The tyranny of the discontinuous mind

"Hello my name's Gary I'm MIXED: WHITE AND ASIAN, my religion is NO RELIGION, pleased to meet you."

"And you. I'm OTHER CHINESE BACKGROUND and of OTHER religion. My name's Gerald."

"Really Gerald? How interesting. I used to be of OTHER religion too. I gave it up though. Hurt my elbows too much."

I suppose Equal Opportunities forms and those who use them mean well, but their classifications are just a nonsense and they bug me. Imagine a continuous spectrum of skin colours, ethnicity in other words, from 'white' at one end to 'black' at the other and everything in between. We're all somewhere on that spectrum. There just aren't distinct points where someone becomes black, or Asian or white. But because that doesn't sit well with the way our decision-makers like to view the world they invent these ludicrous labels for people. And we all end up 'being' this, that or the other. As a result all we can then think about is how different we all are from each other. When in fact we have far more similarities than differences. We are all human. It's simple.

I just can't see what good it does to make employers and employees alike imagine others and themselves as ethnically separate and distinct from each other when the fact is we all, every one of us, have a single common ancestor.

This rant was caused by having to painstakingly fill-in countless stupid job application forms for the past year with information that is readily available in my CV. "It's all in my CV! Just. Friggin'. Read. It." I often find myself yelling at nothing and no one.

I do apologise for the negative vibes. I did last two weeks before my first rant though.

Feel free to regail me with your tails of frustration and woe. It's always good to get it out the system I think.