Quotas

 

In Another Data Processing Book I have an essay on affirmative action. I also have a blog entry In Defense of Privilege. In light of recent events, I am revisiting them here.

Most people seem to believe that affirmative action meant that we simply instituted quotas. Affirmative action law was passed by whites. If you could demonstrate merit, and not very strictly, you didn’t have to have quotas. So, case by case, company by company, school by school, it was proven in a court of law that they had legacy, employees’ kids, preferences, that they did not select on merit. They had quotas and now the question was how big those quotas should be. This maximized work for the lawyers. That is why there are law firms devoted to civil rights law.

Current arguments against quotas have a misplaced notion of fairness The arguments of the time focused on institutional autonomy. They used phrases like “academic integrity”. Invariably these institutions receive federal money. They recognize everyone else’s patronage. We the people decided to use our patronage in this way.

Affirmative action is why all these institutions have requirements and tests. They provide screens to justify the decisions they want to make. When I was hitting for programmer trainee jobs, if you could make it past reception and the initial interview you were then tested. Reception and the initial interview weren’t all that easy. Reception wants to minimize the work load. At Sears the first interview question was about High school. I had gone to Kenwood; we don’t talk about Kenwood. Or rather when we do, nobody believes us. You were supposed to say:

-It was just like Leave it to Beaver, only better.

One common screen was a low starting salary.

The tests had several dyslexia questions and then the washout question. No one got the washout question. Then the company could pick and choose as they always had while satisfying the legal requirement. Sometimes the question looked doable but the answer was none of the above or cannot be answered with the information given. Unless you recognized the point was to wash everyone out it is difficult to pick those. In Monty Python and the Holy Grail there is a joke about swallows. At Time Inc. I was looking down at the test and I recognized a swallow question. I am one of the few who got the washout question. Now the company was in a difficult position, I was not one of the intended. They did their best to discourage me. Being dense I figured that was more of their selection process. Thanks to affirmative action I was the merit hire. This was not common. The class was white. The first thing the instructor told us was:

-Anyone can be a programmer.

We all laughed.

The essential function of middle management is to avoid responsibility. Affirmative action gave middle management a handy dandy all-purpose excuse for difficult personnel decisions. Whites accepted when they were told:

-We had to take a black guy.

There might be one black in the class, but that is not why you didn’t get in, laid off, or terminated. The perception of quotas was far greater than the reality. Imagine the white resonance when every bad thing that happened to them and theirs was quotas. White rage means black people get killed.

More blacks were hired. It was still racist. A fellow student was a double major in mathematics and physics, on the dean’s list. When he interviewed, he was offered human resources jobs. He then got his MBA from University of Chicago. When he interviewed, he was offered human resources jobs. He decided to work for his dad. I saw some of those black human resources retiring decades later as vice presidents and directors, wasn’t that bad.

Obama, with all his qualifications, practiced civil rights law.

It used to be that the aspiring young man with the good degree started in the mail room.  He wasn’t always a relative, but sometimes there just wasn’t anyone else, what can you do? The point of such a job was that he met everyone in the company. Everyone understood why he was there and they took him under their wing and mentored him. He was given further responsibility. Someone from reception who knew everyone coming through the front door was selected for his secretary. If they worked well together, they were a team that moved up in the company. This reinforced corporate culture, although sometimes he would take the company in “a new direction”.

The new requirements mean that the young man has to pass a clerical aptitude test. Those kids are often dyslectic, mom drank. Instead, they get an MBA degree. This means they are coming into the company as middle management and much less approachable. They even select their own administrative assistant. They believe, with their year of accounting, they are experts in business. This corruption of status is the worst consequence. We had an MBA president:

-I am the decider.

Now that the supreme court with their defiant rejection of quotas have returned to privilege, we see the end of all the various requirements. Your degree will be considered rather than required. As will whatever other abilities and references. In Chicago an alderman is a good reference. Companies and schools are no longer required even a pretense. If you think blacks were the only beneficiaries of quotas, wait for it, wait for it. Bosses hire people like themselves. The confirmation bias is that homogeneity is more comfortable. This means you ladies. There are women who resent working. If you hate your job, try full time work for a husband.

The great logicians, Russell and Whitehead, selected the wealthy applicant, Wittgenstein, over the one who tested higher. Endowment is logical.

Chicago Chokes

 

Christine asked:

-Why is Canada burning?

Without hesitation I responded:

-Lumber companies planted the wrong trees and it got warm.

Seems glib, but in this case my cynicism was correct. If you go out on Google Earth, it is clear that the arboreal, original Canadian forest did not burn. Lumber companies proffer all sorts of rationalizations. Whatever they say, it didn’t work.

If they take refuge in regulation, consider the Exxon Valdez. Exxon Mobil went into court and said that Alaska did not require double wall tankers. Everyone laughed because the reason for that was because Exxon had lobbied against it. Covering North America in soot is a lot worse than dumping oil on beaches.

Lumber companies have no refuge. This is their game. They ran it. Lumber companies don’t own all the land, but they did the cutting. They didn’t know it was getting warmer? The cutover areas flamed. Arboreal sometimes burns, not like this.

Please prevent these boobies from planting trees. They barely harvest the forest. They clear the forest so they can plant the trees they want. Nothing burns as well as a tree farm.

-Look how fast they grow.

If they grow fast, they burn fast. If nothing were done, a varied understory would have to develop, that holds more moisture. From that understory there will come a greater diversity of forest.

-That is not profitable.

That doesn’t matter. The only use remaining for these companies is to pay out settlements. Whatever they did, it failed. Lumber companies have always mismanaged forest, so it has been, so shall it be. Whenever there is cutover there are severe fires. A conservatorship should be established. Hopefully, someone can be found who knows what they are doing to manage the forest.

Stop rescuing the forest. The lumber company solution is to build more roads so they can better manage the fires. Please don’t. Forests manage fires fine. It is the replanted cutover and fire control areas that are dumping the smoke.

Why are Canadians nice? Canadians are the ones who had to leave the USA. Those nice Canadians should nicely tell the lumber companies to get the nice out.

If Canada fails, Chicago has no shortage of lawyers. Some of those lumber companies are US. This is a class action suit. What can’t a Chicago lawyer do? I can see the lumber companies trying their smug and stupid in front of a choking jury. The lumber companies will say that this was caused by a lack of lumber demand that kept them from harvesting enough before it burned.

-Fly my pretties, fly.

Alfred Doolittle Gets SNAP

Small segments can have disproportionate influence in politics. Lenin’s conscious cadre works. The reality TV segment awakened the fascist segment and the Russians. Brexit and Trump satisfy the agenda of ending their respective empires.

Republicans threatened to use the debt ceiling to bring down the empire. Because they were upset that Alfred Doolittle, the undeserving poor, was in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The Republicans were mad at all sorts of things, they coalesced on their antipathy towards Doolittle. As Doolittle points out in My Fair Lady, being poor doesn’t improve character. We all have a Doolittle in the family. Our families Doolittle hates welfare. He qualified for disability. He has Multiple Sclerosis from dealing crack. So, he can’t work, except for the side job disassembling cars. You can’t live on just disability. Doolittle is a good son; he got his parents on disability as well.

Take Ella. This was a while ago. Ella started as Ella Fitzgerald, born in Chicago. Her man threw her down the stairs and she became Ella Mae, born in Mississippi. Ella wanted to work; you can’t live on just welfare. There was no day care, so Ella Mae checked her children into school early. She told the school she didn’t have birth certificates for them because they had been born in Mississippi. The dumb school believed her. The school put the children into EMH, Educational Mentally Handicapped because they were obviously immature. Years later, the school figured it out, but that damage was done.

Ella would wait until after the checker had totaled her groceries to pull out her food stamps. Food stamps only paid for food. The poor checker would have to pull all the groceries back and separate them while Ella would holler:

-I need those.

Ella considered herself an activist. President Nixon liked her and used her as an example of the working poor.

The Doolittle’s and Ellas are Trump supporters. They have no comprehension of altruism or solidarity.

In their defense, they are not boing-boing or lock-head.  Doolittle and Ella didn’t drop planes, blow up Challenger, or start wars. Another issue for Republicans is that they are worried the IRS is going to make them pay taxes.

Don’t be too concerned. Some people will be cut but the Doolittle’s and Ellas will qualify for SNAP, agriculture wants SNAP. Rich people will avoid taxes. The war machine will get its money. The British have an annual ceremony where they make a big show of knocking on the door. US’ns like to have more drama.

This drama undercuts legitimacy. Rather than geographical remnant of slavery our two legislative bodies should divide on popularly elected representatives of function. One body should decide our international functions: trade, empire, mineral rights, military… the other should be domestic. We could put national plebiscite in charge of approving the budget, that the two bodies came to.