Hat tip Daily Caller
These days, MSNBC host Chris Matthews fancies himself as the man who detects white racism against black people even when nobody else can see it. It must be his secret decoder ring, as I have previously speculated. Now he says that people from Mozambique and Jamaica come up to him and thank him for all the great detective work he does. And what better platform to report on his own popularity than Bill Maher's show?
http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/22/matthews-blacks-people-in-mozambique-and-jamaica-thank-me-for-playing-the-race-card/
One might ask why a black person in Mozambique or Jamaica needs Chris Matthews to protect him or her from white racism, but never mind. Chris has decided that the only thing that keeps his great president Barack Obama from re-election is white racism even though the same American public elected him the first time around. He cannot fathom that just maybe, Obama's dismal performance and obvious socialistic bent might have lost him a few votes the second time around.
In Matthews' world, if you don't vote for Obama, you are a racist. This is the kind of sophisticated reasoning we find at MSNBC. You can find deeper thinking in the Cleveland Stadium Dawg Pound on a Sunday afternoon in December.
The entire concept of EEO/affirmative action, particularly in its more egregious forms, has in some, if not many or most, instances evolved to where it is at least as discriminatory, often to the detriment of minorities, as the alleged/actual practices which gave rise to the perceived necessity for such action in the first place. That is sad.
ReplyDeleteAt the least, affirmative action needs to be refined, perhaps dispensed with. If we could secure processes in most educational, financial, hiring, etc. decisions that reliably looks at each individual as a unique individual, then we could throw away the crude methodology of examining "disparate impact."
ReplyDeleteOne creative field for innovation would be how to attract non-black applicants to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, without throwing away their history.
The first step is to be able to figure out how to identify actual, demonstrable discrimination, rather than the mere possibility that since it may have happened, or even did in fact happen, to a few in a certain group or class, it must have happened to them all.
ReplyDeleteThe second step is to come up with a remedy for actual discrimination that does not itself discriminate against anyone else, with the remedy thereby becoming as bad or worse than the original disease. I and just about everybody I know would support this.
Not all class action suits are bad. The ones based on race, gender, sexual orientation, etc., however, generally result in the members of the affected group/class being treated more equally than those not in that group/class. There must be a better way.
For example, I have been party to two separate class action suits. One involved a back pay issue and the other involved purchase of a riding mower. The back pay suit was resolved by furnishing retroactive overtime compensation to any party to the suit who occupied a certain job series in a particular organization during a certain period of time. The riding mower suit was resolved by a cash settlement and an extension of the original warranty period for any purchaser who was a party.
Point to those examples is that there were most definitely whites, minorities, females, and LGBT‘s who were in that job series, just as there were almost certainly mower purchasers from those same groups/classes. Everybody was treated equally, receiving the appropriate compensation for whatever period of time they worked in that job series as well as identical settlement on the mower issue. NO DISCRIMINATION!!!!!
If it works here, it will work elsewhere, but it probably never will due to politics, votes, money, etc., etc. Oh well.
"The first step is to be able to figure out how to identify actual, demonstrable discrimination, rather than the mere possibility that since it may have happened, or even did in fact happen, to a few in a certain group or class, it must have happened to them all."
ReplyDeleteI'm waiting breathlessly for your answer to this most intelligent framing of the problem, elwood. IF you have one, I'll vote for it.
Siarlys--thanks (I think) for the compliment, if that is what it is. I will readily concede that I do not have it all worked out in my mind yet, which may make me part of the problem, but without thinking it all the way through, I might have a couple of suggestions as starters.
ReplyDeleteLet anyone who has a discrimination beef initially take it to a “real” judge, not an “administrative law judge” (many/most of whom are neither judges nor even attorneys). If you can’t find an ambulance-chasing attorney who will take the case for a nominal retainer and a piece of the action, you don’t have very much of a case in the first place (that back-pay suit I mentioned cost me an initial fee of only $25.00, plus 25% of any settlement. I figured 75% of something was better than 100% or zero per cent of nothing).
The judge who first heard the case would make a determination as to whether actual discrimination had occurred. If not, end of story (appeals would stretch this out interminably if not somehow addressed) . If so, the complainant could then choose between a bench or jury trial, as with any other proceeding. For those who wanted it, class action suits consisting of individuals whom a judge found had actually been discriminated against would then be much more appropriate than the current process,
which usually requires only proof of membership in a certain class of people and not of actual discrimination..
The only question then remaining for the judge (who could be the same judge or possibly a different one) or jury would be the remedy. Although that gets a little thorny, it is not totally unlike a criminal trial which has a guilt/innocence phase, followed by a penalty phase.
As I stated previously, the current system of affirmative action is itself quite often discriminatory. As an example from personal experience, say that a number of first-line supervisors in an organization are all vying for promotion to the obviously smaller number of entry-level management jobs, which carry increased pay and responsibility, sometimes perks, and hopefully a path to even higher positions.
When an administrative law judge rules in this circumstance that blacks get preferential treatment such that the next “X” number of promotions will go only to blacks, and when the organization caves and permits it, that is good for some of the black folk in the pool, but it essentially says that whites, Hispanics, Orientals/Asians, and any other recognized racial/ethnic minority need not apply, and are in fact prohibited from applying, for promotion on what is strictly a racial basis. When Hispanics get the nod, the same thng happens to blacks and the other minorities.
Another major problem here is that it is inappropriate to determine that discrimination has occurred without being able to identify specific individuals who did the discrimination. The primarily white people who are unfortunately denied promotional opportunity based on their race are most usually NOT, and in fact rarely are, the individuals who engaged in the discrimination in the first place, which at least doubles the unfairness of the whole thing.
A thought that occurred to me was the awarding of some appropriate one-time lump-sum settlement, to be paid by the organization, for those instances where actual discrimination is demonstrated in the above-described process. Coupled with some oversight as to discriminatory practices, and disciplinary action to include termination for the identified discriminators, seems to mt that something like this might be a better system if all the bugs could be worked out.
I am skeptical about administrative law making, but having taken up a few matters against a very badly managed employer with OSHA, the Department of Labor, and others, I favor a more streamlined operation that will act rather than a series of bloated bureaucracies that will explain at length why they are helpless to do anything of substance.
ReplyDeleteGoing to court is a very steep obstacle to most employees.
I generally don't favor "the next X promotions will go to people of Y race." Where there is a history of discrimination, we might try, when two equally well qualified applicants are available, go with the one who would increase diversity, or, every other promotion should, assuming there are people within five or ten points of each other, go to someone who is of a previously under-represented group.
And yes, that was a compliment, but we all need to recognize that there are reams of discussion necessary to develop a way to implement what you suggest.