racism

[brothert69]

Ryder actually brings up several issues that our courts refuse to deal with.

The heart attack treatment rate of AA is a great example of unacceptable prejudice to start discussion from. The materials had a direct, unnecessary, and avoidable negative for a demographic. Problem could be fixed not only without compromising the job performance, but actually improving it. Can't get more awesome that that! Whether the prejudice was purposeful racism or simple ignorance of a demographic doesn't really matter. It could and should be fixed without affecting the job negatively. IOW, it didn't dumb anyone down or prevent doing the job properly or with best success.

So the fire dept in question needs to prove that for some reason black people can't do as well on the test through no fault of their own AND the test cannot be changed without affecting it's usefulness AND that those same black people are just as capable for the job as those who can score better on the test AND demonstrate how they are judging that capability on something other than skin color.

If they are going to use a test to determine employment and yet purposely say a white doesn't deserve the job even if he scores higher in most aspects than someone else for no reason other than skin color - that is racism.

It begs the questions of why are they purposely giving a test they know an entire demographic (and maybe not even a minority demographic) can't score successfully.

It begs the question of whether the test is truly pertinent to the job if NOT doing well on it is still good enough to succeed at said job.

And of course, it begs a genuine solution as well. The answer to any demographic not having basic common skills is NOT to artificially promote them. That is insulting to their ability as it is basically saying that black or whatever really can't do it, so we shouldn't expect them to. The only genuine solution is to provide a genuine education to the demographic in question. No easy feat, but better than giving up by just lowering standards.

And btw. I don't think this is a race issue. It is an income issue. But oh wow. Ya'll think THIS is taboo discussion? Any mention of poverty issues gets decried as class warfare. Which is total crap. A white person in the ghetto does just as bad, sometimes worse, than AA or Latino. Just as Beargins noted, his associations are what made the difference. Poverty limits. It just does. All the poor kids go to the same crappy school. I'd bet my right pinky toe (bc I'm not a betting woman - too broke! LOL) that income or school district is a MUCH stronger and unilateral testing indicator than skin color the majority of the time.

I believe that the most pertinent factor with respect to this case is being over looked by many including the courts and the litigants.

The case comes from Connecticut. What is the ratio of whites to blacks in that state and in that town? What is the ratio of whites to blacks in the department?

Additionally this is not a test to see if one can be a firefighter it is a test to see if one can be a lieutenant or captain. Generally these positions are filled by firefighters that have years of experience, training and knowledge. What is the ratio of whites to blacks in the department with the requisite experience to be eligible for promotion to either position? Only with the answers to those questions could it truly be determined if there is a racial bias in the exam.

If 100 firefighters take the exam and 90 are white and 10 are black and the score distribution shows roughly a 9 to 1 ratio of white to black at all scoring levels then the exam probably lacks racial bias. Numerical superiority is not necessarily indicative of bias.