According to an article in the San Jose Mercury News, San Jose “touts itself” on its diversity and on the fact that it is one of the first cities without a racial or ethnic majority. In 1999 it elected its first Latino mayor … who is now coming under attack because the upper reaches of the city work force are not “diverse” enough.
The mayor, Ron Gonzales, has responded to the criticism with something less than crisp articulateness.
“It’s not for the lack of effort,” said Gonzales, who in January 1999 became the city’s first Latino mayor in more than a century and tapped [Del] Borgsdorf, his first hire, as the city’s top appointed official. “The city’s track record, in terms of striving to have a workforce that represents its population, is one that we’ve been committed to since Day 1 of my administration.”
Borgsdorf, the city manager, also seems to have a bit of trouble defending his “diversity” record.
In the end, he said, hiring comes down to finding the best qualified candidate, which is difficult when few minority hopefuls send job applications to San Jose.
“My argument to myself is, if you know your current diversity isn’t where you’d like it to be, knowing that would not change my picking the absolute best candidate for that position,” Borgsdorf said.
Glad we got that cleared up.
How “diverse” is diverse enough? No one says, but all seem to agree that, at a shade under 25% minority, the current amount isn’t. Not only is it not enough; it’s actual discrimination. According to “minority advocacy groups,” the fact that 8 of 37 top positions are held by minorities means that the upper echelon of city government is “nearly homogenous.”
“That’s called de facto discrimination,” [City Councilman David] Cortese said. “There may be no intentional discrimination going on, but as a matter of fact there’s a bias in the system.”
Gonzales and Borgsdorf say they face a number of obstacles in diversifying, especially “a shortage of qualified candidates” and “a state law that prohibits hiring based on race.” But where there’s a will there is usually a way, and creative advocacy groups and their politicians can be counted on to find it. One of the ways San Jose has found will, I suspect, become increasingly popular: farming out candidate searches to “recruitment firms with a reputation for finding minority candidates.”
Is this itself discrimination? Who knows. It’s getting increasingly difficult to define discrimination since, under our new “diversity” regime, there is widespread belief that employers who don’t discriminate are guilty of discrimination.
Cicero, IL is about 80% minority-hispanic.
When does the minority become the majority?
Yes, they are discriminating, as the mayor admits.
They are discriminating in favor of the candidates who submit an application and are qualified for the job.
What bigotry!
My hometown of San Antonio is now 65-70% hispanic. Yet hispanics are still consider a ‘minority’.
If it wasn’t so dangerous to liberty, this kind of idiocy would be funny.
Similar to Claire’s comment, Atlanta is nearly 70% black with a black mayor and a majority black city council. Atlanta also boasts of a robust racial preferences regime.
Need I divulge which race is preferred? Or which race is the “minority?”
This lunacy was well-lampooned in an Onion feature about a year ago. It trumpeted the recent election of Nigeria’s 27th consecutive Black president and how honored he felt to represent Nigeria’s oppressed and marginalized “people of color.”
The article went on to highlight the growing importance to local politicians of winning Nigeria’s black vote. Though all was not ideal. The President-elect did lament Nigeria’s omission of black history month or any other national monuments to the immense contributions of black Nigerians. He also noted the absence of black colleges and outreach programs for Nigeria’s (black) “minority.”
This is all delicious satire, though where the parody ends and reality in America begins I can’t discern.
Mayor Ron Gonzales is considered too white by many Mexican-American activists. He’s very centrist, grew up speaking English, worked in high-tech, etc. They want him to be the sort of person who’d never have been elected mayor.
Of course, it’s a city manager form of government, so Gonzales doesn’t hire the staff.