An acquaintance was a fireman in a town north of Boston. He retired ASAP back in the mid-1990’s. Why? Because the minorities that were being hired were clearly unqualified (”f**king retarted” was the exact phrase he used to describe the ones he was forced to work with) and he could not rely on them for his safety while on the job.
Public safety? A joke, like everything else has become.
I don’t take any “protected” minority or woman seriously until they prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that their ethnicity or genitalia wasn’t the reason they are in their position; while it is nice to deal with competent people from those groups, you’d be shocked how many are simply useless tokens hired as charity (or to protect against lawsuits). I’ve always found that when you go straight to the “non-protected” people, you get results; they actually earned their position, and often have to really produce to avoid having another token replace them. Even the tokens and their keepers know SOMEBODY has to do the real work...