O'Donnel(s) PWN Buchannan on Racism - Again

I'm watching MSNBC right now and Pat Buchanan is debating Lawrence O'Donnel on the Sotomayor nomination. Buchanan's position, not surprisingly, is the fact that she must have been an "Affirmative Action Pick" because the top four persons up for consideration were all women.



At one point Nora O'Donnell challenges Pat...

What if there weren't any White Males as qualified as these women?

And Lawrences counters with

What if there were only White Males in the Top Four, would That have been the result only of discrimination? You're like a dead fish on this issue, just flopping around aimlessly..

The irony here is that earlier this week, Buchanan had made exactly that claim in regards to the New Haven Firefighter Case, claiming that the fact that all of those that passed being white (and a few hispanic) was "natural" and to challenge the complete exclusions of all black applicants was "Reverse Racism".

The entire view that if the winners of a contest aren't white/males - It has to be Racist Affirmative Action, but if it winners are nothing but white/males - It has to be Merit! - is at the heart of Buchanan's Supremacist Conceit.

The core of the New Haven case was the fact that the City threw out the results of a test to avoid a possible Disparate Impact lawsuit. Now the concept of disparate impact is the idea that some tests which may appear racially neutral may in fact be hiding or disguising some hidden bias and the only way to undercover it is to watch and determine if the results create a completely unfair and illogical result.

Rather than go forward, the City of New Haven went back and did the test again - that's all. It doesn't argue that those who didn't pass the test should be granted "extra points" or given a pass simply because they were black, all it required was a racial neutral Do Over.

At the heart of the dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc is the assertion that there was no Supreme Court or circuit law to guide this district court, or future district courts faced with similar claims. I disagree. The district court correctly observed that this case was unusual. Nonetheless, the district court also recognized that there was controlling authority in our decisions--among them, Hayden v. County of Nassau, 180 F.3d 42 (2d Cir. 1999) and Bushey v. N.Y. State Civil Serv. Comm'n, 733 F.2d 220 (2d Cir. 1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1117, 105 S. Ct. 803, 83 L. Ed. 2d 795 (1985). These cases clearly establish for the circuit that a public employer, faced with a prima facie case of disparate-impact liability under Title VII, does not violate Title VII or the Equal Protection Clause by taking facially neutral, albeit race-conscious, actions to avoid such liability.

This was previously discussed on Hardball with Pat.



Buchannan whines about the Bakke case, well Bakke WON THAT CASE and as a result all quota systems in Affirmative Action have been banned as unconstitutional since 1978! The only way to implement any kind of "Quota System" is as the result of a Guilty Finding in a Discrimination Suit or a Concent Decree as punishment for Current - no past or historical - CURRENT acts of discrimination.

In other words you have to give back the jobs and promotions that were illegally refused or taken. This would also apply in the case of the New Haven Firefighters if it was found that they were illegitamately denied their rightful promotions. Or vice versa if the opposite were the case.

Quotas have been banned for 31 Years So what's his problem now?

Sotomayor's finding, along with the other judges in that case, was that existing case law in the 2nd District was controlling and didn't allow them to reinstate the original results.

He clearly believes that a minority person couldn't have possibly been able to compete and win - without some special help, while simultaneously ignore the "special help" that white males give each other on a regular basis which occurs largely because of their own cultural socialization.

The video isn't up yet.. but here's an old conversation with Pat and Rachel on the Geraldine Ferraro flap, which was very similar in the presumption that a Black Men get special "priviledge" in this nation.



So here's the question, why is it all the white guys lose - it's gotta be an unfair test, but if all the black guys lose, it's "Reverse Racism" to complain about it and even question the fairness of the test?


Vyan