Lefty Rag Opposes Minority Preferences
No, not race, gender or sexual-orientation preferences. Don’t be ridiculous. It’s the Boston Globe, slamming civil service police preferences for that other much-abused minority, Military-Americans, in a bigoted, ill-informed editorial that plays on some of the worst stereotypes about veterans, and has the Boston police commissioner singing in tune:
MILITARY VETERANS who pursue careers on local police departments bring a lot to the job, including specialized skills and an appreciation for chain of command. But the outsized boost they receive on the state Civil Service exam - a score of 70 shoots them to the top of the list - isn’t necessary for the most deserving veterans and serves to push out more suitable candidates.
Veterans comprised just a small number of test takers for police jobs 20 years ago. But with limited opportunities available in the private sector, more returning veterans are seeking jobs on local police departments. Some police managers are becoming uneasy about the men and women who exchange their camouflage uniforms for blue ones. While policing is a perfect fit for some vets, there is also the potential for giving preference to veterans who might lack education or be suffering from stress or aggression issues.
Well, that could be true of any preference program. Interesting argument though. Because more people are taking advantage of their military minority status, it’s time to roll it back. Just in case some of them are crazy. OK, here comes the crazy PTSD vet profiling:
The Boston police recently suspended Officer Justin Barrett following his racist e-mail rant in which he likened Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. to a “banana-eating jungle monkey.’’ Deep in the vitriolic e-mail, which upbraided a Globe columnist for her criticism of Gates’s rash arrest by Cambridge police, Barrett wrote, “You need to serve a day with the infantry and get swarmed by black gnats while manning your sector.’’ The National Guard also suspended Barrett, who had served in Iraq.
At national conferences of police chiefs, concerns about veterans entering police work have been discussed quietly, says Northeastern University criminologist Jack McDevitt. Police managers don’t want to stigmatize veterans or appear unpatriotic. But police departments have taken notice of the trend.
What trend? That veterans are all raving bigots?
Of the 269 officers who joined the Boston police since November 2006, 43 were military veterans. But almost one-third of the 62-member class of May 2008 arrived with veterans preference. The surge can be seen statewide. From 1986 to 1990, only about 3 percent of the candidates sitting for the police exam were veterans, according to the state’s Human Resources Division. From 2005 to 2008, that figure jumped to 14 percent.
Oh, that trend. That the percent of men and women who served in the military seeking to continue to serve in uniform jumped over two decades, in entirely different economic periods. That’s a bit of a changeup from the raving bigotry nonsequitor. Funny thing about that 2005-2008 period, though. I remember a lot of news stories around that time about returning vets dealing with unemployment, even homelessness. Maybe that 14 percent who took the cop exam wanted to avoid being some other kind of statistic.
Giving veterans favorable treatment on police exams is a concrete way to honor those who made sacrifices for the country. But setting the Civil Service bar at a relaxed 70 isn’t in the best interest of the public, especially since 2004 - when the Army relaxed recruitment standards and increased the number of recruits scoring in the lowest acceptable range on service aptitude tests. Providing a few extra points for veterans on the state Civil Service test, which is the practice for police promotional exams, would seem a smarter policy.
OK, never mind the crazy violent bigots. Preferences for veterans will fatten the thin blue line with semi-literate dolts. Back to those stats for a minute. I’m a little surprised the Globe didn’t note that 14 percent exceeds the percentage of Americans who have served their country in uniform … 12.7 percent in 2000 … so their quota’s filled, the need for affirmative action for Military-Americans is over.
The 1960s era was the nadir in urban policing, when residents commonly viewed police officers as occupying forces. The neighborhood policing strategies of the mid-1990s helped to lower crime by stressing common goals with residents. Cops with a militaristic mindset could undo those gains. Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis says veterans often are among the best performers in the police academy. But he worries that their skills may not transfer smoothly to the streets of Boston.
“We’re not trying to take a hill,’’ says Davis. “We’re trying to communicate with people.’’
Hold up a sec. Ignore the slurs about ”militaristic mindset” and the “lowest acceptable range” for a minute. Davis doesn’t seem to have been paying attention, and I’m pretty sure the Globe wasn’t, but the U.S. military’s combat arms have undergone a dramatic transformation in recent years, as artillerymen, tankers and infantrymen … regular, reserve and National Guard … all found themselves patrolling heavily in troubled, ethnically diverse neighborhoods, and had to learn how to deal with the good people and get their cooperation against the bad ones. I have a feeling, given the longstanding problems Davis and his predecessors have had breaking codes of silence and separating gangbangers from the intimidated communities they lurk in, that today’s increasingly counterinsurgency-focused, community-sensitized military may have a lot to teach to the cops.*
You know, this is what happens when you smear an entire group, especially from a position of ignorance. If the Globies hadn’t spent the last eight years bashing Bush and obsessing on the rare cases of criminal, abusive behavior in Iraq, they might have noticed some of that.
A recent Rand Corporation study found that nearly 20 percent of military service members return from Iraq and Afghanistan with symptoms of post-traumatic stress or depression.
No argument there. If you’re talking about actual combat vets, as a friend of mine once put it, try 90 percent … the other 10 percent already had it when they got there. And guess what. Police work subjects men and women on a daily basis to almost identical stresses. Cops see a lot of bodies and trauma. They live with the threat of violence on every call. They might get shot at, they might have to shoot at people. More frequently, they have to fight with people. When they encounter a problem case, they have to think, which way am I going to take this guy down? None of that is normal in the civilian world, but cops have to learn how to live with it, and veteran cops will tell you it isn’t easy. But having post-traumatic stress symptoms, which is a very big grab bag, is not the same as having post-traumatic stress disorder. (In fairness, some in the media have to deal with similar stresses from time to time. I have no idea whether the Globie who wrote this editorial has any hostile zone experience or even any bad neighborhood/bloody crime scene/car crash reporting experience. Based on the quality of work, I’m guessing there has to be some getting-yelled-at-over-the-phone experience, very common in this business, though the Globe interns probably field most of that.)
But psychological screening for new police recruits isn’t, as a rule, finely tuned. And hateful attitudes like those in Barrett’s e-mail aren’t likely to be uncovered at all. Davis says he wants better screening procedures that help to determine a potential recruit’s suitability for police work, not just a search for signs of serious mental illness. Other police commissioners would be wise to follow suit.
Fine. Why not? Test the daylights out of them all.
The Globe next rattles on about the need for college-educated cops. Separate issue. Back to the issue at hand, the Globe writes in conclusion:
Police departments need to deal openly with these issues without fear of appearing disloyal to veterans. For every police call that might require special weapons and tactical expertise, there are likely thousands that call for defusing tense situations and finding peaceful resolutions.
The Globe is dead-on about the need to deal with this issue openly. And I’d suggest police departments use this bigoted, ill-informed Globe screed as an example of how not to deal with whatever issues they may have with veterans. I’d suggest police departments … even those superior officers who are Vietnam combat vets … could benefit from educating themselves about some of the valuable new skills many returning combat vets have. Including the ability to operate coolly in highly stressful circumstances, to be everything to everyone on complex, shifting, multi-faceted missions, to quickly assess threats, to be able to go from ambassador of goodwill into combat and back again in an instant, and fundamentally, how to protect and serve diverse communities that are under extreme stress from criminal elements.
A side note: The Globe editorial neglects to look at other civil service minority preference mandates. It would be interesting to see the Globe editorialist examine the perception that veteran status is about the only way white males can become cops these days, thanks to preferences for other minorities. Also, how other preferred minorities and veterans stack up against each other, in terms of education, temperament and the long-term suitability of candidates who are selected over otherwise more qualified candidates. But that kind of detail as a practical matter is irrelevant in this case, seeing as the Globe didn’t bother to provide any meaningful information on education, temperament or the long-term suitability of veterans for police work in the first place. The scribbler just regurgitated a few stereotypes, shoehorned in a damning anecdote, cherry-picked some stats, and framed it all with a lot of grand misconceptions.
In that way, this vile Globie hatefest does offer an important teachable moment, however. See, this is what lefty elitists do to veterans in America.
Topics: Boston, bigotry, cops, media, military
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:22 pm on Wednesday, August 12, 2009
6 Responses to “Lefty Rag Opposes Minority Preferences”
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August 13th, 2009 at 2:30 am
Funny, I thought that the gains made in fighting crime in the mid 1990s were due to aggressively putting criminals in prison. Silly me. Sometimes police work is about communicating with people, sometimes it’s about arresting them and physically subduing them. As you point out, the veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan have done both under exceedingly difficult circumstances.
I seem to remember that going back to the 1970s studies done have shown that college educated police officers are no more or less effective in solving crimes or dealing with “diverse” populations.
You’re correct Jules, this is just another excuse for the so called reporters at The Glob to malign people whose job they couldn’t even begin to do. It’s OK to be bigoted if the people you are bigoted against aren’t in a protected class.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
[...] From Jules, a reason for veterans to wonder whether (local) government ought really be trusted. [...]
August 13th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
See, this is what lefty elitists do to veterans in America.
And have been doing for damn near forty years now.
August 13th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Well,
I guess the Globe has taken up it’s pen and ink to help deflect attention from the President’s plan to tank the economy and enslave us all in a “Worker’s Paradise” like his buddies Castro and Chavez have done to their countries.
lovely.
August 13th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
[...] Read More: August 13th, 2009 | Tags: Boston Globe, Jules Crittenden, Lefty Rag, Military Americans | Category: Left all the way | Leave a comment [...]
August 13th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
[...] Lefty Rag Opposes Minority Preferences [...]