Back to Basics

Ever since the Civil Rights movement became a “Grand Myth”, the 20th Century equivalent of wagon trains headed West and the Minutemen at Concord, an activity so redolent of national values that it becomes a metaphor for what being American is, every generation has been given its marching orders to fight for a new equality.

Fighting against inequality requires inequality in the same way that Manifest Destiny needed land

area to work. It becomes harder to spread out once you’ve hit the Pacific Ocean. Fighting for civil rights becomes a struggle when everyone has the right to vote, drink from water fountains and do everything else.

After that it’s all imaginary territory. You aren’t really expanding the borders; you’re just paving over swamps, slopping split level housing all over them and pretending that the next lawsuit over racial profiling or the article over pay inequities is just like those people in the black-and-white photos marching at Selma.

Racism is a resource and like every other resource, it’s in danger of running out. We hit Peak Racism decades ago. Peak Sexism peaked even earlier. Even Peak Homophobia peaked a while back. The cool kids are trying to push Islamophobia while peddling worn copies of Edward Said’s Orientalism that the campus book store refuses to buy back at more than 10% of the sale price, but once you get past the keffiyahs and a 10 year-old photo of what looks like a guy in black Klanwear in Iraq, (which looks like the world’s most confusing hate crime), the calm waves of the Pacific Ocean are there telling you that maybe it’s time to put away that thesis on “Othering in The Simpsons” and enjoy your job as Director of Sensitivity Innovations in the Department of Human Resources.

Fighting for equality stopped making sense when everyone became legally equal. Bringing back the word for a battle over gay marriage was refreshing after it had to be buried for so long during the long march through affirmative action and all sorts of positive discrimination gimmicks. But that’s just a blip on the radar.

Equality stopped being the issue before most of the people fighting inequality today on a professional basis were even born. Instead the issue became carving out niches of inequality that would preserve “inequality safaris” for the edification and lawsuits of future generations.

Bigotry is too prized a resource to just watch it drain away in some communal pool of brotherhood and sisterhood. The only thing to do is to find ways to dam it up and create national parks of bigotry that will allow future generations of civil rights warriors to rough it by camping out under the burning crosses while admiring themselves for their artificial courage in defense of a manufactured cause.

So instead of equality, there’s diversity that opens up a door for a select few while closing the door for everyone else. Instead of merit hiring, there’s quota hiring. That means one black guy in the boardroom, one Asian woman at the meeting and one Latino guy in the White House. (And the GOP, knowing the stats, and having missed out on the black guy, wants it to be their guy.) And that’s all you get.

The quota can be increased.

It was a coincidence ripe with irony. On the same day the main section of the Washington Post was trumpeting Sec. of Defense Leon Panetta’s decision to allow women in combat, the sports section was featuring an analysis of the “epidemic” of torn knee ligaments in women’s basketball and soccer.

Reporter Preston Williams wrote: “Young female athletes are two to eight times more likely than young males to tear their anterior cruciate ligaments, according to the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine. Area girls’ basketball players are doing their part to validate a statistic that one local orthopaedic surgeon considers “a national epidemic.”

What’s more, statistics originating with the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine reveal 70 percent of the tears result from “no contact.”

The Fairfax County, VA school system, writes Williams, started tracking knee injuries. After football — an incubator for all problems knee–wise — the three leading sports for complete ACL tears were girls’ lacrosse, girls’ soccer and girls’ basketball. This looks like a trend to me and might point one toward a belief that men’s and women’s bodies are fundamentally different, but what do I know? I’m certainly not a “gender” expert.

Of course those injuries are taking place in a sports setting where women prance around in the equivalent of pajamas or bikini bottoms with nary a jihadi in sight. What possible relevance could those statistics have to combat situations where women are carrying 60–lb. packs and running for their lives?

Can’t ideology overcome physiology? Military brass certainly thinks so. The WaPost says they are on board in a big way. Sounding a lot like Pres. George H. W. Bush after his first encounter with a grocery store scanner, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, enthused: ‘The most eye-opening moment, he said, came in Iraq in 2003. As the commander of the 1st Armored Division, he hopped into an armored vehicle and slapped the gunner’s leg, asking the soldier to introduce himself.

“I’m Amanda,” the gunner said, poking her head down from the turret.

“So, female turret gunner protecting a division commander,” Dempsey recalled, beaming. “And it’s from that point on that I realized something had changed and it was time to do something about it.”’

Of course Dempsey could have been buttering Amanda up in an effort to head off a sexual harassment complaint after groping her thigh. But not to worry, even though female knee ligaments are popping like small arms fire in Fallujah, Dempsey can hardly wait for full integration.

Sen. Carl Levin (D–Never Served Himself) also approves. “The reality is that so many women have been, in effect, in combat or quasi-combat,” he said. “This is catching up with reality.” This is actually lying through inference. What the left refers to as combat deaths for women are in the main deaths in a combat or war zone, which is vastly different. It’s like counting the woman who injures her knee in a fall down the stairs at FedEx Field as one of the knee injuries occurring in the NFL. (Note to professional apology demanders: I am in no way denigrating the deaths of these women.

One of man’s faults is that he always swings from one extreme to another, without taking more than a pit stop in that lonely land called Enlightened Distinction. For example, it’s understandable that the French Revolutionaries would have adopted “égalité!” as part of their battle cry, coming as they did from a society in which class distinctions trumped all. But now we’ve come full circle, from preserving group-defined inequality regardless of merit — to enforcing group-defined equality regardless of merit.

A case in point is a recent ruling mandating that New York City must hire unqualified black and Hispanic firefighters. Writes Judicial Watch:

The Clinton-appointed federal judge who referred to a city fire department as a “stubborn bastion of white male privilege” has ordered it to give minority applicants who failed “discriminatory” tests priority hiring and retroactive seniority.

That’s in addition to a previous damages award of $128 million for the black and Latino candidates who couldn’t pass a mandatory test to join the New York City Fire Department. Last year the same federal judge, Nicholas Garaufis, asserted the city’s fire department was “a stubborn bastion of white male privilege.”

Since these “discriminatory” tests are simply written exams designed to establish a person’s competence, what’s the problem? They’ve been deemed to have “disparate impact.” This supposedly means, explains Judicial Watch, that they “disproportionately screen out people of a particular race, even though they ‘present the appearance of objective, merit-based selection.’” Translation: They separate the qualified from the unqualified.

In other words, under the disparate-impact theory, it doesn’t matter what a given test emphasizes. It doesn’t matter how important the skill or knowledge set is. It doesn’t matter how relevant it is to the job in question. If certain groups don’t perform as well as other groups on it, the test is by definition discriminatory and subject to elimination.

This is where disparate-impact’s defenders say that the written fire tests are no more relevant to being a firefighter — they wish to see only physical qualifications emphasized — than an exam on the history and statistics of baseball would be to being a baseball player. First, however, this isn’t necessarily true. Second, this is for the locality in question and its experts in the field to decide, not Department of Justice lawyers. Most significantly, this is a situational cop-out. How can we know? Because disparate-impact mandates are nothing new: They were used in the 1970s to eliminate police-exam physical requirements up to which women couldn’t measure. So, intellectual or physical, necessary or not, the priority here is equality of outcome. Merit be damned.

Having said this, written fire exams do discriminate. This is in the same way that the Olympic trials, NBA tryouts, PGA Tour School, shoppers, and those selecting spouses discriminate: They choose one or some from among many based on qualitative measures or judgments. For this reason, there is no such thing as a test that doesn’t discriminate; in fact, that’s a test’s very purpose.

Speaking of the NBA, is it a “stubborn bastion of black male privilege”? Are all lucrative professional sports at the highest level stubborn bastions of male privilege, since not one woman is found in the NBA, NFL, MLB, or on the ATP or PGA tours?

In the heat of passion during a radio interview, I said,“The NAACP, Congressional Black Caucus and Democratic Party are more destructive to blacks than the KKK!”

After the radio show, I thought my statement may have been a bit over the top. Upon further thought, I concluded that my statement is true. Before calling me crazy, please hear me out.

The mission of the KKK is to stifle black liberation via intimidation which is exactly what the modern black civil rights coalition continues to do to blacks. Both organizations despise self-starter, self-reliant and free thinking blacks.

The primary mission of the black civil rights coalition (NAACP/ CBC) and Democratic Party is to keep black Americans believing themselves eternal victims of an eternally racist white America. Many blacks have been successfully indoctrinated into believing every problem in the black community is the result of white oppression.

This is why the black civil rights coalition verbally brutalized black actor/comedian Bill Cosby for suggesting that blacks embrace moral responsibility, hard work and self-reliance to solve problems in their community.

This is also why the black civil rights coalition hates two of the most powerful blacks on the planet; Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Thomas and Rice achieved extraordinary success competing without special concessions or lowered standards due to their race. The KKK shares the black civil rights coalition’s disdain for such uppity self-reliant “n——.”

As I stated, the mission of the KKK is to suppress blacks. The black civil rights coalition has assisted in the fulfillment of the KKK’s mission for decades.

Democratic Party failed-policies supported by the black civil rights coalition have destroyed the black family and sparked epidemic out-of-wedlock births. They have created fatherless black boys who run to gangs in search of male bonding. Blacks are disproportionately represented in prisons, have epidemic high school dropout rates and genocidal levels of black abortions — all due to Democrat led government intrusion.

Yes, monolithic loyal voting for Democrats has truly paid off for blacks. It would be fitting and proper for the KKK to send the black civil rights coalition a “Thank You” card for wreaking such havoc in the black community.

A black man in the White House is the ultimate symbol of America’s repentance from her sin of slavery. And yet, to preserve its relevance, the black civil rights coalition strives to convince blacks that race relations have progressed very little since the 1950s. Meanwhile, President Obama is the huge black elephant — or perhaps, I should say donkey — in America’s living room proving otherwise.

The NAACP further revealed its true colors when Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney addressed its members at their convention.

Clearly, this once-great organization, which comprised champions of civil rights, has morphed into a shameful liberal activist hate group. They do not give-a-hoot about real black empowerment. Their mission is solely to advance a far-left, liberal, socialist/progressive and anti-America agenda. The NAACP has sold its soul for a seat at its white liberal massa’s table. This disgraceful bunch no longer deserves our respect.

The NAACP called Romney offensive for speaking about family values, self-reliance, character and hard work — values touted by MLK.

Psychological projection: The attribution of one’s own attitudes, feelings, or suppositions to others
*****

With that in mind, here’s the wind-up:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Monday that Senate Republicans oppose equal pay for women, citing as evidence their expected opposition to the Democratic Paycheck Fairness Act in a scheduled Tuesday vote.

“They don’t agree with this, they don’t want women to make the same amount of money, so they’re filibustering this,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “They are filibustering us even getting on the bill.”

And the pitch:

A group of Democratic female senators on Wednesday declared war on the so-called “gender pay gap,” urging their colleagues to pass the aptly named Paycheck Fairness Act when Congress returns from recess next month. However, a substantial gender pay gap exists in their own offices, a Washington Free Beacon analysis of Senate salary data reveals.

Of the five senators who participated in Wednesday’s press conference—Barbara Mikulski (D., Md.), Patty Murray (D., Wash.), Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.), Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) and Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.)—three pay their female staff members significantly less than male staffers.

Murray, who has repeatedly accused Republicans of waging a “war a women,” is one of the worst offenders. Female members of Murray’s staff made about $21,000 less per year than male staffers in 2011, a difference of 35.2 percent.

That is well above the 23 percent gap that Democrats claim exists between male and female workers nationwide. The figure is based on a 2010 U.S. Census Bureau report, and is technically accurate. However, as CNN’s Lisa Sylvester has reported, when factors such as area of employment, hours of work, and time in the workplace are taken into account, the gap shrinks to about 5 percent.

A significant “gender gap” exists in Feinstein’s office, where women also made about $21,000 less than men in 2011, but the percentage difference—41 percent—was even higher than Murray’s.

Boxer’s female staffers made about $5,000 less, a difference of 7.3 percent.
[...]
Other notable Senators whose “gender pay gap” was larger than 23 percent:

•Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.)—47.6 percent
•Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D., N.M.)—40 percent
•Sen. Jon Tester (D., Mont.)—34.2 percent
•Sen. Ben Cardin (D., Md.)—31.5 percent
•Sen. Tom Carper (D., Del.)—30.4 percent
•Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.)–29.7 percent
•Sen. Kent Conrad (D., N.D.)–29.2 percent
•Sen. Bill Nelson (D., Fla.)—26.5 percent
•Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore)—26.4 percent
•Sen. Tom Harkin (D., Iowa)—23.2 percent

If Reid wants to lecture about equal pay, he can start pointing fingers in his own cloakroom.

More on the evil GOP’s war on women here and here.

Candidly, I have struggled with this for years; how best to explain why I am a black conservative and why fellow black Americans should join me.

I served on a board with an extremely bright black mom. Both of her kids, a boy and a girl, are brilliant; her son received a full scholarship to Yale.

This black mom is well-read on “whiny” black liberal authors and philosophers. I am talking about the majority of black authors you see featured on mainstream TV. They sound extremely intellectual, explaining how white America is still systematically abusing blacks and why more heavily funded government programs are the answer. I feel like screaming at my TV, “Knock it off! Bottom line is you hate white people and are seeking more entitlement government freebies!” Such needy victim rhetoric has NOTHING to do with, nor does it achieve REAL, “black empowerment.” Frankly, these people turn my stomach.

As I said, the black mom is extremely well-read on victim-hood peddling black authors and has never heard of brilliant black conservatives Professor Walter Williams and Dr. Thomas Sowell.

Professor Walter E. Williams is an American economist and academic. He is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, as well as a syndicated columnist.

Dr. Thomas Sowell is an American economist, social theorist, political philosopher, and author of 30 books. Dr Sowell is currently a Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Both these guys are about “real” black empowerment, teaching personal responsibility, education, hard work and morality; not the standard blacks-are-eternal-victims and white-America-owes-us garbage spouted by black pundits on TV. Thus, you NEVER see Prof. Williams or Dr Sowell on mainstream TV. I love these guys, Prof. Williams and Dr. Sowell.

Black media and mainstream liberal media, for the most part, ignore black conservatives. It is shameful that I had to hear about distinguished black conservatives who have the their heads on straight from white conservative talk radio hosts.

On rare occasions when black media (talk radio, TV & etc) does recognize black conservatives, for the most part, it is to denigrate them — labeling them Uncle Toms, traitors to their race and self-loathing stupid n******.

Liberal mainstream media today strives to keep black conservatives “invisible.”

My 84 year old black dad never heard of Herman Cain until the liberal media’s gleeful 24/7 coverage of alleged sexual harassment against Cain during his bid to win the Republican presidential nomination.

Think about that folks. Herman Cain is a black conservative author, business executive, radio host and syndicated columnist. Cain was the first black CEO of Godfather Pizza and CEO of the National Restaurant Association.

If embraced by Oprah, Tavis Smiley and the mainstream media, Herman Cain would have been a tremendous inspiration to young black entrepreneurs. But, the left “don’t cotton” to uppity blacks who achieve the old-fashion way — via education, hard work and character without government intervention or lowered standards.

Tragically, the left chose to introduce Herman Cain to black America as nothing more than a guy who can’t keep it in his pants. This is how the left (liberal media and Democrats) love to demean, discredit and humiliate self-reliant, non-victim-minded blacks.

The Democrats are the ones who are gender quota-mongerers. The Democrats are the ones who use femme-statistics to push more mandates and government meddling when so many factors other than gender discrimination explain disparities.

But when held to account for their own rhetoric and ideology, the Democrats do what they always do: Cut and run.

After wrapping itself in the GOP-bashing “War on Women” cape, the White House is absolutely tongue-tied when it comes time to answer for gender hiring disparities at Obama’s beleaguered Secret Service.

Here’s White House flack Jay Carney dodging questions about the percentage of women in Obama’s Secret Service (11%):

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJrB2PthnVw

TRANSCRIPT:

Female reporter: Sen. Susan Collins said this weekend that Secret Service supervisor Paula Reed, who we all read about this weekend, acted decisively and appropriately in Cartegena and “I can’t help but wonder if there had been more women as part of that detail if this would have ever happened.” Is there a point there? Should there be more women as part of the Secret Service?

Carney: I would simply say, as I did earlier, that assessments of the institutions, culture, broader questions about the mission, I think, uh, need to be, uh, held in reserve while this investigation into a specific incident, uh, is completed. Uh, and in many ways, I think that those questions, will be looked at broadly but also specifically by the Secret Service, as is appropriate. So, but, I don’t have a comment specifically to that, uh, beyond what I’ve said.

Another female reporter: …if the percentage of women in the Secret Service is indeed 11 percent, you can speak to that, correct?

Carney: Again, I can’t. I’m not familiar even with that figure. I would simply that questions about the mission, the institution, broader questions about the Secret Service that arise from this incident and this investigation, I think, at least from here, I will resist answering, because it’s not appropriate while this investigation is ongoing. And I think those questions in many ways will be and should be addressed to the Secret Service itself. But they are focused on this investigation into this incident at this time. And it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to make broad observations about the institution during this period.

Reporter: Would you agree that if that figure is correct, it’s really, it’s very low.

Carney: Well, again. You’re saying “if that figure is correct, what do I think about it.” I don’t know that figure to be correct or incorrect.

Reporter: We’re talking about 11 percent as a percentage.

Carney: Well, again, it’s a law enforcement agency. I don’t know how that compares to other law enforcement agencies. I would simply ask that, uh…well, you know, you can ask, but I would ask for understanding as to why I’m not going to make, uh, broad assessments of the institution itself, its mission, its culture, while this specific investigation is going on.

Just a reminder that Carney is Mr. Stats McStats when it comes to unloading figures on women and employment to try and paint Republicans with the broad, anti-woman brush.

Flashback:

MR. CARNEY: Let me say a couple things. First of all, I have not spoken with the President about this so I don’t have anything to report to you on that.