The Parable of the colour blind manager and the shady thugs.

Copyright

August 28, 2010

Carl Janssen

A blind man was giving people a job interview and he could not see if a person had blue or grey skin colour.   He also did not ask what skin colour they were.  After the people talked to him, he decided if he would hire them based only on the conversation and nothing else.

He decided to hire the first 50 applicants who he considered to have a good conversation in the interview.

50 blue people and 50 grey people applied.   30 out of 50 of the blue people said nasty racist things about all grey people on the interview.  And 20 out of 50 of the grey people said nasty racist things about all blue people in the interview.

The blind employer hated racism and refused to hire racist people, so he refused to hire the employees that made nasty racist comments about all blue or grey people.  He hired the first 50 people who did not make racist comments.  So, in the end the blind employer hired 30 grey people and 20 blue people.

Later, one of the racist blue people who was not hired, did not choose to consider the possibility that he was unqualified instead choose to count how many blue and grey employees were hired.  He counted that there are 30 grey employees and 20 blue employees.  He then calls the blind employer a racist and tells some shady thugs who want the blind man’s money.

The shady thugs came in with guns and told the blind man, that he is required to hire an equal number of blue and grey employees and since he did not he must pay a fee.  The blind manager tried to argue, “I could not see which employees were grey and blue and besides it is my money do I not have a right to give it to who I want to.”  The shady thugs insist that he must pay a fine for his hiring practices or go to jail.  The blind manager said, “No, you do not have a right to steal my money, it is my money to hire who I want.  If I cannot spend my money how I want then I never owned the money to begin with.”  The shady thugs then beat him up took away his money and threw him in jail, for refusal to pay.

The shady thugs appointed a new manager who selected again from the original 100 applicants.  The new manager hired 25 grey people and 25 blue people.   5 of the blue people hired were racist because they could not find more than 20 out of 50 blue people who were not racist.