I have been fortunate enough to be on this planet for a good number of years. In those years I have seen a lot of changes in our society. Specifically I am speaking with regards to the disparate treatment of members of different races. Having grown up in an all white neighborhood and having attended an all white school, I had no idea there was racial inequality in America. I guess I just wasn’t paying attention. I had no negative perception nor any racial bias that I was aware of. I was not raised that way. Although the use of the N word became an issue on the public forum in more recent years, the word was forbidden to be used in my parents house and so I was not inclined to use it, even before it became proper not to do so. It was not until I enlisted in the Navy in 1963 and traveled to Pensacola, Florida that I learned that I knew very little about racial equality in America.
At the time, Pensacola, Florida was just an extension of Mobile, Alabama with regards to treatment of the races. I was shocked to find out that African-Americans were not allowed to eat at the same lunch counter as I was. I found this out the hard way when I attempted to have lunch with a Sailor friend of mine, but he was not allowed in. There was a sign prominently displayed in the window that said “No Colored”. I was shocked at a gas station when I went to use the facilities at only to see three rooms, Men, Women, and Colored. I was truly horrified. Not as if it was bad enough that the restrooms were segregated, they were not even given the dignity to have separate restrooms for members of the opposite sexes. But that was back in 1963 and a lot has changed since then. The benefit of having lived as long as I have is that I have been a witness to all that has changed. I have seen vast improvements in treatment of members of minority groups of our society and although there is still room for improvement, we are way far down the road from where we were in 1963. I have witnessed, and to some extent been a victim of, Affirmative Action, Consent Decrees, and court actions. All intended to put right what an unfair system and unfair practices had, in the past, put asunder. But, all of that has caused the pendulum to swing to far the other way.
Now it is time to put the pendulum back into the middle. I think it is time to say that all members of all races now share an equal footing and special entitlements no longer need to be a factor of consideration when selecting a person to fill the position. (I expect a great deal of argument from that last statement, but that is another blog article for another day). I think a position should be filled by the best qualified candidate. Should that candidate be black, then the job should be his or hers. Should that candidate be white, then that job should be his or hers, solely based on the candidates qualifications and nothing else. That is the way I think it should be, but that certainly is not the way it is. In place of Affirmative Action and Consent Decrees we now have a selection process that seems to be based on preferential treatment. The insidious part of preferential treatment is that the process is based solely on the biases of the person making the selection. I have come to these conclusions based on what I am most familiar with, the City of Cincinnati Government and the Cincinnati Police Department. The elephants in the room are the disproportionate amount of minority selections for top posts and other positions.
Examples Within City Government:
- The last four (or more) City Managers have all been African-American.
- John Cranley’s first choice (Willie Carden) and his final choice (Harry Black) are both African-Americans
- The majority of the top positions (Directors) in City Government are African-American.
- Recent selections by Harry Black for Assistant City Manager is Sheila Hill-Christian, an African-American and his crony from Baltimore, Thomas B. Corey to head Economic Inclusion is also an African-American.
- The last two selections to Police Chief were African-American.
Examples Within the Police Department:
- The selection of the Police Chief was an exercise in selection based on race and not qualifications. The current police chief was clearly not the bestqualified candidate, but he was the only African-American in the final three. That speaks for itself.
- In the Police Department’s organization those entities that fall directly under the control of the Police Chief’s Office are comprised solely of either African-American’s or white females.
- The Youth Services Unit of which 16 of the 18 members are African American.
I am not saying that these individuals selected were not highly qualified (well almost all of them), but I am saying that when mostly African-Americans or white females are the only ones being selected, then that becomes statistically improbable. I cannot help but wonder, but I can never prove that if these selections did not have race as a factor would the outcome be the same? If people are being selected because they are a highly qualified candidate and of a certain ethnicity as opposed to the most qualified candidate, then are the taxpayers getting the best bang for their buck. Shouldn’t we expect the best qualified, not the almost best but politically correct candidate? Do we not have the right to expect that? What do you think?
Those are my thoughts, what are yours?
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Jesus loves the little children of the world,
Red and yellow black and white they are precious IN HIS SIGHT
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
And in America for sure when the original concept of America was to have a government that ONLY, and undistracted, was to protect the innocent LIFE, LIBERTY, and POSSESSIONS of the people. The principles that this country was built on as found in the Bible even would not allow the toleration of the Slavery Institution to remain as it was a festering sore in consideration of the Liberty that was to be had by all, and we suffered greatly for even having this hiccup for expediency of security when the delegates rejected the paragraph on the evil of slavery that Jefferson put in HIS draft of the Declaration of Independence. The good that people ought to be having for each other may be found in the Definition of LIBERTY or the American Freedom. Here is my take on this, and from it we can seek to balance what the writer tried to communicate above.
LIBERTY – The American Freedom – The RELIGION of WE THE PEOPLE
Oh Boy Brother Hale – that is taking it a bit too far?
NO, my fellow brother in Christ or Citizen of this Country we call the United States of America.
I have to admit the following definition is not actually mine in substance though the choice of wording could be. I was intrigued in my reading of John Locke, the near Christian in England, of his Two Treatises of Government and in that portion called THE SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT.
He introduced to me that there are two complementary aspects of raw freedom. One is Liberty or that pertaining to innocent life and the other is LICENSE that which pertains toward no respect of innocence or innocent life
In that there is some wisdom of KEEPING IT SIMPLE STUPID and I do not do things briefly and desired the discipline to do so, I searched for a perfect (complete) concise definition of Liberty among the writings of those who communicated to us what their thinking was concerning the founding of the country.
Properly, by the way, John Locke was British, but he did through his writings mentor the mighty minds of our major founders, for even Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence was almost whole cloth John Locke with a caveat that Jefferson and company tended to tie down the loose democracy of Locke’s contention that the majority of the people’s desires ought to be consulted by government.
Well, to cut to the chase and not go through much commentary at this point, HERE is the definition of LIBERTY, the one that can pretty much interpret the desires of our founders for the people of America, and I will follow it up with a definition of License, which language is pretty much mine concerning the logic of choosing the complementary subset of freedom that the definition of LIBERTY vacates.
Liberty – is the subset of raw freedom to do that which is right in the sight of God.
License – is the complementary subset of raw freedom to do that which is deleterious to innocent life and, at best, indifferent to the protection of innocent life.
In that Liberty pertains to LIFE, I had to addend my first definition which was “the freedom to do that which is right.”
You see there are two proverbs in the Bible that says, “There is a WAY that seemeth RIGHT unto a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of DEATH.” That men can do right and it ends in ignoble death forbad my honest attempt to be too concise in my definition.
Locke said that basically SUICIDE is not LIBERTY but LICENSE in that GOD put us on this earth to LIVE and to not quit our station early. From this the thought is if we as in WE THE PEOPLE do not have a moral right to off ourselves before the time then we have no moral right to DELEGATE such a right over our innocent lives to another, and here is where Jefferson takes over from this thought to introduce the auditors of our grievances to England we call the Declaration of Independence that we assert this inability to delegate control over our innocent lives under the term of INALIENABLE RIGHT TO LIFE, though a committee member redacted that to be UNALIENABLE RIGHT TO LIFE.
Now as to why I consider it the RELIGION of We The People, the definition of RELIGION pure and undefiled is found in the first chapter of James of the Holy Bible as basically CHARITY and the SELF DISCIPLINE required to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. The context of this definition by James has many words such as DOER, and DEED, and WORK, so this RELIGION is not the BELIEF of the Christian Worldview, though it be the motive behind the DOING, but it IS the DOING, and of course, “in the sight of God” demonstrates that the mind of God needs to be consulted as to what our responsibilities are…and by the way it is the responsibilities of the PEOPLE and not government, a force of the community with the task to protect the people in their righteous DOING. Government is NOT to do charity and a government doing charity is doing religion or government entangled in RELIGION.
All you have to do is look at Detroit and Baltimore, both with all black governments and both in total chaos and poverty.