Asian British-Indian

Asian or Asian British-Bangladeshi

Asian or Asian British-Pakistani

Any other Asian background

Black or Black British-Caribbean

Black or Black British-African

Any other black background

Chinese

Other

Now this is what they say when they take applications from job-seekers, all the ethnicity monitoring and stuff. But what makes me wonder is their classification criteria for this. I mean you can categorise people in terms of country i.e. Bangladeshi, Indian, British etc. ...or you can categorise in terms of religion i.e. Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu etc. or you can categorise in terms of continents i.e. Asians, American, European, African etc. or ofcourse you can categorise in terms of color....if that makes any difference to you...like Black, White, Brown, Yellow etc.....but how on earth and why on earth would you combine color and country/continent in the same list to classify people?...I mean look at the list above..it takes for granted that if someone is White its most expected that he/she would be British or Irish or from any other 'white' country...and the rest...I don't care...as long as they are non-white. A British friend of mine asked me where he would put himself in that list, as he is neither from the Caribbeans nor from Africa but born and brought up by British parents who just happen to have colored skins...as if being 'purely' British and black are mutually exclusive! It also makes us..the Desi people wonder why the most 'fairest' pupils are known by their names by those who care....and the rest are like 'miscellaneous' ....and why 'some' names are 'impossible' to pronounce....whereas we call even 'Schwarzenegger' with much ease.

So the troisième culture shock comes in colorful ways around you...rules of fair play and ethnicity monitoring etc. are however written in papers only....in black and white....probably to distinguish between black and white....I admit that fingers of the hand are not of the same size...but the issue remains one of the major underlying causes of division among people here.