Lowering the Bar

Race Card (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At the top of my long list of things that annoy me is the playing of the race card.  It irks me to no end when I try to have an honest debate with someone whose only response when cornered is to cry racism.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough.  I’ve spent far too many years dancing around the topic, trying not to ruffle feathers out of a sense of common decency.  Then one day I realized that decency was anything but common.  At least where liberals are concerned.

My blogging “career” actually started out during my city’s 2010 budget season in August of that year.  Up until that time, I had tried my hand at writing short essays, some of which were published over the years in newspapers and obscure websites, but the bulk of my political discourses were in the form of mass emails sent to as many city residents whose email addresses I had.  I eventually opened a website and started posting my rants in blogs, mainly about the shenanigans at City Hall, and poking fun at what I called “Stupid City Council Tricks.”  It was mostly humorous and in good fun.

During that particular year at one of the ongoing budget workshop meetings when our then City Manager started getting a clue that his job was in jeopardy due to his incompetency, he decided to play the Race Card.  I hadn’t bothered to attend that particular meeting and was home relaxing when out of the blue I received a text from a friend on the Council stating, “OMG, this is a circus.  The NAACP is here!”

I threw on my shoes and flew to City Hall in half the usual five minutes that it takes me to get there, only to enter a crowded roomful of angry people, quite a few sporting polo shirts with the letters NAACP emblazoned on the back.  I had made it just in time to hear the City Manager’s emotional diatribe, which started out by admonishing the City Council members, who dared question his proposals, to “stay away from your desks and let me manage the city,” followed by “I have the full authority to finalize the budget.”  He then arrogantly claimed that he had been discriminated against because he’s black.

The irony is that at the time, our City Council was made up of four whites and three blacks, all of whom hired him in the first place, none of whom had ever considered skin color during the hiring process.  They certainly didn’t consider it when they voted to fire him.  The bigger irony is that it was a black Council member who made the motion to terminate him at the next Council meeting.  That didn’t stop the Manager from playing the Race Card.

This fiasco made me so angry, I ended up sending out a mass email with the subject line “Open Letter to the NAACP,” which later became one of my first blogs.  In that letter I admonished the NAACP, stating,

“You have pushed the wrong button with me.  You do not intimidate me and you can not make me back down.  I will not succumb to blackmail or threats, nor will I cower in fear of retaliation.  You want to come into my city and make false accusations of racism where none exists, and you will have to face me…They say the pen is mightier than the sword.  Well, you had better believe it.  I promise you that every move you make will be duly recorded by me and publicized as wide and as far as is possible by the power of the internet.  I will contact news outlets, both local and national, and bring as much attention to your vindictive scheme as possible.  I will not rest until YOU back down.  And, I can guarantee you that I am tireless.  The City Manager is absolutely NOT a victim of racism…but only a victim of his own poor decisions and incompetent management.  If he continues to keep up this charade of victimization there will be a backlash from this community, the likes of which I guarantee he has never seen.

And if the NAACP doesn’t back off and slither out of our town, I can also guarantee they will wish they had never slithered in to begin with.

I have one message for the NAACP:  BRING… IT… ON!”
Thus began my blogging career in earnest.

Since I started, I’ve been called a racist by people who refuse to send their white kids to our mostly black high school.  They either put them in private schools or lie about their addresses so their kids can go to a “whiter” school a few miles away.  Meanwhile, my kids attended ours with no problem until my daughter’s junior year when she came home and asked me why someone called her a cracker.  Try explaining that to a kid who spent the first 16 years of her life with mostly black, Hispanic and Asian friends, and who all of a sudden felt “different.”

By sheer coincidence I’m sure, this happened in the spring 2009, shortly after Barack Obama was installed in our White House.  Having followed his career since he first came on the scene in Chicago, I was no fan of his politics or his radical left wing ideology.  Election night 2008 was not a joyful one for me.  But after years of nothing but Bush bashing, I was resigned to the fact that we would have a Democrat as president.  I knew things would get bad.  It still shocked me how bad it would get and how quickly it would happen.  I did hold out hope, however, that he would serve as a role model for millions of young black children.  I had hoped that he would inspire blacks to believe that if a black man can be president, anything was possible.  I figured at least that some good might come out of this election.

I figured wrong.

I won’t tell you anything new when I say that Obama is the most racially divisive politician I have ever seen.  Shockingly and blatantly so.  From his “the police acted stupidly” comment, to his Justice Department’s refusal to prosecute New Black Panther voter intimidation, from his instantaneous defense of Trayvon Martin to his constant inciting of class warfare, from his praising of Muslim “achievements” in America to his telling Israel to self-destruct, there is no doubt in my mind that Mr. Obama is anything but a post-racial president.

It wasn’t my intention that my first column for The Daily Pamphlet would be all about racism, although this topic does seem to be a running thread in some of my more controversial, but popular, blogs.  What I had hoped to do was introduce myself and give you an idea of who I am and why I write.  Unfortunately, I tend to be inspired by things that piss me off, and this week’s rant began when I read an article entitled Federal Judge Imposes Racial Quota on FDNY, Responding to Minorities Who Failed Entrance Exams (http://cnsnews.com/news/article/federal-judge-imposes-racial-quota-fdny-responding-minorities-who-failed-entrance-exams).  As you might imagine, this made my blood boil.  The article states,

“On July 5 in Brooklyn, Nicholas G. Garaufis, a Clinton-appointed judge for the Eastern District of New York, issued a ruling that requires two of every five newly hired fireman to be black and one of every five, Hispanic — until the department has fulfilled the court-ordered quota of 186 black and 107 Hispanic hires.

The ruling allows back pay — totaling an estimated $128.7 million — for minorities who failed written tests.”

So, let me get this straight.  One of this country’s finest Fire Departments is now going to be forced to not only hire less qualified people to be firefighters, but they’re going to reward them for not being able to pass a placement written exam.  Isn’t that special?  The judge decided that the tests “were discriminatory against blacks and Hispanics, because [I hope you're sitting down] FEWER MINORITIES PASSED THE EXAM THAN WHITES.”

Gee, I dunno.  Why don’t we dumb down medical school exams if there are too many idiots WHO CAN’T PASS THEM?

Oh, wait.  We already have that.  It’s called Affirmative Action!

I don’t know about you, but if I needed surgery, I’d much rather be operated on by a doctor who was admitted to medical school because of his intelligence and not his skin color.  I’m just saying.

If you think being a firefighter is an easy job, think again.  I’m fairly qualified to tell you that it’s more than just carrying someone down a ladder or spraying a building fire with a hose.  My husband is a now retired Lieutenant with the Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue Department with over thirty years’ experience on the job.  I’ve seen the sample tests – not only the entrance exams, but the Lieutenant and Paramedic exams as well.  I stuck it out for two years when my husband went to paramedic school after twenty years on the job and literally studied around the clock.  It was no picnic, but he passed with flying colors.  Plenty of blacks and Hispanics passed those exams, too, and believe me, the bar was high.

Now, all of a sudden we’re supposed to lower the bar because some politically correct judge decided that blacks and Hispanics are too stupid to pass a standard firefighter exam?  How insulting!

The judge further “ruled that minorities who were not hired because they failed the entrance exams must be paid a “retroactively higher salary” and receive “retroactive seniority” once they are hired through the new quota system. Retroactive seniority affects accrual of vacation and sick leave, among other benefits.”

Lucky taxpayers!

All I can say is, remind me not to get stuck in a burning building in New York City.  I’ll take my chances here in South Florida.  I know our firefighters are qualified.

At least until some liberal judge lowers the bar.