And this is what is wrong with this Court, final Judge...only because we don't have a better one...
I have seen worse courts, but not by much, this group of people who seem hostile to understanding, prone to support corporate profits over people, so thorough in their disregard for logic...when gut level convenience is available. Now comes the New Haven white firefighters and a promotion test in which whites passed and blacks didn't... a white learning disabled plantiff wants the test to stand...so the best person gets the job.
I have some experience wuth eastern cities and their fire departments. The amazing way that tests and the right -things -to-do gets passed down like heirlooms from white father to son, uncle to nephew...all the time the "best man" getting the job...and I do mean "man"...as in "Oh Man do they really think the rest of us are that stupid!". I knew a black man who was denied entry into an nearly all -white fire department because a white dentist said he had too few teeth...must have been the proximity to darker skin that threw off his professional counting skills, [ of course in those days he found a black dentist, who was running an elevator in a department store because of another job test] ...well this man with the few teeth, and this man's son would have to compete with the "best men" from so many generations of "best men..." taking tests with "shibboleths" and winks and nods built in...don't you think we could make it so hard for whites to join the electric glide line, that your country folk music, river-dance histories would be a disadvantage...put James Brown Lyrics into the fire and rescue protocol...it would be about as relevant as that New Haven test, which has about the same chance of predicting the "best man" as the ability to recite "Gin and juice..."
We live in a world where reality is turned on its head [over and over] but unlike the past, the people of color have no reason to let it go by as if they had no choice... Days will come when the best people will be the result of testing, not blood lines... in public employment. Thanks to this Court which will [ in the name of all that is Holy] must see some changes too....
Monday, June 29, 2009
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