Who says “affirmative action” = quotas? Well, almost anyone who is honest about how such programs are actually implemented, such as the city of Pontiac, Michigan.
The Justice Department has filed suit against the city because of its “affirmative action” policy in the fire department,
which essentially sets quotas for minority hires and promotions in the fire department. The policy – which requires that one of three new hires or promotions be a minority or a woman – has been in the contract since 1984, [Fire Chief Wilburt “Skip”] McAdams said….
The U.S. Justice Department sued Pontiac on Tuesday, claiming the fire department’s policy violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The lawsuit comes about a year after Pontiac firefighter Arthur Frantz filed a similar lawsuit after being passed over for several promotions during his 19-year career, said his attorney, James Fett.
Frantz, 51, is white.
“This case is a slam dunk,” Fett said. “There’s no justification for what the city has done.”
Notice that the city of Pontiac does not deny that its “affirmative action” policy is a quota system.
Eric Goldstein, an attorney for Pontiac, said the city stands behind the policy. In fact, Goldstein said city officials have asked the Michigan Department of Civil Rights if the policy is legal.
“The city has taken a position that the affirmative action plan is lawful, appropriate and consistent,” Goldstein said. “These plans have been accepted in this country for decades.”
So, why is the federal government filing the lawsuit? Goldstein said the answer is simple.
“I think the (Bush) administration wants to challenge and fight affirmative action,” he said. “So if an employee files an EEOC complaint, they will do just that.”
Of course, asking the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, which apparently has never seen a quota it dislikes, for its opinion of an affirmative action policy involving quotas is rather like asking MoveOn.org for its opinion of a Michael Moore movie.
Why is it that none of the groups that defend racial preferences, and deny that affirmative action policies as implemented involve quotas, never to seem to criticize those programs that clearly do involve quotas?
Quotas
John at Discriminations, one of my almost-daily reads, blogs about the Pontiac Fire Department’s skin color quota system. Quotas are supposed to be illegal in the U.S., but so is skin color discrimination, but it’s sanctioned by the government.
I’v…
How can african americans ever expect to be treated as equals while receiving special preferences from governments and corporations? It is impossible. Affirmative action is a recipe for racial discord. As affirmative action exists as a preference system, racial harmony will be an oxymoron.
Malcolm Jackson writes:
>>>”How can african americans ever expect to be treated as equals while receiving special preferences from governments and corporations? It is impossible. Affirmative action is a recipe for racial discord. As affirmative action exists as a preference system, racial harmony will be an oxymoron.”
Ummm…Affirmative Action came about during the 1960’s. Would you describe the 400 plus years on this continent BEFORE Affirmative Action as “racially harmonious?” Can you claim that in those FOUR CENTURIES OF AMERICAN HISTORY BEFORE Affirmative Action, that black people were “treated as equals?” If you can’t, then you must concede that racial harmony has NEVER existed in America. Given the fact that it has NEVER existed, why should I, as an African America feel the slightest discomfort in embracing Affirmative Action in a land that was initially designed to elevate whites above all?
–Cobra
Cobra,
Since you seem so determined to demonized white men, let me ask you a question.
The white men who founded this country created a structure in which all people now enjoy equal rights and opportunities. It may be true that things started out unequal, but 200 years later the wisdom of our founding fathers has proven to be vast. They created a structure in which constitutional and legal change was possible.
Meanwhile, in black Africa, there are plenty of rich black men. No black African society has created even the structure for economic and political success.
So, black men have failed to do in Africa what white men succeeded in doing in the U.S. Black men have failed to even develop a constitutional and legal foundation to develop the equality and opportunity available in the U.S.
How do you explain this continued failure of black men to accomplish what white men accomplished in the U.S.? Why can’t they even begin to create the foundations of economic success and democracy? Why can’t they succeed in doing what white men did in the U.S. — create a foundation for success and equality?
200 hundred years after the founding of the U.S., racial and sexual equality is the law of the land. Our white male founders made this possible. 200 years later in black Africa, virtually every state is a dictatorship and kleptocracy. What is the failing in black men that prevents them from even beginning down the road pioneered by white men in the U.S.?
Cobra, thank you for that. Easy for others to talk affirmative action, but how many of them have walked in your shoes? That leaves no justification for me.
Malcolm Jackson; Could it be that if affirmative action does not equal racial harmony, then what does? Being quiet, passive, and submissive to the powers that be? Is that what you mean by racial harmony -i.e. not ‘rocking the boat’ for equal opportunities? Maybe that’s “harmonious” by your worldview but not for many others. Like I said, try some time in someone else’s shoes..
Stephen: When I, as a woman, can make equal pay for equal work in the workforce; then you make your argument for sexual equality as the “law of the land”. Guess laws were meant to be broken (and boy it has)
http://www.cluw.org/programs-payequity.html
” When I, as a woman, can make equal pay for equal work…”
Different pay scales for men and women? I was not aware. Enlighten us, please.
Erika,
You are absolutely wrong.
Read Warren Farrell’s new book.
Women not only make as much as men, in many fields, as the result of the quota system, they make more.
They also, as a result of the quota system, get hired with less difficulty than men.
You’ve got it backward.
Erika is the typical mis-informed liberal just wandering from the liberal cocoon where “everybody knows” that women are paid less than men and liberal guilt over past racial discrimination is the order of the day. Both concepts are doctrinal truth beyond question in the cocoon. Stephen, she will find you quite mad.
Erika,
The link to Farrell’s book: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0814472109/qid=1122734789/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-5687913-9457745
Cobra,
I’m still waiting for an answer.
Stephen writes:
>>>I’m still waiting for an answer.”
You’ll be waiting for a looooong time if you plan on hearing an answer from ME that will satisfy you.
Erika,
You will notice as you post to this blog, that gender pay inequity is another one of those incendiary issues that most in here will either dismiss as non-existant, or attack you outright for raising the issue in the first place.
Don’t be shocked, though. It’s par for the course with many conservatives. You should see what they post about me when I discuss inequities in the system regarding African Americans. ;-)
–Cobra
Cobra: Unless she is one of those uppity immigrant merchants outperforming black businesses in Detroit, right? Because it is all about justice.
It’s tough wielding racial discrimination as a tool for equality, eh, bubba?
Mikem writes:
>>>Cobra: Unless she is one of those uppity immigrant merchants outperforming black businesses in Detroit, right? Because it is all about justice.”
So which category do you fall into Mike? The “outright dismissal of gender wage inequity group,” or the “attack the messenger group?”
–Cobra
I’m part of the group that sneers at those black Americans, like you, who support racial discrimination against others, especially against the ‘privileged’ (chuckle) immigrants who have the audacity to work harder and smarter than the black businesses that wield political power.
I guess the Detroit immigrant businesses should indeed feel privileged. They haven’t been burned out and destroyed as over a thousand Korean merchants were in Los Angeles.
Cobra,
The “women earn less for the same job” routine is an total fabrication. Feminists are famous for such fabrications, including the great Super Bowl domestic violence hoax.
Most women actually want to be at home during their children’s formative years. Thus, women commonly take years off from the work force, work part time in undemanding jobs and work fewer hours than men so that they can take care of their families and their homes.
Men work more hours, often in jobs that are dangerous and demand extensive travel, and they seldom exit from the work force for years.
This entirely explains the wage disparity between men and women. Women who work the same number of hours as men, in the same position for the same number of years make as much or more than men. And, as I said, the quota system gives women first shot at being hired. This makes the sort of complaints Erika wants to air seem like a case of greed. In fact, Cobra, you’ve been given the upper hand for over 50 years. Your constant complaint that you need even more strikes me as straightforward greed.
The problem for feminists is that most women don’t want to live the way feminists want them to live. They don’t want the government to raise their children. Many of them actually want to be housewives.
You need to drop this one, Cobra. It’s a complete fabrication. People don’t want to live the way leftists want them to live. Just as most blacks prefer to live among blacks, and most whites prefer to live among whites.
You have a habit of dreaming up evil explanations for why people don’t want to live the way you want them to live. Truth is, Cobra, they just don’t want to live the ideal leftist life you want them to live. This has always been true. That’s why leftist revolutionaries have always had to resort to terror, mass executions and economic sabotage to force a reluctant populations to live the “correct” way.
If you boys are genuinely interested on pay equality in my discussion, follow the website address I posted in my initial comment.
And to Stephen’s comments,”the problem with feminists is..” and “many of them actually want to be.. [housewives]”.. great way to generalize an entire population into one category. How can you, as a man, know what all women stand for? But you know what? You’re absolutely right on this one. That’s just why I’ve recieved my master’s degree; so I can be a housewife. Now that’s something to live up to.
Erika,
Your attempts to suggest that something is stopping you from getting any job you want are tiresome.
It’s a fabrication.
I didn’t suggest that I know what all women stand for. The majority (estimated at 2/3 to 3/4) of women are not feminists.
So, feminism doesn’t speak for women. And, you only speak for yourself.
You’ve got the upper hand in seeking a job as a result of the quota system. It’s really in bad taste to be complaining that you should receive even greater favoritism.
Stephen writes:
>>>So, feminism doesn’t speak for women. And, you only speak for yourself.
You’ve got the upper hand in seeking a job as a result of the quota system. It’s really in bad taste to be complaining that you should receive even greater favoritism.”
Was I lying, Erika?
–Cobra
And, yes, Cobra, your posts represent only your opinion.
I’ve noticed that you’ve been told the same by Lashawn Barber.
And, yes, your motivation is greed.
You’ve got the upper hand in getting and education and a job. The quota system has favored you throughout our working lives.
Instead of simply taking advantage of this, you seem to prefer nagging for more.
Erika,
You don’t want people generalizing about women — but your entire argument is based on a statistic which averages together all women, regardless of their wishes, choices, or career paths.
The statistic is complete nonsense. It’s like arguing that there’s something wrong because baseball players and hockey players make different amounts of money. There’s no “pay gap” between the two sports; they’re simply different, with different benefits, costs, demand, production, and pay.
The phony “pay equity” movement is based on the arbitrary declaration that since both baseball players and hockey players are athletes, they have the same skills so they should be paid the same amount.
(See, for instance, the website you cite: For example, stock and inventory clerks, who are mostly men, earn about $493 a week. Data entry keyers, on the other hand, are mostly women and they earn only $441 a week. There’s no reason two such widely different jobs should earn the same amount of money; it’s completely arbitrary.)
Stephen writes:
>>>And, yes, Cobra, your posts represent only your opinion.
I’ve noticed that you’ve been told the same by Lashawn Barber.”
Hey, I’ve never claimed that I represent any groups. I speak for myself. Lashawn is entitled to her opinions…same as you…same as I.
One good thing I will say about “Discriminations”, though. Posters here haven’t described me as a “tool of Satan”, yet.
David writes:
>>>You don’t want people generalizing about women — but your entire argument is based on a statistic which averages together all women, regardless of their wishes, choices, or career paths.”
Waitiminute, is not the most POPULAR argument on this blog AGAINST Affirmative Action “based upon statistics which average” standardized test scores of various races?
–Cobra
When selecting candidates for government positions, the consideration must be who is the most competetent individual interested in doing this job. It should most definitely not be who will benefit the most from receiving this job. That kind of thinking gets us nowhere. This of course entails that equal opportunity exist, but affirmative action goes against this idea. Rather than choosing the most competent individual to work at the fire department, the city decided to make certain that someone who was not as well qualified gets the job. This is because affirmative action works off of the assumption that the group being preferenced is not as competent as other potential employees. Hence, government serves to prop up a few individuals at the greater expense of society. The problem is the government does not see people as individuals, but actually sorts them into broad groups. This makes it seem justifiable to pass over a white person for a black person because black people as a whole deserve it more. The white man, however, may have deserved the position more than the black man. If that was the case, the government’s action was unjust. Instead of creating an unlevel playing field, the government should take steps to improve education, safety, and health in urban areas heavy in minorities. What is this about giving women preference in the fire department? Why? Women have the same economic opportunities on average as men, so why would it be necessary to give them preference? There is obviously no benefit of having a diverse fire department. Clearly, the reason is because the government wants women to have preference to appeal to that segment of the population. Almost every vote is in a person’s self interest. That is the problem with the republican system of government.