Saturday, November 28, 2009

Disparity and DISPARITY

There I was rolling along the George Washington Parkway, listening to my usual "traffic, weather and 'news'" radio station, when the datum fell upon my ears. Northern Virginia educational nabobs had uncovered disparity at an Alexandria school. This school caters to kids who are viewed by "authorities" as gifted intellectually or exceptionally talented. Are idiot savants welcomed? I can't say authoritatively, but they probably don't fit in.

Where is the disparity? Most of you would probably guess that the school was disproportionately Asian-American. Wrong! There seemed to be too many white students. Parenthetically, white students are the only students who don't possess a dignified, specifically geo-racial characterization.

Why is that? It allows census takers more flexibility in setting preferred proportions. That's not the only reason, but I don't want to get into hate issues in this blog. There is a sort of quota system operating. Having one category into which anyone can be tossed is very useful. Let me give you an example.

In the old Spotlight tabloid there was a second page which had several "News You May Have Missed" items. One day, I saw a brief article about an American citizen who had arrived from Egypt not so many years prior. He was classified as "white." He wasn't aware that this might be a liability until he applied for a minority grant or "set-aside." As I recall, he was an academic type, but he may have been otherwise employed. He was turned down because he wasn't a defined "minority," according to the law. The law provided some sort of affirmative access to the grants, et al, for African Americans, Asian Americans, women, sexually confused, and the like. I am referencing the "usual suspects" in minority set-asides/grants.

This Egyptian American was tagged as "white" and ineligible. He was pissed! In the story he lamented because he was darker and more African in his appearance than General Colin Powell, who was legally categorized as "African American." He planned to sue.

I've always maintained that it isn't easy being a white person. You are always both in a limbo category and - at the same time - you are "it" in all legal issues, as well as the "bad guy" in movies.

I believe that you have by now gotten my drift about the flexibility of this white category in the hands of census takers. I'm sure that there are sensible people working for the census bureau, but no one can strike a rational position, where asylum inmates command the institution.

The issue is disparity. Now this doesn't operate at the supreme Court, where Jews are represented at a disparate rate. It doesn't operate at the White House nor in the top positions of the Executive Branch, where Jews hold positions at disparate rates. It doesn't operate in the U.S. Senate nor the U.S. House of Representatives where the staffs of the collective committees and subcommittees are Jewish at a disparate rate. They gather the information and shape the policies that are basically "rubber-stamped" by senators and representatives.

Usually, the issue of disparity doesn't "touch" the high and mighty. The issue of disparity reaches down to the mensch, the little guy. Yet, it is still a good training exercise for the ascending "talent" that there is such a thing as power - and they don't have it. Since all these federal and state-sanctioned educational commissions/councils/associations are composed of Stepinanfetchits, they are anxious to please the "boss in the big house." Coming down on the side of "disparity" will never hurt your standing nor injure your resume among the powers that be in America presently.

As I recall, this Alexandria school had something like 58% white students. According to the report, there was under representation of African Americans and Latinos. How could there be such a result, unless discrimination - however subtly employed - was not a factor?

Equalitarianism is viewed as the first inflexible law of America. Since inequality cannot exist in nature, disparity of results is the first mortal sin. It is a sin of man against nature.

What I personally wondered was this: Of the 58% "white" student population, how many, or what percentage, were Jews? If a "correction" occurs in the future to rectify this disparity, will the resultant white category be disproportionately Jewish? (It may already be disproportionately Jewish).

Jews are counted as whites except when white are getting pummeled by the system; then Jews are a "religious" minority, who are exempt.

America is a nation where a minority rules over the majority, and confusion is the "letter of the law."

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