An Associated Press article from the Boston Herald reports:
The state’s first black governor says he’s far outpacing his predecessor when it comes to hiring minorities into government management jobs, which he says is an important step in making the Statehouse feel like the people’s house….
One way to remove the barriers, he said, is by hiring from a wider pool of candidates. Patrick cites as one of his first-year achievements hiring a “historically diverse” cabinet and leadership team.
Twenty-seven percent of hires in the governor’s office are people of color and 52 percent are women, the Democratic governor said.
….
Massachusetts is about 86 percent white, 8 percent Hispanic, and 7 percent black, with some crossover because of people reporting mixed race, according to 2005 Census figures.
So, in his first year the proportion of minorities among Gov. Patrick’s new hires was nearly twice as high as their proportion of Massachusetts’s population. Well, no one ever said that “diverse” hiring was incompatible with racially and ethnically unrepresentative hiring.
Doesn’t that sort of variation from the local population indicate a pattern of bias in hiring under federal and state EEOC regulations?
Or does equal employment opportunity not apply to persons of non-color?
Newark NJ, Washington DC, New Orleans LA, San Fransisco CA, Detroit MI, Cleveland OH, Chicago IL, all historically dismal showcases of unmerited political assignment to “historically diverse” folks based on discriminatory criteria.
Are ALL the taxpayers of MA voluntarily prepared to shoulder the same historical economic burdens? Can it’s neighbors NY,NH,CT,RI,VT adopt Massachusetts’ currently growing exodus?
John writes:
>>>”So, in his first year the proportion of minorities among Gov. Patrick’s new hires was nearly twice as high as their proportion of Massachusetts’s population. Well, no one ever said that “diverse” hiring was incompatible with racially and ethnically unrepresentative hiring.”
Talk about burying the lead! The state’s 71st Governor, Deval Patrick isn’t just the FIRST African-American governor of Massachusetts…he’s only the SECOND African-American Governor in American HISTORY.
And you want to talk about “proportionate representation”, John?
Sheesh.
Let’s read the article in question a wee bit more, shall we?
>>>”Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said he’s unable to confirm Patrick’s claim about hiring more minorities, but defended Romney’s record.
“Governor Romney had a diverse cabinet and senior staff with women and African-Americans who were hired for their skills and capabilities,” said Fehrnstrom, adding that Romney was nationally recognized for having a high number of women in senior positions.
Romney, now campaigning for the Republican nomination for president, told a crowd in Londonderry, N.H., in August that he would surround himself in Washington with advisers who reflect the nation’s diversity. He said he envisioned calling together a group similar to the “kitchen cabinet” of black citizens he said he regularly met with as governor.”
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/politics/view.bg?articleid=1062117#articleFull
Well, I’ll be…Mitt Romney? A major candidate for the Republican Nomination is a champion for “diversity?”
This is PRECIOUS! LOL. Reagan and Lee Atwater must be spinning in their graves.
Surely, my anti-affirmative action type friends here are going go after Romney with the same zeal and fervor as they’ll use on Patrick, right?
Or will they be more “selective” in their outrage?
Guess which choice my money’s on?
–Cobra
Cobra – If you think we “anti-affirmative action types” refrain from dumping on Republicans who partake of the racial spoils system, you obviously haven’t been paying attention. For example you must have missed the love we bestowed on the Republican candidates in Michigan who opposed Prop. 2, as well as al the tears we shed over their losses.
As for burying the lede, you write your piece and I’ll write mine. The “overrepresentation” of certain groups in the “diversity” hiring of Gov. Patrick’s first year was in fact the lede of the post I wanted to, and did, write. If you think his blackness — and the fact that he is the second black governor since Reconstruction — is the lede, you’re welcome to your own story.
Cobra,
Who cares about Mitt Romney? I certainly don’t. Just like I couldn’t give a rats ass about “Reagan.”
On the other hand, I do care about principles. You should try it some day.
Cobra,
You had a nice, if forced, laugh, but you never got around to addressing the…point:
“So, in his first year the proportion of minorities among Gov. Patrick’s new hires was nearly twice as high as their proportion of Massachusetts’s population.”
Since advocates of racial preferences are making up the rules as they go along, is a hiring policy that ‘accurately reflects the community’ good, or bad these days? Did the governor apply for a waiver? How does this work?
“… Deval Patrick isn’t just the FIRST African-American governor of Massachusetts…he’s only the SECOND African-American Governor in American HISTORY.”
This seems eminently predictable to me. Since more than half of all black men are in prison or on probation, and well over half of all black men drop out of high school, you would expect that there would be very few qualified candidates for high public office among black men. The ones who are qualified (i.e., people like Judge Thomas) disavow the gang sympathies you profess with your pseudonym… and thus are proclaimed “not really black.” In fact, black men who do render themselves qualified do so by discarding everything that you stand for. In other words, they possess the common sense you lack.
The problems are obvious: illegitimacy, gang membership, criminal behavior, drug dependency and a lack of respect for education. Educated, qualified black men eligible to run for high office are just about non-existent.
So, Cobra, the problem is of your own invention and the solution can only be of your design. I suggest that you start by dropping the childish Mau-Mau tactics implicit in the gang moniker you sport. Your moniker automatically brings into doubt your maturity, intelligence and basic goodwill.
Why does it surprise you that blacks are so routinely stigmatized as uneducated thugs, when you sport that very image in your postings in this blog? Your name begs for this response. It surprises me that a man who can write coherent sentences cannot grasp this.
Had to comment on this:
“So, Cobra, the problem is of your own invention and the solution can only be of your design. I suggest that you start by dropping the childish Mau-Mau tactics implicit in the gang moniker you sport. Your moniker automatically brings into doubt your maturity, intelligence and basic goodwill.”
As opposed to “Shouting Thomas” which suggests what? Reason, civility, and maturity?!?
I spilled my coffee when I read that.
Funniest. Post. Ever.
Happy Holidays Everybody!
John writes:
>>>”If you think we “anti-affirmative action types” refrain from dumping on Republicans who partake of the racial spoils system, you obviously haven’t been paying attention.”
Oh I’ve been paying attention. You tend to have no problem berating Republican candidates on state and local levels that you CAN’T vote for.
My prediction is that if Romney becomes the Republican Nominee, you’ll fall right in line, never mentioning the “diversity” subject about him again.
IMHO, you’ll then proceed to attack whatever nomimee the Dems put up with typical RNC talking points and propaganda.
That’s only my prediction of course, but remember–I saw what you were posting back in 2004. So did the readers.
CJ writes:
>>>”Since advocates of racial preferences are making up the rules as they go along, is a hiring policy that ‘accurately -*flects the community’ good, or bad these days?”
“Making up the rules as they go along” implies that there are a DIFFERENT set of rules somewhere that we racial preference advocates are supposed to follow, or no rules whatsoever.
Apparently, Governor Romney had “rules” that he followed that brought a certain level of diversity to his administration in Massachussetts. Perhaps some alert long-time Discriminations reader can point to a post John has made in the past ATTACKING Mitt Romney for it.
Governor Patrick is employing “rules” that has expanded the amount of minority hires in his administration.
Do you view that as a positive, negative or neutral development, CJ?
ACF writes:
>>>”On the other hand, I do care about principles. You should try it some day.”
Oh, I have principles, ACF. They just aren’t in agreement with yours.
Hull,
You have me cracking up, my friend. Happy Holidays to all!
–Cobra
“… Deval Patrick isn’t just the FIRST African-American governor of Massachusetts…he’s only the SECOND African-American Governor in American HISTORY.”
You shouldn’t get all your info from Wikipedia. He’s the second AA governor since Reconstruction.
David writes:
>>>”You shouldn’t get all your info from Wikipedia. He’s the second AA governor since Reconstruction.”
Actually, he’s the “THIRD”…Doug Wilder was elected Governor of John Rosenberg’s Virginia.
Deval Patrick is indeed the SECOND African-American to be elected Governor. The ONE other guy you and John refer to is:
>>>”The first Person of Color to serve as governer of a state was not Douglas Wilder, but P.B.S. Pinchback. His tenure as governor, however, was much shorter than Wilder’s. Pinchback had been elected president pro tempore of the Louisiana senate in 1871 and promoted to lieutenant governor upon the death of Oscar J. Dunn. Pinchback was governor of Louisiana for just forty-six days, from December 9, 1872, to January 13, 1873, after the elected governor, Henry Clay Warmouth, was impeached.”
http://www.frenchcreoles.com/CreoleCulture/famouscreoles/Pinchback/pinchback.htm
Pinchback’s story is VERY interesting.
>>>”Pinchback was born in May of 1837 in Macon, Georgia, to a slave and her former master who were by then living together as husband and wife.(miscegenation was a felony, mind you) At the time the family was on its way to begin a new life in Mississippi, where the senior Pinchback had purchased a new, much larger plantation. As a youngster, Pinchback lived in relatively affluent surroundings, and his parents even sent him north to Cincinnati to attend high school.
In 1848 his father died, and to add to the grief of his wife and five children, the paternal relatives were vengeful. They disinherited Pinchback’s mother and her children. To evade the possibility that the northern Pinchbacks would legally appropriate the children as slave property, Pinchback’s mother fled with all five to Cincinnati.”
http://www.africanamericans.com/PBSPinchback.htm
Now ain’t that America? It gets better…
>>>”In 1863, passed over twice for promotion and tired of the prejudice he encountered at every turn, Pinchback resigned from the (National) Guard. When the war ended and the slaves were emancipated, he and his wife moved to Alabama, eager to test out their new freedom as full citizens. However, racial tensions in their new surroundings were reaching shocking levels of viciousness.
Occupying Union forces shared equally prejudiced views as those of their former Confederate enemies, and would sometimes don the Confederate uniform at night and terrorize the newly freed African Americans.
The movements of African Americans were also restricted by the so-called “black codes” across the South, and it became obvious that white Southern politicians were going to do everything possible to prevent them from gaining any political power.
Pinchback’s political career was born out of this hostile climate. He began speaking out at public meetings and soon became a well-known orator who urged the former slaves to organize politically.”
http://www.africanamericans.com/PBSPinchback.htm
Maybe this is where that “American Creed” Myradal talks about comes from? Terrorizing blacks during Reconstruction? “Black Codes” restricting movements?
Read on…
>>>”Pinchback joined a Louisiana senate that held 42 representatives of African American descent–half of the chamber–and 7 of 36 seats in the senate, and his battles against the state’s racist Democrats brought him enemies.
Walking down the street in New Orleans in September of 1868, an attempt was made on his life, but Pinchback fired back in time. The more conservative Democrat newspapers vilified him as unfit to hold public office. As James Haskins noted in Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback, “a turning point came for Pinchback at this time; he would continue to work for his people and for himself, but he would no longer trust any whites, and he would take anything he could get from them.”
http://www.africanamericans.com/PBSPinchback.htm
How can this kind of thing happen in shadows of Roger Clegg’s beloved ex-Confederate states?
Now what happened during those 46 short days that Pinchback was appointed Governor in lieu of impeachment?
>>>”Pinchback took the oath of office a short time later. The state’s Democrats were naturally enraged to have a man of African American descent in the governor’s chair, but the state’s Supreme Court upheld the legality of Pinchback’s ascension.
Formal impeachment proceedings against Warmoth were underway, while Pinchback went about fulfilling his duties as acting governor. Pinchback became the recipient of vicious hate mail from across the country as well as more local threats on his own life.
A hundred years later, Pinchback was still the only African American to have achieved such a position of political power, although he had not been elected by popular vote. When final tallies came in and were accepted for the November, 1872 election, Republican William Kellogg was declared governor and was sworn in on January 13, 1873, ending Pinchback’s brief but historical executive stint.
In that same election Pinchback had run for a U.S. Senate seat, and in January of 1873 he became a congressman. It was a public office he had long coveted, and with it he achieved another pioneering accomplishment as the state’s first African American representative to Washington.
His victory, however, was short-lived, as opposing factions in the state unseated him by charging election fraud and naming a white candidate instead. It was the beginning of a reversal of the political gains African Americans had achieved since the war’s end.”
http://www.africanamericans.com/PBSPinchback.htm
You see, my anti-affirmative action type friends, your “gotcha” moment was actually a Christmas gift for readers of Discriminations: a gateway to a TEACHING moment about the unthinkable racism that shaped this nation inspite of all of the fairy-tale/happy talk about “American Creeds” and “American Values.”
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to indict the WMPS yet again, people.
Merry Christmas!
–Cobra
Cobra,
Racism did not shape America. This is a lie, no matter how many times you repeat it.
Racism is a universal human failing. The U.S. is (and has been for some time) the least racist society in the history of humanity. The U.S. continues to be a beacon of light for the rest of the world in this regard.
Slavery and racism continue to bedevil black societies in Africa long after they have ceased to be a factor in the U.S.
You haven’t indicted anybody but yourself with another repetition of this lie. I’d suggest that you make a New Year’s resolution to cease pandering these outrageous lies. You’ve just revealed yourself, once again. to be a monstrous ingrate.
I can only hope that the New Year brings you the enlightenment to cease these savage slanders of this wonder country and its generous and decent people. I’m am calling on you, as a matter of simple decency, to stop uttering these horrifying, slanderous and idiotic lies.