Last year I had the pleasure of working with a decorated toastmaster, who during the opening remarks at an employee investor event accidently said “ass” then involuntary swallowed spit leading to a seconds delay completing a word that started with “ass”. Ironically, after I witnessed him a few weeks ago allowing a tester to be abused unfairly by nonconsensually videoing him and allowing him to be the victim of language based discrimination. Both the tester and the toastmaster looked sleep deprived on the day. Could Joe Biden's oratory fiasco at the first US presidential debate in 2024 been because of the same reason? Even if it is the case, shouldn't the standard of a president’s effectiveness and efficiency of his language be at a much higher level than of a tester using that same language?
According to Wikipedia [1], Tove Skutnabb-Kanga, a prominent linguist on the subject, has captured the idea of language description as “ideologies and structures which are used to legitimize, effectuate, and reproduce unequal divisions of power and resources (both material and non-material) between groups which are defined on the basis of language”. As a post european colony with deep roots of cultural imperialism, the fear and consensus of loosing wealth and opportunities due to poor English us is deeply rooted in most of us. Judging by the examples of the toastmaster and Joe Biden, some would argue the use of such a consensus to deny an individual and opportunity is justifiable. But shouldn't we look for more objective transparent measurements instead of using assessments of language use for such purposes?
As a IT worker with 15 years of experience, I have qualitatively concluded that employers give more importance than required for language assessments of employees when providing them short term and long term opportunities to live and work abroad. As such opportunities mean significant monetary and quality of life gains, they are a constant source of strife between employees (though the conversations may not always be accessible to outsiders). The consensus on loosing an opportunity due to improper English is commonly used as a disqualifying factor to hide other more factors. The purpose is at times altruistic, like keeping the illusion of equity and the harmony that comes from it at the workplace. But in the long run as an industry, it can promote language based discrimination, and racism to other parts of the society. And the purpose of language based discrimination is not always altruistic (these purposes I will not be covering in detail in this post).
Here are some factors that employers might hide behind language based discrimination.
Mismatch between your ideologies, and beliefs and the values and goals of your organisation.
Mismatch between your personal ideologies, beliefs and those of the country and the organisation to which the opportunity belongs to.
A mismatch between your skills and the skills required for the opportunity.
Your lack of cognitive biases and your inability to understand you are not suitable for the opportunity.
Systemic inequity, incompetence of the assessors or incorrect metric selection by the assessors.
I'm of the opinion that,
If you're being discriminated for your language because of points #1 #2 or #3 and you fail to understand your disqualification due to #4. You need to improve on your objectivity or suffer the discrimination until you meet the requirement or you concede (or the organisation provide open, involved and transparent support to meet the requirement).
If you're being discriminated because #5. You are not at fault. But you should assess the situation ethically, morally and in terms of your personal cost. In most cases employees who are too poor for alternatives will agree for compensated retirement or termination if organisations provides the option. And doing so is the right thing to do. Especially if the employee is aware of the reason for the discriminatio.
Delaying a realized individuals access to wealth because of points #5 can take away health and youth from that individuals life. It can take away someones opportunity to be born through that individual.
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