First, La Shawn, I’m so glad you’ve said this stuff, because as a white male, I can’t (not and be heard). On the testing: EEOC standards/guidelines/case law say that a test which yields an imbalance along racial lines must be “job-related” (and if the employer can establish that, the imbalance is permissible). (I don’t want to overload the La Shawn server, so more on this at my Dooz-O-Sphere blog)

Once the testing is job-related, let the qualified get the jobs, as you and many of your readers have said. (Mr. or Ms. Activist, if you’re needing to be rescued from a burning building, do you want to see the best possible firefighters or a “correct” racial representation chosen by Affirmative Action?)

(Just a thought: Affirmative Action is racist in that it deprives the minority person of achieving on his own merit, of truly succeeding. If he makes it, he and everyone else gives the credit to AA.)

RedBeard: Right On! To the thinking employer, there are only two kinds of people in this world, good workers and unsatisfactory workers. Period. (More)

Chris V and others: I am SO TIRED of “groups”. I believe there is nothing more racist and segregating than “multiculturalism”, which is taking us two giant steps backward, back to stereotyping, labeling by race, and dividing us into “us” and “them”. I believe this is the root of rising racial incidents on the most “liberal’ college campuses.

And BTW, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that there’s a rising hatred of whites in the ghetto. You hear the rhetoric long enough (and have “issues” of your own, e.g. lack of skills, lack of responsibility, lack of respect for authority [as you've suggested, La Shawn and Kimberly]), you begin to believe that you have cause to hate.

(No room here to react to Oprah and Obama, and politics of race generally. See for more verbosity on that.)

Stacey: Yes, I too just can’t comprehend “hate crimes” as a legal definition. If you murder someone, can you do it without hate? If you hate for reasons other than race is it not still hate? If you vandalize someone’s (or “nobody’s”) property, is that not a product of hate of some kind? If you commit an armed robbery, is it a hate crime, or only if the victim is “a protected minority”? Where do we place gang conflict? Okay, Supreme Court, that’s your assignment for the next decade–or century!

And finally, a word or three to the various “advocates”: Ladies and gentlemen, PLEASE don’t keep telling “your people” they have rights and entitlements when you got where you are by (weird but true) actually working for it. PLEASE don’t keep telling “your people” that they’re victims of discrimination when you know full well that you achieved despite REAL racism, the likes of which just don’t exist anymore, not even in Jena (where back in your youth the black kids would have been strung up for merely going under the whites’ tree and nothing would ever have been said about it). You’re not advocates, you’re inciters.

A public charge of racism demands a public apology. Doc Cheatem (sic) should apologise to all the citizens of Baltimore for his actions of inflaming racial tensions and fostering racial animosity toward whites.

Great point katrina. This is the darkside of trying to mandate “racial quotas”. It sacrifices “quality” for “quanity”. If a person couldn’t pass the test regardless of race, he or she shouldn’t be a fireperson. The idea is to have the “Best of the Best”. When the bar is set low, the end result will be low. The idiots in City Hall haven’t figured that one out yet and I doubt they ever will.

What these ‘dumbing down’ incidents do is make the whites superior to the black folks. And isn’t that the type of attitude REAL black leaders from the old days tried to quell??

I have been thinking for some months now that some of these nooses were planted by black folks themselves just to start trouble.

Turns out I was right. It is sickening and an embarassment to black folks everywhere.

No. What we are saying is that, if you have a hate crime in one direction, you must have it in the other. This does not negate the fact that many believe that there is no such thing as a hate crime.

I, for one, will always be against the very concept of thought crimes. It is plainly absurd.

However, if you are going to hold both individuals and the groups surrounding that individual accountable for hanging a noose, it is obvious you must hold equally accountable the person who attempts to fake that event.

In fact, I would argue that it is possible that the black who does this should be held accountable to a greater degree. That faker is trying to send a message with his planted noose every bit as much as the white person who leaves a noose. That makes them equal.

What makes his ‘crime’ worse, however, is the consequences he imposes on the innocent. He is trying to frame them for something they did not do, which could effect both the innocent individual and the innocent group: criminal charges, civil charges, being ostrasized, re-education camp (yes, that is my euphemism goofy ‘classes’ employers force us to attend) the costs of running the re-education camp in money, time, boredom, etc.

So, if there is hypocracy here, I would definitely say it belongs to those who think there SHOULD be hate (thought) crimes, but only for the right kind of people.

If people complain that a hanging noose doesn’t merit a hate crime, neither can the hoax be called a hate crime. I find this point funny, as in ironic. About 2 or 3 weeks ago, Sharpton was in D.C. for a march decrying the federal government not classifying hanging nooses as a hate crime. Now those really against hate crime legislation, seem to be saying the hoax should be considered a hate crime.

You gotta love it.

One problem is that the modern cult of the teenager discourages young people from being scholars. It isn’t considered hip to do well at academics. That has to change, and soon, and it’s we grownups who must make it change. But there aren’t many grownups of any color any more. . .

If they want to hire more minorities, they should just do it and quit pretending they’re being fair and impartial. Their pretense is worse than their being biased.