http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-firefighters6-2009apr06,0,711948.story

Very interesting.

That "disparate impact" thing needs to die. Guess what, leukemia has disparate impact on white kids. Let's outlaw that, too.

How did this even get to SCOTUS? They hired underqualified people based on race.

I think they are addressing the "disparate impact" rule that the city's lawyers used, which is pretty much the blanket argument for these kinds of changing-the-rules-mid-stream games that gets Whitey so riled up.

From the NYT:
Donald Day, a representative of the International Association of Black Professional Fire Fighters said: “Young black and Latino kids have every right to see black and Latino officers on those fire trucks that are riding through their community. They have every right to look for a role model.”

A quick scan of the Constitution produces no such right, but I do understand the argument. Seeing minority firefighters, as opposed to a wholly white squad, shows young people they have options in life and the first responders are there to help the minority communities and not just there because they are being paid to save the darkies.

You can make arguments for why blacks deserve such and such until you are blue in the face. The simple fact of the matter is that every single one of these measures is a civil rights violation. All of these techniques to try to get more minorities and less whites promoted/hired are exactly equivalent to all of the things whites did to blacks. It's racial discrimination, pure and simple, and every single black person that tries to justify it is a hypocritical fucking scumbag.

There's no right, but it's beneficial. Of course, you achieve that by changing your recruiting practices to find more talented black and Latino candidates, so that more move up through the ranks.

It's only beneficial if you are racial prejudices. If you don't care about skin tone or sex, where's the benefit?

If I'm a black kid and I never see a black man in a position of authority, it's pointless for me to even aspire to be part of the system. They say skin color doesn't matter, but if it didn't matter then black men would be policemen and firemen. They're not so it's all bullshit. The only place I see someone with my skin color achieving anything is in a gang.

you gotta remember color-blindness is also a denial of reality though. there are subtle things that these kids to pick up psychologically. think about things as simple as bandaids. for a long time they were only available in white flesh tone, which gave black kids doubts about their own color. these things do have benefits and affects on the kids. there are differences between the races biologically. color-blindness ignores the differences rather than accepting them and moving on. affirmative action is a racist policy. it also has the psychological affect on the minorities by spreading the idea that they need outside help to accomplish things, which is also harmful and can form inferiority complexes. also there is the fact that nothing is owed to anyone on this earth, and nothing is guaranteed.

i'd rather have the best firefighters possible in my local station than the most diverse. i don't care what race they are when my house is on fire. I just hope they are the most qualified to put it out.

those kids have the right to look for a role model, but why it has to be a role model that looks like them, I have no idea. they also need to be taught when they see a spaceship of white astronauts, in no way shape or form should it be interpreted by them that kids of their race can't grow up an achieve that because of their skin color. I think a lot of the problems that come from this thinking is just assumptions made in children's heads that aren't corrected by anyone.

i don't know about you but i see plenty of black and latino police officers. not to mention a black president. bill cosby. many pro athletes. ceo's. musicians. filmmakers. dancers.

The bolded part is illogical. What if no black people apply for the job? The major assumption you'd have to make in order to conclude that a different proportion of the police force that is black, compared to the general population, matters, is that the proportion of qualified applicants was the same as that of the general population. And if you're a black kid, that's quite an assumption to make.

There's just no way you can draw any conclusions about current hiring fairness based on the current racial makeup of a police force. The problem with any attempt to do that is that some portion of the police force will have been hired decades ago, and the demographics of the pool of applicants when they applied can be wildly different.

SO... I started this thread because I thought the timing was very interesting. It's likely Obama will appoint two judges this term, so John Roberts & Co taking this on while there is still a conservative majority seems kinda suspect since they have turned down similar cases in the last few years.

Liberal judges and Obama can go fuck themselves on this issue. Obama claims to be such a huge fan of Lincoln. If Lincoln had solved the problem of slavery the same way we have "solved" civil rights since the 60s, he would have taken slaves away from the whites and given black people white slaves of their own. I don't see how you can revere Lincoln for his courage in dealing with slavery yet support affirmative action at the same time.

Affirmative action spits in the face of everything that the civil rights act represents. It spits in the face of MLK. It wouldn't be unreasonable for whites to turn around and wage a war for civil rights, because we are the ones who are having our right to be treated by the content of our character stepped on by the government.

I've yet to see an argument that explains to me exactly how affirmative action is not government sanctioned ratial discrimination against whites. I wonder why someone can't someone produce such an argument?

You're talking about the specific case. I'm talking about what a young kid may be thinking, and why it would be advantageous for kids to see people like themselves succeed. I don't think it's a wild assumption. Are you going to tell a Muslim kid that he can grow up to be President if he wants to?

I don't think a Muslim kid becoming president is at all equivalent.

I know you were talking about what a young kid may be thinking, and I'm saying it would be totally irrational for them to think that way. The purpose of a police department is to fight crime, not to make black children think they can become police officers. That's their parents' job.

The child's response isn't rational. It's emotional. It can't be anything but emotional. People use reason after they respond to things either emotionally, or through another, basic process.

.

FURIOUS.

You're expecting a lot out of kids. Most adults don't have the capability to look at issues as critically as the average user of this forum. And I think we all know the capability of the average parent to raise a child correctly.