Should anyone doubt that Martin Luther King’s work is far from over…
The New London Day reported yesterday that the City of New London has not hired a black firefighter since 1978. At the current time it has one black firefighter (who must be a rather elderly gentleman by this time), and two Hispanics. The department just swore in a new batch of recruits, each one a white male, and each a resident of a suburban town.
But not to worry. According to the chief, what looks like an egregious pattern of discrimination is simply the inevitable by-product of the department’s insistence on getting highly qualified candidates. And indeed it is, since the department’s definition of “highly qualified” practically guarantees that no one need apply save white suburban males. The department gives heavy weight to previous experience, which white males can pick up in their suburban volunteer fire departments, an option not open to city residents. So, this is not merely a system that discriminates against minorities and women, it is one that discriminates against all New London residents, albeit the unspoken motivating cause might be a desire to keep out the minorities.
This type of faux insistence on credentials has held up remarkably well as a bulwark against opening up boys clubs like the New London Fire Department. In fact, believe it or not, it does not take a rocket scientist to be a fireman, and it would not be difficult for the City of New London to have a top rate fire department and give job opportunities to its own residents at the same time. If prior experience is so important, why not begin an internship program and bring in New London youth to work alongside the professional firefighters and give graduates of that program preference? After all, that’s essentially what the white males from the suburbs are getting from the volunteer fire departments, from which they learn their trade (without the benefit of prior experience) until they can cash in to the disadvantage of New London residents. Then again, why have an experience requirement at all, given that all new hires are immediately sent to the state’s fire academy to learn the trade once again? I repeat, this isn’t rocket science. Any reasonably intelligent physically fit person can learn how to do it.
There’s nothing new under the sun. My father was a firefighter in the ’50s for the City of Hartford. Of course, back then, it was unthinkable that a black person or an Hispanic would even be considered for the department, but the clubbiness didn’t stop there. My father managed to get hired, despite his strangely polysyllabic last name, but, he couldn’t earn a promotion despite acing the objective written test. Mysteriously, he totally flubbed the oral “test”, and the job went to a deserving son of the Emerald Isle. I know this story only from hearsay, as I was quite young at the time, but I have no reason to doubt it in any of its particulars.
One Comment