PJ Media

Sometimes the black guy is actually pretty sharp and is deserving, but the as arguement can be a convient excuse for why a white person did not get the job.

My experience over the years is that a lot of people find it easier to blame AA than to blame their drinking problem, or their bad attitude, or any of a number of other factors that prevented them from getting a job or a promotion. But I worked as an employment agent in the 1970s, and I saw a lot of, without question, racial discrimination. Northrop Data Systems even put it in writing: “Because this position is currently filled by an EEO double pointer, it must be filled with same.” Meaning a female minority held the current job, and the position was thus reserved for another female minority.

I worked trying to place a guy who went from printer’s devil for the Jehovah’s Witnesses publishing house to systems engineer at Rockwell with no apparent training or education. Then, while working for Rockwell full-time, he completed his BS, MS, and PhD (in Chemistry, Physics, and Cosmology) at a diploma mill over a period of about three years. When I asked him what he did for Rockwell, he could never articulate what his job was. As near as I could tell, it was “Black PhD in charge of filling a quota.” This was beyond AA; this was utter fraud. Rockwell paid him well–and he expected–and received–a good raise to go to another aerospace company that needed a black PhD in charge of filling a quota.

This guy was astonishingly gross, but there were other situations where I think the programmers that I was dealing with might well have been able to do something productive–but since they were hired to meeting AA goals, it didn’t much matter what they did. One Hispanic guy I interviewed was hired out of college by IBM. He had worked on one project shortly after hiring–but for 14 months, IBM had him sitting in their Westlake Village office, reading magazines. They gave him nothing to do. He wanted a real job. (And leaving IBM, which paid well, and at the time had a policy of lifetime employment, would have been difficult.) Was he incompetent? I doubt that they could have figured out from one project of a couple months duration. (Remember: fresh college graduate.) This was an outrage.

There was one young black woman that I found a job for who was the victim of AA. She had good references, and good experience, writing mainframe business accounting programs. But I noticed that while her first job seemed like it had treated her like she mattered, her second job had given her very undemanding work–and her third job, which I placed her at, with an aerospace company, sounded like they were going to again put her aside, not because she wasn’t capable, but because they really didn’t need her skills–except her skill at filling a racial quota.

I had one occasion where I placed a guy who was clearly very sharp, with excellent references. It was among the most embarrassing experiences, because he was light enough that I had to ask him his race–because the employer needed to know, before they would interview him.

I’m sick of the excuses that get made for racial discrimination.