Geronimo, your faithful correspondent, was originally encouraged to create this blog by having comments regularly selected over the course of a year or two by the editors of the NY Times. Talk about a love-hate relationship!They did it again today, for Geronimo's response to a piece by Charlie Savage, headline: Justice Dept. to Recharge Enforcement of Civil Rights.
Here it is, with the accompanying NYT explanation of what the "EDITORS' SELECTIONS" designation means. That's fine as far as it goes, but the piece was also voted #6 (a/o 10AM) by the Times' readers.
27.
EDITORS' SELECTIONS (what's this?)
Economist Thomas Sowell cites a pair-matched study where high-work-ethic West Indian Africans (Caribbean families who'd emigrated to the US), who looked African-American, fared somewhat better for socio-economic progress over the years than did a white experimental control group chosen for similar incomes, education levels, etc. In other words, the greater work ethic / thrift ethic / education values of the West Indian African-descent people in the study were more than sufficient to allow the West Indian Africans to out-progress a white, native born control group.
This finding contradicts the "racist hypothesis," which rarely gets challenged in any public forum any more. The “America is racist” hypothesis sets forth that, if you are visibly of African descent, it doesn't much matter what you do, how much you learn, how hard you work, what profession you choose. Your race, seen by the racial majority around you, will cause people to put obstacles in your path so that you will never be able to make socioeconomic progress because of this insurmountable racial disadvantage.
Substantial research by Sowell and others refutes that, and not just by this example. President Obama, (need it be said?) is a terrific example of how someone who happens to have an African parent, but has done the things society calls for to get to the higher tiers, can be elected to the highest office in the US.
The departure of the civil rights lawyers cited in the article begs the question--what were their expectations? If they wanted to manipulate the workforce toward a situation in which each and every demanding, education-intensive profession has the same number of each protected class as are present in the underlying population, you'd expect a lot of turnover and frustration. It's an unrealistic model, but an unfortunately common one—“If half the country’s women, why aren’t half the Fortune 500 CEO’s women?” People forget that all but a few of the MEN in the workforce didn’t make it to the top of a Fortune 500 company either. Merit intervened. The average credential for a Fortune 500 CEO a few years ago was: 30 years continuous time in the workforce, since MBA. So, how many women got their MBA’s, with a technical undergrad degree, back in the 1970’s, and never, ever left the workforce since?
Most people want to be the patient of the heart-transplant surgeon who did best in a competitive, meritocratic system. Nobody sensible wants to be the patient of the heart-transplant surgeon who, ever since kindergarten, got the most help from every available affirmative action updraft, all the way through to med school.
People in the US are in favor of equal opportunity, mediated by merit. If the Obama administration gets distracted into efforts to overturn that common-sense principle, and dictate results and outcomes that reduce consideration for merit, they are begging for trouble--from an electorate that likes President Obama immensely.