I do not like to hire minorities or women.

The thing is, your first example, the black candidate that was passed over for valid reasons wasn't racism. But when you extrapolate to say: "Therefore I won't hire minorities, because they cause extra hassles", you have just jumped straight into the racism pool.

You don't know that any individual is going to correspond to the racial stereotype that you have in your head. It is not fair to treat an individual on the basis of what you believe to be racial characteristics. For starters, your prejudice may be ill-informed, that is, it may not be true, but a result of faulty confirmation-bias on your part. This is extremely difficult to avoid without actually doing a scientific study. And secondly, even if your racial profile is 100% correct, you still can't use that to justify a hiring decision of a candidate, because the candidate is an individual, and may not correspond to the racial profile.

Possibly ;-)

Clearly condoning Racism/Sexism etc... in hiring can't ever be acceptable but there is a different perspective that could be applied here

You could argue that the poster is mitigating risk - because he perceives that there are opportunities (rightly or wrongly) in hiring certain minorities / sexes and therefore he believes that he's acting in his company's best interests by proactively screening them out

That's the same thing as racism. Every racist ever has told himself that he's 'mitigating risk for the company' by not hiring minorities.

So are insurance companies who charge more to males "sexist" or to younger drivers "ageist"? Undoubtedly, there are some racist idiots hiding behind the policy of mitigating risk, but I can't believe some don't have reasonably logical, if tasteless, motivations.

I think you've mixed up your #1 and #2 here.

    We choose the number #2. This caused #1 to immediately threaten to sue
    the company for racial discrimination. Why did we choose #1? Besides
    having never been late or used a sick day in the three years that he
    had worked for the company #1 had taken six voluntary workshops (#2
    had only taken one), and on his own time had learned German. The
    position that opened up would have required frequent interactions with
    our German branch. When we explained to #2 why he was passed over he

You mean you passed #1 over.

    screamed racism and stormed out of my office. He then sued the company
    and the company settled.

I do not like it when people use HN as their own personal blog.

Did it ever occur to you that these people you have encountered (how many? 1? 2?) who cry excuses could just be stupid and/or jerks, and that people of all backgrounds can be stupid and/or jerks? Or perhaps it is your hiring practice that needs working on.

Racism and sexism (though you seem to throw women in as a second thought with little to do with the rest of your article, which is about racism) are issues, and it's writing like this that helps to make it an issue.

Instead of contributing to the problem, work on a solution. Work out why people are crying sexism/racism in your hiring practices or workplace. Maybe they have a point that you can't see? Take those you feel are unfairly accusing you through the court procedure rather than settling.

But don't just anonymously bitch at us.

You had clear evidence of why you hired #2 instead of #1 - your issue should be with your company not standing up to this and actually fighting and winning the case.

Your thoughts seem like an over-reaction to me. I think your problem is not race related, its that you are not able to explain your decisions properly to those involved. People complain when they think they are a victim of injustice. Showing more empathy towards those affected, would go very far in pacifying them.

Also from your writing it seems like, even if you don't hate them, you don't really love your minority friends, either.

    Race is an issue but we African Americans need to stop thinking everything revolves around it.

We can stop thinking about racism when 80% marriages are inter-racial.