Thoughts on Today's Political Landscape

[TracyCoxx]

Originally Posted by GRH

I had corresponded with smc via PM regarding our earlier conversation. At his request, I'm posting this here to forward the conversation for all to see. This is originally in reference to post #222 (one page back):

Conservatives have managed to successfully paint affirmative action as "reverse racism." I must admit that I've fallen victim to this line of thinking. When you look at a pool of applicants, and all else being equal, it doesn't seem right that the minority candidate will get the job just to meet a quota. Or that the minority candidate will get "bonus points" just by virtue of their race/gender/etc. I'd prefer applicants be picked SOLELY on their qualifications, and if it's neck and neck based on that, then the interviewer/company needs to dig a bit deeper and not settle on the candidate whose race will ensure compliancy with some federal statute.

I'm more concerned when they give the job to an underqualified black person in order to fill a quota.

ie...
White firefighters in New Haven, Conn., passed an exam for a job promotion only to have the test results thrown out because no African-American candidate received a high enough score to also be considered for promotion.

The Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Washington who was denied by the university's law school twice. There were, however 30 minority-group students with lower grades and aptitude scores that were granted admission.

In HUD, white employees are routinely denied promotions so the agency can hire 382.9% more blacks than in the civilian work force.

etc etc etc...

In a situation where you have two applicants, one white, one black, and they're both equally qualified, and your employees do not match the local demographics, then yeah, give the job to the black person. But that's about as far as I would take affirmative action. But don't screen out much more qualified people who happen to be white.

Originally Posted by GRH

Maine is TOO white for my taste. It's bad that you can go entire days (or weeks even) without encountering a non-white individual.

That's another thing... you or anyone else could say this and generally no one would think twice about it. Now think of what the response would be if I said:
New Orleans is TOO white for my taste. It's bad that you can go entire days (or weeks even) without encountering a non-black individual.

Oh, now THAT is racist.

NAAWP (National Association for the Advancement of White People) - racist
White History Month - racist
National Society of White Engineers - racist

When people see someone like Herman Cain, do they assume the presidency of Godfather's Pizza was given to him because he is black? If I were him I'd be pretty insulted by that given that he's a highly capable individual who probably earned his position there.

I think there's a perception that Charles Bolden, head of Nasa (and the guy who said Nasa's foremost mission was to help Muslims feel better about themselves), was an affirmative action pick because he's a complete joke. But wait... sure he's qualified... he was an astronaut for cristsakes! Uh... yeah... He was an astronaut... when the shuttle program was starting off and Nasa needed to show that space flight was routine and quiet criticisms that all their astronauts before had been black.