"GOP as I Say, Not as I GOP"?

Why won’t the GOP talk about affirmative action?

. . .

While conservatives mount their hard-line attacks in court, party leaders are scrambling to find and promote minorities, both to run for key offices and to serve in the highest levels of government. In a party where 9 out of 10 members are white, according to Pew surveys, that effort requires fast-tracking minorities over equally qualified white candidates. Today’s Republican leaders have a tortured relationship to affirmative action – they tip the scale for diversity in electoral politics but blast college admissions officers who do the same thing.

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Reverse Discrimination or Employment Fairness?

Update: I should've place this a couple of days ago. But, better late than never, I hope. I learned watching Hardball with Chris Matthews that 2/3rds of the oral examiners were people of color. So at this point, I really, really hope the black officers just didn't study.

All right. Here goes.

I've been silent about the case of the 20 white firefighters suing the city of New Haven for essentially reverse discrimination largely because I didn't know what to think. I felt conflicted. I felt bad for the 20 white firefighters, especially the lead plaintiff, who has dyslexia. But, I won't like, race solidarity and awareness of racism made me wanna make sure I knew as much as possible. I've come to two basic conclusions.

What happened is this:

The 20 plaintiffs, one of whom is Hispanic and also identified as white, claim that the city's decision to scrap the examination results before any promotions were made violated their rights to be employed in an environment free from racial classification.

All 20 plaintiffs would have qualified for promotion to lieutenant or captain had the test, which the city purchased for $100,000 from a consultant, been used by the city civil service board. No blacks scored high enough to qualify for promotion. The test was divided between written and oral questions.

I wasn't too sure about the tests being thrown out. There are lots of issues surrounding test taking that go beyond the glib, "just study and you'll be fine." There is a such thing as stereotype anxiety, and it's real. Now, I feel absolutely sure about the questionability of the tests. Oral questions? That's what sunk it for me. Now. If there're records of oral examination that someone could go back and look over, and after getting some experts it's found that race didn't impact that section of the examination, fine. Until then, what's up with that portion of the exam. The problem I have with oral examinations is that it seems hard to get around the grading being subjective. And please don't make me go into how looking black and sounding black has a negative effect on the employment prospects of black people, cause without knowing exactly what happened, subjectivity equals racism.

My biggest apprehension with this case is that conservatives are trying and, not knowing how Justice Kennedy may side, may be successful at undoing all affirmative action legislation or policy. This is from the L.A. Times:

The problem is that some conservative justices clearly see the New Haven case as an opportunity to advance their plan to outlaw all race-conscious decisions by government. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. pressed that view during arguments last month when he wondered aloud what would happen if a city abandoned a test because black firefighters had scored disproportionally well. The implication was that taking race into account to advance minority participation is the moral and legal equivalent of Jim Crow laws.

That long has been Roberts' view. But for the full court to embrace it in this case would oversimplify the issue of racial equality and create new national standards from the unusual facts in one fire department. The court shouldn't use this hard case to make bad civil rights law.

And here's a suggestion. When it comes to resolving the conflict between "workplace diversity and the prohibition against race-based decisions in hiring and promotion": specifically prohibited the hiring and promotion of whites and males, yes, some people are both, on the basis of race or gender. The problem this country is facing is white supremacy and privilege. This is not a pro-black country. I think Pat Buchanan can relax.

Yes He Did!! Whew!!

Today, President Barack Obama signed his first bill into law, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act which correct the decision the Supreme Court made last year that in order to sue for pay discrimination, a worker had to filed within 180 days of the first unequal check. Yeah, our Supreme Court made that decision 5-4. No, not conservative to liberal; but completely ignorant and cold to the understanding and common sensible. So, yeah, I'm really hyped about this new development. Oh, and by the way, this Act is an act, as it were, of affirmative action.

In other news, it turns out Pres Obama might be attending a dinner to honor confederate general Robert E Lee. Besides the fact that I could've sworn the South lost, a White House spokesperson is saying they weren't aware of the confederate tie to some Alfalfa Club Dinner. Now that they know, Obama had better not go.

Here's video of Pres Obama signing the Ledbetter Act.

McCain Tests The Waters Of Race As Campaign Issue

Grrrrrrrrr! I'm so angry, I could e-spit*!! In fact, yes, I'm e-spitting right now! Not just me, either. Field negro is e-spitting, too!

Read the article from Huffington Post. Basically, McCain's in favor of ending affirmative action programs.

I don't know which is worst: McCain stance, McCain's flip-flop, or Ward Connelly deceitful and hurtful campaign.

Again, let me repeat some facts.

1 - Affirmative action works.

2 - It helps white women more than people of color, male or female. And the husbands and children and communities of white women, the overwhelming majority of whom are also white, benefit from white women's being paid more than what they'd earn otherwise and being promoted more than what they would otherwise.

3 - Neither white students nor workers are displaced by affirmative action programs.

4 - It is illegal to hire a person of color or a woman unqualified for the job over a white person or a man.

5 - Discrimination still exists. Affirmative action is still necessary.

6 - Affirmative actions help ensure a meritocracy.

7 - Using "socioeconomic" affirmative action instead of race/gender based affirmative action only aggravates existing racial/gender disparities.

Here're some more facts: The backlash against affirmative actions began as soon as the programs were legislated. The backlash that exists today is as based on ignorance and whites' racial animosity as it was then. African Americans are not the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action; and, the idea that we are is only effective in opposing affirmative action because of the racism that remains today.

And since I'm not in the great of a mood about this, let me point out something else. White America is not in the position, not even objectively, to comment on the necessity of affirmative-action. I'm sure you all would like to pat yourselves on the back for being so "color-blind." At the turn of the 20th century, the South wanted a pat on the back for not returning Negroes back to wholesale slavery even though it openly ignored the civil rights of African Americans, flouting the Constitution, including habeus corpus.

And now that I think of it, what is it with white people and their premature self-congratulatory pats on the back?

*e-spitting is something I just came up with. I'm sure you get the idea.

Tucker Carlson Has No Clue What He's Talking About

On MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews today, Tucker Carlson asserts that if Barack Obama pledged to end affirmative action, he'd win in a landslide. That part of what Tucker said is true. He also said that everybody knows it's wrong. That part, my dears, is false. He also argued that, "It was forty years ago," as though it's no longer necessary.

Here are some facts.
1 - Affirmative action works.
2 - It helps white women more than people of color, male or female. And the husbands and children and communities of white women, the overwhelming majority of whom are also white, benefit from white women's being paid more than what they'd earn otherwise and being promoted more than what they would otherwise.
3 - Neither white students nor workers are displaced by affirmative action programs.
4 - It is illegal to hire a person of color or a woman unqualified for the job over a white person or a man.
5 - Discrimination still exists. Affirmative action is still necessary.
6 - Affirmative actions help ensure a meritocracy.
7 - Using "socioeconomic" affirmative action instead of race/gender based affirmative action only aggravates existing racial/gender disparities.

Here're some more facts: The backlash against affirmative actions began as soon as the programs were legislated. The backlash that exists today is as based on ignorance and whites' racial animosity as it was then. African Americans are not the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action; and, the idea that we are is only effective in opposing affirmative action because of the racism that remains today.