“It is unfair,” said my friend Oscar, who trained recruits for the Fort Worth Police Department.

Oscar explained how he was forced to pass and recommend for hire a black police trainee over a white one, even though the white trainee had scored higher grades in the department’s training program.

“James, the white trainee scored higher in the pistol range and had better communication and writing skills than the black one ­ skills so essential to being a good police officer and so vital to the apprehension and prosecution of criminals.

“This quota, or affirmative action, business is so wrong,” Oscar went on. “How can your skin color, ethnicity, or gender be the deciding factor for getting a job?

“When is the government going to allow employers to hire someone for his skills instead of his minority status?  The citizens of Fort Worth will be the losers in this debacle.  They are acquiring a second-rate police officer to protect them.  How sad,” he concluded.

As I listened to Oscar, I was saddened by his comments, “How can Oscar say such things?” I wondered.  Then it dawned on me.  Oscar is a Hispanic 23 years younger than I am, and he never saw how things were in Fort Worth when I was a teenager.  He couldn’t fathom the notion of a police or firefighting force without a black or brown face in its ranks.

Nor could Oscar visualize walking into the Tarrant County Courthouse and seeing only white faces sitting behind court benches and office desks.  If, by accident, he saw a black or brown face there, the individual probably was a janitor.  Sad, isn’t it?  But that is the way things were back then.

As a result of the civil-rights movement in the 1960s, the government mandated that federal, state and local government work forces be integrated. Rightly so, I might add.  Blacks, Hispanics and other ethnic groups paid taxes and helped defend our country in times of war.  So why shouldn’t they be hired for government jobs?

One way of ensuring integrated work forces was to fill a prescribed percentage of jobs with minorities. In many cases, white applicants were overlooked despite having better work skills than minority applicants. As the years passed, that practice infuriated white workers.  You now see minorities holding jobs that previously went only to whites.

Personally, I believe affirmative action has gone beyond its originally intended parameters in that it actually binds the hands of employers.  It also has made many skeptics conclude that minorities acquire gainful employment only because employers are intimidated by threats of lawsuits. However, just this week, Vought Aircraft Industries agreed to pay $1.5 million to more than 1,000 rejected job applicants to settle allegations of race and gender discrimination.  Investigators from the government agency, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, which is a unit of the U.S. Labor Department, found that the approach ­ disproportionately eliminated all women, African-American men and Asian men who wanted assembly trainee/aircraft assembly beginner jobs at Vought.

In a released statement this Friday, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said the government wants to ensure that workers who seek employment with federal contractors and subcontractors should be treated fairly.

Folks, this race, religion, gender, and political, thing I’m afraid is going to be with us for a long, long time.  However, I feel that most employers who are in search of qualified workers could care less of the color or gender of a qualified worker.  I for one, tried very hard to do my best at my trade as a linotype operator and later in the computer word processing field.  I wanted to be the best because I wanted to pave the way for other Hispanics following in my footsteps.  I’ll never forget when I was picked at General Dynamics to be an illustrator on a top-secret program for the Navy. White co-workers insulted me by saying I got the job because I was a Hispanic, as did some Hispanic friends.  Neither group gave me credit for having the ability to type 80 wpm, mastering the Macintosh software used at General Dynamics, or for having years of experience in my word design and word processing field.

I imagine that most blacks and Hispanics dislike the opening remarks of Oscar, my Hispanic police buddy. And I assure most white men agree with him. As for me, I wish that anyone in a position to hire would follow Oscar’s logic.  In my honest opinion, Oscar is color-blind.  He wanted to hire the best person for the job, regardless of color, gender, or whatever.

If everybody, yes even the Vought Company would try hard to think that way, affirmative action soon would be a thing of the past.  However, I’m not holding my breath waiting for it to happen.

Comments (8)

Comment	smaller | bigger
Name
Write the displayed characters
Subscribe via email (Registered users only) I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.
	Add Comment