I suffered from racism and when I tell the story it pisses black people off.
After I got out of the Navy in 1982 I wanted to be a fireman. It was a part of my Navy rate (HT) so I knew what was involved.
I applied to several cities and tested in 5. Cleveland, Toledo, Columbus, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. I tested at the very top of the heap and with my veterans points should have been a shoe in. I was told by all these cities that I tested in the top five. Some of them retested and I did those too.
I was not hired due to affirmative action, and they had no problem telling me they were looking for blacks and Hispanics. That is racism pure and simple.
The story is very common. I had the same thing happen to me soon after high school, except it was for the local PD, not the fire department, but it happens equally in both.
I studied my butt off and scored at the very top on the test. I was told that, due to my test score, I would be among the first to move to the next stage toward hiring, and was given a date and location for showing up for the physical. Then the courts stepped in and determined that because no blacks scored high enough on the test (based strictly on memorization of a book they sent us in advance) to be immediately advanced to the next step towards hiring, the test was deemed racist and all the scores were to be randomly jumbled starting at a very low score cut-off, arbitrarily chosen by the courts so as to include lots of blacks. The jumble put me at the bottom when I had been at the very top, i.e., a black man got the top spot I had earned with my test score and I was given the low spot he had earned with his test score.
I guess I had to do my part in paying the price for having enslaved black folks long before I was even born.
I'm surprised that this sort of thing wasn't declared unconstitutional from the start. Our courts have essentially abandoned American legal principles.
