Affirmative Action

um, wondering if he might have been left handed as well.

Fishin - certainly not stating any such thing. Simply observing that it's not likely that any employee not "protected" by affirmative action would have survived for 3 years after 30+ warnings on his behavior. That's a hypothesis, and it's based on the extraordinary multi-page explanation published by the newspaper. And no, Dys, it's not a personal remark about the person, whom I don't know <G>

Hi Tartin,

About Jayson Blair's ethnicity: I found out on PBS's News Hour because while the news anchor was questioning the NYT's executive editor, Mr. Blair's Photo was inset in the upper left corner of the picture. But you have a point to question the relevancy of his "racial" background it should not matter and perhaps we can look forward to the day when it will not even enter our prodigies' minds.

But this will only happen if there are no perceived products of AA. As you know, in my tome of a post of Sat May 10, 2003 3:51 pm in this thread I have already made a suggestion as towards how this may be accomplished. Mr. Blair's ethnic background is relevant only because of AA not in spite of it. In that post I had made mention how perhaps such lapses exhibited by Mr. Blair will come back and sink their teeth into proponents of AA's buttocks. I am not alone.

Although many despair William Safire's rightist thoughts, in today's NYT he affords us a deeper insider's view at:

Bill's Thoughts

At which we find:



So now it is about AA. However if remedies had been taken to remove the race "thing" early enough (education is a good place to start) there would be no ammunition for these slurs and perhaps if this particular reporter was not allowed to "slide" early in his employment (as Mr., Safire has informed us) his laziness could have been corrected without fear of "legal action" against his employer. It would have been better for Mr. Blair had his colleagues actually treated him as if he were really "White" (This could be viewed as moderate "tough love"). In my eyes this reporter was not inferior but just lazy and AA attitudes proscribed the normal corrective features thereby ensuring the observed result; four years of wasted time, money, and Mr. Blair disgraced along with future potential ethnic reporters.

One can only imagine the anger of those like NYT columnist Bob Herbert. Mr. Herbert is a well-respected NYT newspaperman with over 30 years experience in broadcast and print journalism and also... is Black.

JM

James -- I get so incredibly tired of remarks on the color of someone's skin, something which is inevitable if the person isn't that pinko-grey color we seem to regard as the standard skin color of the American. My car's been in the shop and I haven't been to town to pick up my mail and therefore haven't sat down and read the Times -- all I know about the story I've read here. I missed "black" in the first reports and, truthfully, would like to miss skin color references altogether whenever possible. They're useful only to those who want to justify an attitude of one kind of another.

'...27-year-old was given too many second chances by editors eager for this ambitious black journalist to succeed..." Why isn't that just as racist as anything else? Why do we continue to need to be so self-congratulatory about our ersatz "diversity"? Are there no "ambitious white journalists" who charm their editors and manage to get away with screwing up? Etc. etc.

OOps, James -- I'm not directing my anguish at you, but was simply reacting to what I've read herein! Sorry if it sounds like I'm ticked off at your post...!

I was puzzled when I saw references to this reporter Blair in the thread about AA. When I realized that it was because some here were trying to make some connection between AA and the f-ed up things this guy did, it made me sick to my stomach. I won't stoop to defend the thousands of unnamed journalists who have benefitted from EO policies, because to do so would tacitly agree that there is some connection to AA and the egregious violations of ethics this guy committed. But suffice it to say that it is a special kind of lowlife slimy desperation to make some perverted point that would motivate anyone to this kind of reaching reasoning.

Exactly, Snood. Wish I'd said that. It just goes on and on.

Where do you get the pictures for your avatar!

tartarin:

Sure there are "ambitious white journalists who get ahead on charm, etc.

But they don't get hired because of a policy of diversity. Plus, when they're fired, no one yells,"racist".

If you go to the top of this page and click where it says "profile", you'll go to the edit page for your own profile. When you scroll to the bottom of that page, you will see a little box with "show gallery" written in it. You can choose from the A2K gallery of avatars.

Who is the little pudgy faced girl in yours? I think I asked before, but don't remember the answer.

It's me, just taken a few weeks ago.

I guess they must be adding to the avatar gallery. First time I looked, it seemed to be mostly neon mickey mouses and stuff.

Maybe you didn't use the drop-down menu to check the other categories (it's defaulted to "misc", but you can also get "males", "movies", "tv", etc.)

Not gonna tell me who the cherub is, huh?

I tell you, it is I. Lo these many years (it only seems like yesterday).

fishin:

No one was saying AA was a cause of the reporter's behavior.

Read the doublespeak in the TIMES article: " ...he earned an internship at The Times because of glowing recommendations and a remarkable work history, not because he was black. But The Times offered him a slot ...that was then being used to help the paper diversify its newsroom."

Certainly, the diversity wasn't because the rest of the newsroom was incompetent!!

Further: Mr. Landman, the metro editor, was opposed to Mr. Blair's promotion and that "he wasn't asked so much as told" The publisher and the executive editor , he said, had made clear the company's commitment to diversity.."

Then followed poor evaluations,etc. What do you do with a guy who is incompetent , but is favored by the higher-ups? You do what every organization does: transfer him!!

He was sent to the sports dept. Then he was transferred to the national desk. and on and on... Along the way, Mr. Roberts, national editor, was warned about Mr. Blair. "Mr. Landman quietly told him that Mr. Blair was prone to error and needed to be watched."

"Quietly"!!! Probably in a men's room after checking under the doors of the stalls!!!

The article ends with a --pardon the expression -- whitewash.

Mr. Sulsberger, the publisher. " Let's not begin to demonize our executives -- either the desk editors or the executive editor or, dare I say , the publisher."


The reporter in question obviously suffered from some deep problems and I'm not happy he was black. But this shows why a diversity policy is suspect. It is demeaning to qualified blacks and it leads to jealousy, cover-ups, etc.

Well, you sure were a cute lil' buggah.

Whew! Get a load of this!

Fraud at the New York Times
Blaming Blacks for White Folks' Mistakes
By THE BLACK COMMENTATOR
http://www.counterpunch.org/

An interesting read. Whoever wrote it made one point that I agree with entirely. Blair had problems for some time at the NY Times and management there ignored it. AA, as it was intended, can't be blamed for that. Whatever managers at the NY Times allowed Blair to continue writing unchallenged are to blame and they should bear the responsibility of their actions (or lack of..).

I also found this statement interesting: "White people have been screwing up affirmative action since before the term was coined, sometimes on purpose, more often through an inability to objectively assess non-whites--one of the definitions of racism."

If this is a pervasisve few amongst minorities then why do minority groups insist that we maintain AA programs as they are?

Most of that article is just angry ranting but some good points are made.

I thought so too, Fishin'. I think his characterization of the Times was quite good and,frankly, fair -- and I'm a Times reader, have been for years and years, and think it spends a lot of time lately finking out. But of course programs like AA are "noblesse oblige" stuff (also the Times' attitude).

You might enjoy checking out the letters to the Times today, on the subject...

The fact that I can relate strongly to much of what "the black commentator" had to say validates my decision to opt out of any back-and-forth on this one. The Jack Nicholson line from "A Few Good Men" about truth comes to mind...

The Hopwood "10% solution" in Texas ... taking the top 10% of each individual school ... as a means for acheiving "diversity" is an odd "solution", in that it depends on schools remaining largely segregated on the local level, with there being "mostly black" and "mostly Hispanic" student populations. The "logic" here goes, if you take the top 10% of a mostly minority school population, that top 10% will give you the "diversity" you want when added in with the top 10% of the "mostly white" schools.

It seems to me that, as long as this "solution", by DEFINITION, acknowledges that there is still a huge problem with primary education being segregated, this is evidence on its face that the conditions which necessitated Affirmative Action in the first place, still exist.

Hope Snood will come back and explain why he decided to remain silent on the subject.

Jeff Harrison - your criticism of the 10% solution sounds like an inflationary variant of Sherlock Holmes' 7% solution. If you have any ideas not leading to such disasters as busing infants, let's hear them <G>