Is affirmative action racist?

In a unanimous vote, the Cleveland City Council has enacted an affirmative action hiring policy. The policy is included with a diversity plan drawn up by the Municipal Technical Advisory Service at the request of Cleveland City Councilman, Avery Johnson. For those of you who are unsure what affirmative action is, it is the preferential hiring of minority applicants for city jobs to force a diversity quota. In the case of the Cleveland policy, it seems to be mainly the preferential hiring of African American individuals over Caucasian Americans. In a letter to Cleveland Mayor, Tom Rowland and fellow city council members, Johnson specifically mentions African Americans and says, "I personally feel the same as our City Manager and many of you that our City staff and employees should reflect the same diversity percentage makeup of our community." The name of the new policy is "The City of Cleveland Diversity Plan" and "The Affirmative Action Plan for Equal Employment Opportunities."  The reason, it is said that the policy is necessary, is because only one black person has been hired by the Cleveland Fire Department in 20 years, and a prospective black applicant for a city job was unable to get an application form from city hall.

If Cleveland government were a bunch of practicing racists, a premise I don't believe is true, I  would think it better to weed out the institutionalized white supremacy than to enact rules to try to combat perceived anti-black hiring practices. The new policy requires people be hired on a quota because of their ethnic origins or minority status over otherwise qualified applicants is likely to encourage resentment within the local government workforce.  There are provisions to help with transportation, day-care, special training and career advancement that are designed specifically to help minorities be hired. Let us examine the facts to try to make sense of this declaration that city managers may be closet racists.

Bradley county has a volunteer fire service, and although there are suitability requirements and training mandated, all firefighters donate their time for this voluntary community service. My understanding is that there have been very few, if any, African American volunteer fire fighters since the department was founded in 1993. Therefore, because most full time paid city and county firefighters are hired from the already trained volunteer ranks, it would not be surprising that they were mainly Caucasian American. You can only get out what goes in, and in this case blacks are not volunteering as firefighters in significant numbers to be hired when jobs become available. This is something that may need to be looked at but is not apparently racist based. Forcing a hire because of minority status will disadvantage the trained and qualified white volunteer just to satisfy a quota. This may be good for diversity but is unlikely to improve the service for taxpayers.

Then there is the lack of  application forms at city hall. This was true and has since been rectified. Forms are now available to everyone, but remember, there were no forms available for white applicants either. This could indicate hiring discrimination, but not racial discrimination. It is likely, even probable that nepotism exists within city government. Just look at the cliques of family and friends who provide the foundation of city employees. There seems little evidence of minority discrimination, as the new hiring policy suggests, then why would the Cleveland City Council give the impression there is?

Now we get to the sordid and unpleasant truth about the racism that does exist, but it is not coming from a white racist but a black one. Councilman Avery Johnson, who is black,  seems quite an okay guy but what he has unleashed on Cleveland government is purely black on white racism. His affirmative action plan uses the threat of white councilors being labeled racist if they vote no, to create a racist policy under the guise of diversity. 

Don't misunderstand me, I am not suggesting Johnson is working alone. Councilman Bill Estes, a white radical liberal who serves as a Professor of Education at Lee University is a reverse racist. Estes serves on the state Task Force for Minority Teacher Recruitment and Retention, an affirmative action panel, and is a member of the far left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an organization devoted to open immigration and diversity indoctrination in U.S. schools. SPLC also publishes the names of organizations it deems as hate groups which includes conservative, libertarian, anti-tax and immigration reductionist groups. Estes is the Cleveland City Councilman who accused one of our writers and this newspaper of racism because it dared to criticize affirmative action as being demeaning to minorities, racism based, and unfair to white Caucasian males and businesses.

Racist is an ugly word to use against an individual, but in this case, where racism was not a driving force, someone needs to speak out. To enact a quota hiring policy, is racist toward white males and is just as much of a disgrace to our community as if it were discrimination against black males. Avery Johnson and the Cleveland City Council needs to encourage harmony between ethnic groups not divide them with racist policies.

That's what I think. What do you think?

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