April 10, 2006

numbers are racist

Wanna see the kind of issue government likes to grapple with today? here is a perfect example. If you're a minority and you can't pass a math test, then the test must be racist.

Under a consent decree filed Monday in federal court in Norfolk, the city will change the way it scores the police entrance exam.

The Justice Department had complained that the math portion of the exam had an adverse effect on minority applicants and unfairly excluded them from being hired.

"Unfairly?" Don't you just LOVE such convoluted logic? If you can't do math, it's "unfair" to give you a math test, especially when passing it is required for getting a job. The outcomes aren't equal, so there must be something wrong with the test.

After an 18-month investigation, the Justice Department found that the police force did not reflect the diversity of the city’s population because of how the math test was graded.

The Justice Department claimed that the test’s pass-fail system had a disproportionate effect on minorities because the passing rates for blacks and Hispanics were less than 80 percent of the passing rate for whites.

From 2002 to mid-2005, about 85 percent of white applicants passed the math exam, compared with 59 percent of blacks and 66 percent of Hispanics.

Am I the only person who sees a great irony in the Justice Department using numbers and statistics to conclude that a math test is racist?

The Justice Department questioned whether math is relevant to the daily duties of a police officer. The city agreed to eliminate the 70 percent cutoff score for the math part of the test.

Naw, police don't need to do any math. After all, they don't USE math on the job, except for maybe when they write speeding tickets. It ain't like they need a degree in accounting to be a good cop, especially when expecting them to add 2+2 correctly screws up the jelly bean count. All hail "diversity!"

Government knows damn well how to remedy THIS problem. Pay people for failing.

Whether they choose to continue to the Police Academy, those 124 former applicants are entitled to seek a share of the $160,000. The pool contains two funds: $128,000 for black applicants and $32,000 for Hispanic applicants. (I suppose that if you are white and you failed the test, you're just SOL.) [...] A second court hearing will be scheduled to determine the amount of compensation per applicant. That amount will depend on the number of people who apply.

Who's going to "compensate" ME for this assault on my common sense? I'm an English Major, so I don't do math, but this idiocy adds up to pure crap to me. Equal opportunity doesn't always mean equal outcomes. That's not "unfair;" that's life. And government has no business playing God here.

Oops! I forgot!

Government IS God anymore.