Swastikas in the brickwork

Sort of a proverb: If you look for something hard enough, you'll eventually find it — even if it's not really there.

During our current moment, public discourse is obsessed with racism. In a population in excess of 300 million, there have to be some particularly hateful people. But racism is not the reason for the lower standard of living endured by the descendants of slaves who were freed by the Civil War.

One of the smartest of the 300 million is a descendant of those slaves, Thomas Sowell. Dr. Sowell has written several books, one of which is titled Ethnic America. In it, he describes the history of every significant ethnic group in our midst...including those whose ancestors came from Africa. He breaks those into three groups: 1) Free persons "of color." Prior to the Civil War, some Blacks had already achieved their freedom, Frederick Douglass being one of the most famous, and Crispus Attucks had come about a century earlier, and was killed at the Boston Massacre. 2) African and West Indian immigrants...such as Vice President Harris's father (Jamaican). And 3) the descendants of slaves freed by the Civil War.

The last group is certainly the most numerous. The first two groups, early freedmen and immigrants, are mostly identical to the "white" population as far as educational achievement and income, thus blowing up the use of racism as a cause for the disparity — since, to the typical hateful "Cracker," they all look alike.

Dr. Sowell proffers an explanation for this phenomenon. The early freedmen had been integrated into American society long before slavery in the South was abolished. Slavery in the West Indies was particularly harsh (compared to that in the U.S.), so the ultimate survivors of that practice had finely honed survival skills.

But with one exception, every single one that was good ad what they did was born and raised outside the US.

Before I got side tracked by doing well on a civil service test and getting hired by a fire department... I was working on an engineering degree and had work study jobs. My last assignment was computer lab assistant at the downtown satellite “business center” where I maintained the lab's computers, helped students with their home work, and filled in for professors who were unable to get to their classes. They typically had some type of lesson plan they were following and I was a computer and electronics enthusiast for years prior to going back to school so the job fit me very well.

The “downtown business center” largely had students who already were in the workforce and were trying to better themselves and their situations. It was not like the main campus where most of the students were fresh out of high school. The place was open during the day, but most of the classes were at night. I came into contact with a lot of students and did a lot of tutoring in the lab. Some of the students were black, but as you noted in your experience those that had aptitude and worked hard were foreigners. I actually can not remember even one black student that I assisted who seemed to have a lot of promise who was not a foreigner.

My previous work study job was in the math and reading labs on the main campus. Those I worked with there were mostly young people who had difficulty participating in college level reading and math courses. I worked mostly as a tutor. It didn't really suit me as well as working in the computer lab but was interesting work.

Before that time I did not realize that other people's minds sometimes worked in ways vastly different than my own. This is especially true for people with “learning disabilities”. I am sure that all those who have worked as teachers understand this very well.

Most of the students that I came into contact at the math and reading labs were fresh out of high school and a high percentage had “learning disabilities”. Most seemed sincere about wanting to learn. Many of them were black and from this country. It was shocking to me at the time that people who had almost nonexistent math and reading skills actually had been awarded high school diplomas.

I used to remember some very good examples but this was decades ago and I now have to be prompted by some event to remember most of the students and situations. Sometimes I would have to explain a very simple concept several different ways before a student would catch on at all. Unfortunately many of the students who had these types of problems were black and I wondered how they would ever be capable of performing anything other than very basic menial tasks.

I was older than most other students on the main campus. I spent a year in college after high school but had to drop out to go to work at a failing family lumber mill business. I worked at that for eight years before deciding to pursue an engineering degree.

So I had quite a bit of previous experience showing people how to do work at the lumber mill and supervising. Doing that did teach me about varying aptitudes. But in that case if I had someone who couldn't be taught we just let them go. As cruel as that may sound... It is not a good idea to have people working around heavy equipment who cannot figure out how to stay safe after being warned repeatedly. Of course I should talk after nearly losing fingers on several occasions and repeated trips to get little chunks of rusting metal pulled out of my eyes.

I would have to say that after working on a fire department for 25 years... affirmative action people who are put in supervisory roles are often a disaster. We had many good black people on the department. But several complete idiots who were actually promoted repeatedly based mostly on the color of their skin. The issues that they caused were shocking on many occasions... usually it was just embarrassing, but sometimes it was dangerous.

One of my managers in IT at Boeing was a black affirmative action hire. The most amazing thing I noticed about the guy was that he didn’t seem to have the ability to actually form a complete sentence.

I also worked for Fort Knox for a while and that was my only stint as a contractor working with military people. On one task my customer was these three very nice black ladies. I had a very difficult time explaining things and extracting requirements from them for months, and then one day it hit me: They simply didn’t have the aptitude for it. It was the military and I have a strong feeling that particular area was not a meritocracy in the slightest.

Actually, that realization helped me work through the problems pretty well - until I found a different contract and got the heck out of there.

I’m not trying to pounce on american blacks. Rather, I’m dismayed by their ability to be promoted way past their competency level simply because of the color of their skin. I wish I could get a black privilege card.

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