This column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel should be required reading for all affirmative action supporters, and opponents.
The Milwaukee police department seems to be both exploding and imploding as an all too predictable consequence of its past racial preference policy.
Some African-American police officers feel disrespected by their fellow white officers in blue uniforms.
The feeling stems from lingering resentments over a variety of perceived slights, not the least of which was a successful racial-discrimination lawsuit filed by a group of white officers that suggested many black officers on the force were below standard.
Some of the anger exploded last week at a Fire and Police Commission meeting that took on the appearance of a trial of sorts, with black officers playing the role of prosecutor.
The League of Martin, an organization of black officers, objected to the pending promotion of four white officers.
League of Martin President Laverne McCoy said the high-profile, vocal opposition to the promotions was a sign of new invigoration for the black officers’ group.
“We’re going back to our roots,” said McCoy, a 23-year veteran officer. “We’ve tried to sit back and be nice before, but not any longer.”
McCoy said the federal lawsuit victory that awarded $2.2 million to 17 white male captains last year was the last straw. Much of the testimony in that case suggested that many white cops felt minority officers promoted under former Chief Arthur Jones were nothing more than unqualified tokens.
It’s the same sad old story in Milwaukee: When black folks get hired or promoted, it’s all about “affirmative action.” When white folks get promoted, there’s seldom a question raised about their “qualifications.”
Well, I’m tempted to say (I just gave in to the temptation), Duh! If you ask for special preferences in hiring and promotion, which in practice means lowering the bar for the preferred group, those rejected or passed over are of course going to complain that the preferred group was favored by being held to a lower standard.
If you don’t want to be regarded as a token, don’t ask to be treated as a token, as a representative for your race or ethnic group. And, as long as I’m offering unrequested advice (Hey, that’s a pretty good definition of “blog”!), the case for preferential treatment would be stronger if its advocates, such as columnist Eugene Kane here, didn’t belittle “qualification” by putting it in quotes.
““We’re going back to our roots,” said McCoy, a 23-year veteran officer. “We’ve tried to sit back and be nice before, but not any longer.”
What is this person suggesting about their “roots?”
Well, this isn’t very nice:
“The allegations against the four officers contained ugly stuff, everything from botching the crime scene at the beating of Frank Jude Jr. to racial slurs in the workplace to the kind of official misconduct that often gets cops fired.”
I wonder if the cops-don’t-rat-on-cops code has been covering up a lot of stuff that isn’t being covered up now because the black cops are mad. The article goes on to say the black cops haven’t been complaining until now. Maybe a general housecleaning is in order.
I’m curious about the quotes around “qualifications” too. I wonder if all of the qualifications are bona-fide requirements of the job.
Laura – Good points. The impression left by the column is that the black cops wouldn’t have complained about the white cops getting promoted if the white cops hadn’t regarded the black cops who’d been promoted under the AA policies as tokens, etc. It is certainly possible that these white cops didn’t deserve promotion, just as it is possible that the black cops who had been promoted were fully qualified and have been getting a bum rap. Either way, the AA policy sowed the seeds of predictable discord. Let’s just judge everybody, all the time, on their qualifications (with no quotes).