Jim Russell is mad as hell and he’s not going to take it any more. Bucking the Republican Party establishment in Westchester and Rockland counties, New York, he has filed petitions to launch a primary challenge against the candidate who had been selected in convention to run against incumbent Rep. Nita Lowey in November.
Russell said he lost his $60,000-a-year job as a computer programmer and network administrator for AT&T after 21 years when the company outsourced his work overseas. While at the company, he said he saw supervisors unfairly promote minority workers to obtain the bonuses they received as a result….
“I worked on an artificial intelligence project and at one point was asked to explain it to a black female employee,” Russell said about the experiences at AT&T that helped bring him to the contest to represent the 18th Congressional District. “She then made a presentation to upper management and soon thereafter received a promotion and very graciously didn’t thank me for using me to explain how the project worked. Later I confronted upper management at a meeting, asking, ‘Do you receive incentives for promoting minorities?’ They said, ‘Yes, upper management receives salary incentives or bonuses for affirmative-action promotions.’ I don’t think that was fair.”
And what does AT&T say about these charges?
Tracey Belko, a spokeswoman for AT&T, would not discuss the details of Russell’s complaint. She said only, “AT&T is an equal opportunity employer. The company hires and promotes on the basis of merit.”
What you must understand is that “merit” has been redefined to mean “minority.” Not just any minority, but an oppressed minority. Presumably this includes immigrants from Nigeria and Costa Rica.
My mind is conjuring up images of a brochure on affirmative action given to managers…
“See a hobo on the street? Feel bad for him? Is he black? No problem! As a member of upper management at [insert American company or government agency here], you are encouraged to seek out qualified candidates for merit-based ‘affirmative action’ hires. Does your company deal with highly technical information that can only be understood with a degree in math or the hard sciences? No problem! Just get your hobo accepted to any ‘highly selective’ American college or University as an ‘affirmative action’ admittee. With special programs engineered towards hand-holding and intense monitoring, he’ll be sure to graduate, and you’ll be sure to get that hefty raise!”
While I agree with Jim Russell that what he experienced is unfair, Andrew’s hypothetical brochure is a bit too much hyperbole.
I work for a major financial institution and I am dismayed at the small number of blacks at the director or above level. If they’re getting “merit” promotions, I’m not seeing it here.
No wonder you’re not important. You fail to realize that it is the incentives within ATT that cause management to promote many minorities for reasons other than merit.
Keep in mind that “It’s the incentives, stupid.” Always the incentives.
I am fully aware of how corporations provide incentives and bonuses for certain management behaviors. I’ve worked for major corporations my entire adult life. I agreed that what happened to Mr. Russell was unfair and don’t agree with afirmative action. I just wanted to point out the absurdity of Andrew’s hypothetical. Even if one agrees that some blacks get favorable promotions unfairly, are these underqualified black employees equatable to “hobos”? Hardly.
I’ve also seen whites promoted for reasons other than merit or ability. As I said, in my company there are so few black employees in upper management, that if the company is promoting blacks undeservedly, they must also be bleaching them in the process.
By the way, I’m nobody important because I am the lowest of the low, the mongrel bastard of the detritus of Europe’s unwashed peasantry. Not because of my political opinions.
Obviously, I took some literary freedom with my hypothetical brochure.
The point of using the term “hobo” was obviously not meant to be taken literally. The effect of the use of the term was supposed to convey the idea that the “equal opportunity” justification for the hiring or otherwise promotion of minorities has gotten to the point where managers, administrators, or people otherwise in positions of power are so pressured and/or indoctrinated into the great “need” for “diversity” that they are willing to just pick up a person off the street to fulfill their “merit-based affirmative action” hire.
I know this because I have dealt with this situation at the University of Virginia. To take a small example, there was a time I was in an advanced level Computer Science class and I was working with a minority student on a group program: one which was highly involved and required delegation of tasks and superior knowledge from everyone in the group. The student lacked even the most elementary knowledge of computer programming, which at this stage in the course structure, was incredible. The student couldn’t even do elementary things in the programming environment. To provide a good corollary, imagine you’re going to take a class in excel at a community college, the prerequisite being basic computer literacy. Suppose you don’t even know how to turn a computer on. This was the extent of the lack of knowledge exhibited from this student.
That’s how ridiculous affirmative action has gotten. Qualifications and expectations are low, and we all suffer because of it.
The failure rate among affirmative action admits at elite colleges is sky high. This is in spite of multiple expensive programs designed to retain these admits. Thomas Sowell wrote an entire book dealing with the problem.
The lowered standards of affirmative action lead to all blacks in high positions being suspected of inadequacy by non blacks, even the ones who could have made it without affirmative action.
“The lowered standards of affirmative action lead to all blacks in high positions being suspected of inadequacy by non blacks, even the ones who could have made it without affirmative action.”
Suspected by whom? Most likely non-blacks who don’t know any successful, competent blacks. Are they so rare that we wouldn’t be able to recognize them? Also, if some blacks could have made it without AA, wouldn’t that mean that they had all the requisite grades, scores, what-have-you? And did make it without AA?
Many successful blacks had no need for affirmative action. But because affirmative action lowers the bar for admissions and promotions for blacks, every black at an elite university, or in an executive position, is suspected of being the beneficiary of lowered standards.
Suspeced by whom? By just about everyone who thinks about it, even other blacks.