Reverse racism - America's curious use of language

Due to time constraints and a lot going on in my life, I haven't blogged here in a long time, but today there is a story that really bothers me and requires me to "pen" my thoughts.

I refer, of course, to the overruling of a judgement against white fire-fighters in New Haven, an event the media are reporting as "reverse racism"

Here are the facts of the story...
The New Haven fire department, noticing that their fire-fighters were predominantly white, took "affirmative action" to create a more racially mixed workforce. Thus they created written tests that firefighters needed to pass to gain promotion to more senior levels in the force. The idea being that the test would create a level playing field and be a fair way for people to demonstrate their skills/knowledge to gain promotion. Unfortunately those who scored highly on the test were white or hispanic and yet these firefighters were overlooked promotion because the New Haven district was afraid to promote them for fear of litigation from other minorities who would claim racial discrimination.

Quite rightly (I think), the white firefighters filed a lawsuit claiming discrimination which, initially, they lost. They have since appealed and today, the decision was, correctly in my opinion, overturned. Good for them I say.

What bothers me greatly is that the media is reporting this as a case of "reverse discrimination." Just the mere rhetoric of it suggests that racism is a white problem and thus, reverse racism, is just what white folk dish out being thrown back at them.
No.
Racism is racism, whichever way you look at it. Whether it's white on black, black on white, white on hispanic, hispanic on asian, asian on black, etc, etc, etc. It's ugly whichever direction it's going and I abhor it.

But back to this case in point...certainly in a position such as a senior firefighter, I sincerely hope they have the best men for the job. If a test discriminates between strong and weak candidates and allows the best candidates to be identified for positions, then I'm all for it. After all, tests ARE discriminatory - that's the whole point of them. It is unfortunate that in this instance the test discriminated along racial lines aswell, and I can't claim to understand why that would be, but the fact of the matter is, if you do poorly on a test, then you shouldn't get promoted. Similarly, if you score well on a test, you should not get overlooked for promotion because the color of your skin comes in to play.

The media is reporting that "affirmative action" took a knock today. I disagree. On the contrary, I think affirmative action was put under the spotlight and came through with flying colors. There should be more of it. Let's make it a level playing field, but then let's not complain when we fall short and point fingers at something else for being the cause.

The bottom line is, I want the best firefighters I can have. Those guys save lives. I don't care if you're black, yellow, white or green. I'll be just as happy for you to come and save me.

Why the recession sucks.

Because I, like many other innocent bystanders, just found out that I shall be unemployed at the end of the month.

That's the long and short of it.

I now have four weeks to figure out where the next mortgage payment is coming from.

"Random" Musings

Every now and then I throw a couple of bucks away on the lottery, be it Mega Millions or the New York Lotto. I get myself some "Quick Picks" - a selection of random numbers generated from the lotto machine because (1) I'm too lazy to pick numbers myself, and (2) If I did play the same numbers every week, I'd be mortified if I forgot to buy a ticket and they then came up.



So anyway, bear in mind that my lotto numbers are generated randomly (and randomly is the key word here), what's wrong with this picture?

I've been noticing this a lot lately - my ability to match numbers between my own lines and yet fail to match ANY numbers to the ones drawn is astounding. The odds of matching my own numbers are also astounding.

Basically, given the numbers 1 to 59, your chances of matching one number to any one drawn is 1 in 59. Your chance of matching a second number to one drawn is 1 in 58 (since one ball is now missing from the lotto machine), but your chances of getting two correct are 1/59 x 1/58 which is 1 in 3422

However, given that my numbers are just on a ticket, there is no "missing ball" so the chances of me matching two numbers on my ticket are 1/59 x 1/59 which is 1 in 3481. Yet it happens to me ALL THE TIME.

I'm beginning to think there's a conspiracy here. The random number generators in the lotto machines of NYC aren't that random. Maybe they're running some weird algorithm to ensure that people don't win.

As Ted said in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure - "Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K"

The Liquid Disconnect

Well, one good thing about the current economic crisis is that the price of gas (or as I say - petrol) is going down. That's only good assuming you still have a job to pay for the gas, but that's a whole other story.

I find people's obsession with the price of fuel somewhat amusing, especially here in the US. At its most expensive, gas peaked at just over $4 a gallon. People were outraged.

The reason I find this particularly amusing in the US is because back in the UK, gas costs approximately four times what it does in the US. People were complaining how bad things were when really, they had no idea how GOOD they have it. If you can fill your car up for less than $60 - then that's a real bargain.

I've been thinking about this recently and wondering why people think their gas should be inexpensive. Why they expect it to be so. Think about it. Before your gas can get to the pump a whole host of things need to happen. The oil companies in the first instance have to prospect for oil, that means drilling lots of test wells at huge expense to find the oil in the first place. Once they find it, they then have to invest another huge amount of money to set up an oil rig/pump. Now the oil is pumping, they then have to put it in containers (which cost money) and transport it to a refinery (which costs more money). At the refinery, the gasoline then has to be extracted from the crude oil, re-barreled and then distributed all over the country/internationally. None of this takes into account the thousands of people who make all this happen who also need to get paid.

Despite the oil companies posting record profits year after year, it's fantastic that a gallon of gas ONLY costs a few dollars given the processes involved. Instead of us thinking cheap gas should be a right, we should be downright grateful that it's as cheap as it is.

This thought then sent me off on another tangent. If we're so upset about what we pay for gas, what about other liquid products that we purchase with no thought whatsoever as to the price.

I have compiled a short list of things that are routinely purchased and then done a price conversion as to how much a gallon of each of them would cost. It makes for some interesting reading:

Can of Soda ($1) - Gallon ($10.60)
Bottled water (anything from 3c to 8c per fl oz) - Gallon ($3.84-$10.24)
Liter of Milk ($3) - Gallon ($11.36)
Small Starbucks Coffee ($3) - Gallon ($31.80)

Now people can argue that the reason they get upset about fuel prices is because they have no choice but to buy gas, the oil companies, in effect, have them over a barrel (pardon the pun), but as you can see, gas is one of the cheapest liquid products you purchase. Why aren't we all up in arms about the cost of bottled water? What needs to be done to that besides some filtration and bottling? How is that price justified? How can we begrudge the price of a gallon of gas when we'll part with the same amount of money or more for just 1/10th of the same volume of coffee? Again, what process is involved in getting coffee to our stores that comes even close to the process that gets gas to the pump? The manual laborers who pick coffee beans probably make less in a month than you or I make in a day.

Personally I'm all for alternative fuels. The sooner we get away from oil and gas and stop choking the planet to death, the better, but seriously, the next time you want to complain about the price of gas, think about the last time you had a soda, or a coffee.

Opposite side of the street cleaning

In New York City, they have opposite side of the street parking four days a week. What this means is that every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, a little sweeper truck cruises around the streets sweeping up all the dirt and detritus that Manhattanites feel is their right to dump in the street.

If you've never been to Manhattan, I can tell you that the streets are packed full of parked cars - and all of these need to be moved come street cleaning day, so the sweeper truck can properly clean the street (otherwise the lovely NYPD traffic department slap a $65 parking ticket on your vehicle).

So my question is this... How do so many people in Manhattan manage to (a) also afford to own a car and (b) also be home at least two days a week to move their cars.

What do these people do for a living?

I'm in the wrong job.

The US Election

It would be remiss of me, in a blog about living in America, not to comment on the recent US election.

For me the whole election was somewhat of a sideshow since, as a permanent resident and not a US citizen, I was not allowed to vote (why that should be so, when I pay taxes, have health insurance and will send my kids to US schools, I have no idea - but that's the law). As things stand, I do not see myself ever voting in a US election since I have no intention of relinquishing my UK citizenship, for the sole reason that it gives my kids dual citizenship, which is possibly the greatest gift that I can give them.

That aside, I'm glad Obama won. Had I voted, he would have got my vote. I think it was the right result and I think Obama is what the US needs right now in terms of repairing US relations overseas. You only needed to see the happiness around the world when Obama was elected to realize that people everywhere think similarly.

What was interesting to me was how the news networks covered the result. Time and again I heard the same comment "Clearly race wasn't an issue for the voters in the election," and then they would cut to an African-American reporter almost in tears saying something along the lines of "I never thought I'd see this day. We never thought a black man would be president." So for as much as the media claimed the election wasn't about race - they then proceeded to make it about race.

What has become clear in the US, is that people of African-American descent can do anything. For example, in the last few years we have had Halle Berry winning a best actress Oscar, and two Super Bowl teams with African American coaches. Perhaps now that an African-American has been elected to the highest office in the land, the ongoing demon of "First African-American this, and first African-American that..." can be laid to rest. Clearly, the opportunity to be the most powerful man in the world is open to everyone - and by default, therefore so should everything else. The sooner people of ALL races stop harping on about things, the sooner we can put racism behind us.

Now that's not to say that we'll ever be completely free of racism and prejudice. We're all guilty of it to a greater or lesser degree and there will always be bigoted and ignorant people, but for me and I'm sure many other people in America, Barack's election to president had nothing to with the color of his skin, he just made more sense than John McCain.

Hate to say I told you so...

So after my little rant about the state of the economy the other day, here we are faced with the administration trying to push through a "rescue package" for the financial institutions of the country which numbers 700 billion dollars.

There are numerous reasons why this "bail out" should bother us all. Firstly, we are talking about the same banks and lending institutions that have irresponsibly loaned us back our own money (I use the word "own" in the collective sense) and enjoyed reaping huge profits in interest for the past x amount of years. We are talking about the same banks that charge us for practically every service they offer. The same banks that charge us extortionate fees when we go overdrawn. The same banks that enjoyed massive returns from playing the stock markets with our money, and the same banks that, if they go under, will lose our money for us. And now the government wants to save wall street with 700 billion of OUR money?!?!?!

Are you serious? No. Come on. ARE YOU SERIOUS?

First of all - where was this 700 billion dollars for health care when it was needed? Where was this 700 billion dollars for education when it was needed? Where was this 700 billion dollars for the troops putting their butts on the line when they needed it?

Secondly, every taxpayer in the country should be up in arms about this. Our money, that the government is withholding, is going to bale out the fat cats of wall street because they got greedy? You have got to be kidding me.

If nothing else, the financial meltdown has just gone to show what a completely bare-faced liar Dubya is. Sure you can fool people if you tell them the same lie over and over again, but George, the economy is not a person. It responds to market forces beyond your control.

"The economy is strong."
"The economy is strong."
"The economy is strong."

Crash.

Separated at birth?

So after my little rant the other day about the financial institutions, I thought it time to inject a little light relief into the blog.

As I've been immersing myself in American culture, it has come to my attention that there are a number of people on TV who bear a strking resemblance to one another. Humour me for a moment if you will.....

Here we have FOX 5's very own roving reporter Linda Schmidt and the Canadian warbler Celine Dion.

Long before Tina Fey did her little skit on Sarah Palin I had commented on the similarity between the two of them. If you are in any doubt, see below:

And finally...

Our illustrious leader, Dubya, and a distant cousin.