FDNY Written Exams Excluded Hundreds of Black and Hispanic Firefighters, Federal Judge Rules

I imagine that this exam, which is so biased, had brain-busting questions like this one on a St. Louis Fire Department test that some also called discriminatory:

You are 90 feet away from the fire. A hose is 30 feet long. How many hoses must you tie together to reach the fire?

90 divided by 30 — such racism.

“Black and Hispanic applicants failed the two exams in disproportionate numbers to whites.”

This is the same line of reasoning that Blacks get arrested or stopped by police in disproportionate numbers. That does not mean they are being unfairly targeted. It could be they are committing violations in disproportionate numbers.

Likewise, maybe they are failing a legitimate test in higher numbers.

HOW does this case differ from the New Haven firefighter case?
In that case (Ricci v. DeStefano) the Supreme Court found that there was no evidence, let alone the required strong basis in evidence that the tests were flawed because they were not job-related or because other equally valid and less discriminatory tests were available. In other words, qualifications and excellence are secondary at best, just get your city services to reflect the racial makeup of the population, OR ELSE. And, how in the world does a test that is about your knowledge as a fireman discriminate against people of different races and ethnicities?

“The two exams which discriminated against minorities are no longer used by the FDNY.”

Maybe it was the PAPER the exam was printed on that did the actually discrimnated. Or perhaps it was the ink (disappearing)?

They will not rest until this fine agency (FD NY) is destroyed. This is the last bastion and reminder of what life used to be like. Just look around at all the other agencies NY PD, FBI, US Army, US Navy, even now US Naval Academy, for what they want the FD NY to look like, certainly not the 94% White Male it now is. Only when every thing is kumbaya will they be happy.

Standards are racist. Live with it.

this really pissed me off on the news today,who would you rather have saving you and being in charge of an emergency,an intelligent man that scored highly on the test or an illiterate that doesnt have the intelligence?who would be better off because of this blatant racial injustice anybody?lets just make them harder next time to weed out the losers that shouldnt be appointed to lofty positions that they dont deserve anyway.

Where, or where, is any explanation of just how these written exams “discriminated” against black and Hispanic applicants? Were they written in standard English instead of Ebonics or Spanish? Did they require proof of Irish ancestry?

What was this mysterious “discrimination” that the judge was so cock-sure of that he feels no trial is even necessary? Maybe I was a victim of discrimination in high school, too. Some of my classmates always did well on algebra tests, but I flunked every one! Do you think I have a case?

I imagine that this exam, which is so biased, had brain-busting questions like this one on a St. Louis Fire Department test that some also called discriminatory:

You are 90 feet away from the fire. A hose is 30 feet long. How many hoses must you tie together to reach the fire?

90 divided by 30 — such racism.

Hey ya’ll, don’t be frettin’ your mind with all that rithymetic’ stuff, jus’ now be hookin’ dem’ dar’ hoses together till we gets the length we done needs. What ya’ll thinkin’ bouts’ now, just do the job.

Once again the disastrous doctrine of “disparate impact” results in a ruling that will corrupt and weaken an essential institution. Again mere competence is seen as no match for the overriding goal of diversity. Nicholas Garaufis will no doubt be Obama’s second Supreme Court pick.

Why don’t minorities start their own cities, schools, neighborhoods?

European Americans came here and lived off the land. They built cities, schools, and neighborhoods.

But not minorities; they do not live off the land. They live off the white society very much like parasites that live off a healthy animal.

Until the parasites reach a certain number and kill the host they can survive. The host also lives although it’s crippled and its life is made miserable by the parasites.

So yes the blacks and Hispanics can infests the New York Fire Department, or any white operation, but for their own survival they must not be allowed to feast unabated. They will devour the host, as happens in the real world when white people abandon schools, neighborhoods, and cities; the minorities are then force to eat each other or starve.

You have to understand what the real argument and logic behind this is.

The claim that a test is biased or racist is not based on individual questions. If it was, we could go through each test and remove biased or racist questions. That’s not what’s being argued here.

The logic, if you want to call it that, goes like this:

Since all races and ethnicities are equal in every way, then a non-biased test would result in people passing equal to the proportion taking the test. When this fails to happen, the entire test is deemed biased. Again, rarely does anyone point to particular questions which, if biased, could simply be removed from the test. In the Ricci case, the test was ordered sealed so no one could read the questions and actually see there were no racial or ethnic biased questions. The only example that was given was that one question included a reference to ‘uptown and downtown’. The argument that was given was that this question had no relevance to the test because Hartford ‘isn’t configured like that’ (as one critic said).

The problem we’re forever going to face is that races are not intellectually equal and no test can ever be designed to produce equal outcomes. If you make it easy for more minorities to pass, a higher percentage of whites will pass and the same racial proportions will result. You can not design a ‘race neutral’ test that results in equal representation.

This is nothing but a way of getting around using test to determine skill and competence. Blacks are essentially demanding that no test ever be used and that hirings and promotions should be based on other criteria such as interviews and the color of ones skin.

We were all hoping the Ricci case would be the beginning of the end but this judge doesn’t seem to keep up with the ruling of the Supreme Court.

Those darned racist tests! The only thing that should ever be measured is the amount of melanin in one’s skin. The darker you are, the higher you shall rise.

I wonder how many homes and businesses will have to burn to ashes before the P.C. crowd will acknowledge merit over skin color?

Some interesting things were posted at the source site:

Quiz: Train Like the FDNY: Practice Written Exam

Practice Firefighter Exams

Amazon: Firefighter Exams (Barron’s Firefighter Exams) (Paperback)

Pure, unadulterated racism, I tell you!

Have Harvard “African American Studies” Chairman and Professor and World’s Greatest Expert on Every Racist incident in the United States(his words) Henry “do you know who I am” Louis Gates write the test.

He could have the “Jena 6” assist him as he arranges for their admission to Harvard.

The part on arson might actually be quite good.

When will this outrageous discrimination against whites ever end!? We deserve to get walked all over by the Chinese….. only whites are stupid enough to allow themselves to be dispossesed of their own country…… thanks to that disgusting ideology, ie liberalism!

NYC deserves all the finanical wrath minorities can levy on them, after all NYC leads the nation in stupidity and false values.

One caveat, so goes the nation. We are close behind in complete dysfunction.

False values, compounding lies, a day of reckoning is almost here.

Clearly the test was racist because it was printed on WHITE paper.

But seriously, I wonder if white people, who failed that same test, are also eligible for damages. After all, whatever (mysterious) reasons caused blacks to fail might also have caused some whites to fail. Of course, we know what that “mysterious” reason is: low I.Q. and some whites also suffer from low I.Q. so they should also be compensated by this logic.

The discriminatory practice of requiring literacy and knowledge of law have deprived thousands of blacks and hispanics from being appointed as judges. Pu that into your pipe and smoke it Mr. Judge.

“Why don’t minorities start their own cities, schools, …”

They did. It’s called Detroit.

Well, granted, they didn’t start it, but they’ve been in charge of it for 30 years.

While Wikipedia isn’t the best of sources for racial realism, it being heavily edited by the Marxists who currently make our lives miserable, the entry on Judge Garaufis is interesting if you take a look at the general info - Clinton appointee, recommended to the Clinton Administration by Patrick Moynihan, etc. The cursory glimpse at his background tells a lot about this man.

Why don’t Blacks start their own Societies? That’s called Africa, and the entire Continent is a mess.

Blacks were handed a First World Country in 1994, and look what South Africa has become. It has their mark of Destruction all over it.

Look at Haiti, which has been Independent since 1804.

Again, look at Detroit, among so many other American Cities, that have been thoroughly destroyed by Blacks, and other Minorities, but predominately Blacks.

A good video for Am Ren readers to view on You Tube is called “Detroit Ghost Town”. One White women still lives in a certain section, and the interview with her, by the T.V. News is difficult to watch.

So now, by all means, destroy the Fire Department with Racial Quotas, and some of the dumbest people in the City.

“[Eric Holder’s] Justice Department and a group of black firefighters have proved, without the need for a trial, that the city discriminated against blacks and Hispanics on two exams from 1999 to 2007. Black and Hispanic applicants failed the two exams in disproportionate numbers to whites.”
__ __ __ __

In short, if they expect you to get the answers right, that’s discriminatory. And if it’s not now, it soon will be. That’s where we’re heading, folks.

In fact, we may in time see all tests based on merit abolished completely and jobs assigned strictly by quotas.

As children, we are taught that if you study hard, work hard, do the right thing, always tell the truth, be fair, be good, everything will work out. Justice always prevails.

As adults, we learn (sometimes to our shock) that… No,it doesn’t! Justice is never automatic.

Politics and justice in the courts are not about abstractions like right or wrong. Those are notions held by trusting children. They are about power, numbers, money, clout, and pressure groups. Whoever wields the most power, whoever applies the most pressure, wins.

It is time we all grew up and realized this. Our opponents know it VERY well.

On the judge’s “no need for a trial”:

The U.S. District Court for the
Eastern District of New York is
located in Brooklyn, NY.

Look at the population breakdown
for Brooklyn, NY(ie, the jury
pool), and the judge is probably
right: same ultimate end but at
more expense and rigamarole.

Well, I took the test on the “Quiz: Train Like the FDNY: Practice Written Exam” posted by Anonymous at 2:36 am and passed with no problem, still half asleep, with no preparation. It’s not astrophysics by any means, but it’s not ridiculously simple either. Based on the stink the race-hustlers are making I was expecting questions along the lines of:

You are called to the scene of a fire in a chemical processing plant. Upon arriving at the scene you notice a group of schoolchildren on a field trip in the lobby. It is 74 degrees Fahrenheit and there is a stiff breeze from the southwest. Based on this information, which type of caviar should be served at an afternoon tea:
A) Capelin
B) Osetra
C) Beluga
D) Paddlefish

No. It tests for the kinds of abilities I’d like somebody charged with saving my life and/or property in the event of a fire to have: ability to retain basic information, interpret visual data, read a map. I was even able to do the very basic arithmetic portion in my head (I saw no restriction on using a pencil; I was just too lazy to get up and find one), and I’m a klutz as far as math goes. No “trick questions” and I can’t for the life of me find any cultural bias in any of the questions (although we all know that, as Caucasians, we are intrinsically unable to see those…).

Not to disparage firefighters, for whom I have the utmost respect, but I see nothing on that test that a high school graduate would have any trouble with. That’s fine; I don’t call 911 to get someone to my house to discuss semiotics. If that excludes a disproportionate number of minorities, too bad. I may disagree with George W. Bush on just about everything else, but he (okay, Michael Gerson) hit the nail on the head with “The soft bigotry of low expectations”. Lowering standards for those responsible for saving lives is not only insane, it’s also insulting to the very minorities it seeks to accommodate.

BowleDover:

I’m sorry, I’m going to have to come after you, albeit with a velvet glove, not an iron fist.

“Soft bigotry of low expectations” was one of the most stupid concepts peddled by the previous Presidential administration. I suppose we are to think that there aren’t tens of thousands of black nuclear physicists because us soft bigots don’t expect them to become nuclear physicists?

Maybe there’s a reason why people have low expectations of black children and teenagers. And you stated that reason yourself — you could pass the FDNY sample test with half your brain tied behind your back and the untied half drowzy, yet too many blacks can’t. A real question from a St. Louis Fire Dep’t test that blacks thought was discriminatory required you to divide 90 by 30.

Point taken, QD, although I think we interpret the phrase differently. And frankly, I’m probably using it way out of context, not having read the speech it was taken from. I have no doubt it was used to imply just what you said; that “low expectations” is all that’s keeping keeping the black man down. I don’t believe that for a minute. I do, however, think it’s a useful description of affirmative action and the resultant dumbing down used to achieve equal results. This is harmful to both sides, as far as I’m concerned. Whites get deprived of a decent education and passed over for positions they deserve while honest-to-goodness deserving blacks carry the stigma of being perceived (even by shining paragons of fair-mindedness such as myself) as affirmative action hires no matter how capable they are. Bottom line, affirmative action harms everyone (even if it helps the idiot who’s hired despite coming up with 1.75 as the answer to the 90 divided by 30 question, isn’t that offset by the harm done when the school burns down?) and needs to end.

I think an error in your thinking, in both your previous posts, is that you assume that most blacks have a sense of shame. They don’t, they’re happy to get no matter how they get it, or whether they’re qualified for it or not, or whether they deserve it or not. Them that got is them that got.

you assume that most blacks have a sense of shame.

Gee, QD, I don’t mean to drag this out, but I don’t see where you’re coming from with that at all (although I suppose a case could be made that some of the endless, baseless hostility blacks subject whites to could be interpreted as deeply sublimated shame at their own inadequacies directed outward, but that honestly just occurred to me upon reading your post…). I spent over seven years in an industry that basically catered to every whim of some of the most shameless, spoiled, entitled, racist blacks you can imagine, both the clients and the black staff. That’s a big part of what led me to this site in the first place. All I’ve said is that I believe there are some decent blacks who get undeservedly screwed by the whole rotten systemI don’t know if you’re reading something into my statements that isn’t there or that I’m just missing, but based on the other things of yours that I have read and enjoyed, I think we basically agree with one another and I continue to look forward to your posts.

“A real question from a St. Louis Fire Dep’t test that blacks thought was discriminatory required you to divide 90 by 30.”

A black cleaner who was employed in my former place once asked me what was 11 minus 3. He needed me to tell him! I vividly remember that. He was obsessed with the notion that his pay should have been larger and he couldn’t understand the concept of payroll deductions. He caused a lot of trouble making constant allegations that people were “stealing” money out of his pay — all because he couldn’t do simple arithmetic. No amount of proof would convince him otherwise, as figures meant nothing to him.

Not only could he neither add nor subtract, he was barely literate and could just manage to scrawl his name (to sign his paycheck). I tried to point out to him, helpfully, that there were free adult literacy classes, but he never bothered to enroll nor showed the slightest interest. His cultural interests were limited to comic books, pornograpy, and huge amounts of television.

Nonetheless, he was bitterly jealous of my position. We had both been employed at the about the same time (he was actually earlier). Therefore, he thought we should have similar positions and salaries. I was management and he remained a cleaner. He was totally convinced that this was all about discrimination and racism. He refused to believe otherwise, and he never stopped grumbling about it.

With enough people like him in power, or their sympathizers, that is how it will work. It will all be a matter of racial quotas, and merit will be irrelevant. That’s what they will consider “fair”.

Regarding that cleaner, I didn’t mean to imply that he was mentally deficient. Nothing of the kind! He was just twisted. Lack of IQ was not his problem. It was lack of education and lack of any interest in improving himself. He thought everything should be just handed to him.

In fact, far from being stupid, he was amazingly cunning and devious and, as I said, caused a lot of trouble with his allegations that he was being shorted in his pay, that others were siphoning it off. All of these claims required an official investigation, although they were complete nonsense.

Even after we sat down with him and added up everything on paper for him to see, he STILL didn’t believe it! His very words were: “I know what’s going on here — you’re all in cahoots!”
What do you do with a person like that? (Hint: You can’t fire him.)

“…Nonetheless, he was bitterly jealous of my position. I was management and he remained a cleaner. He was totally convinced that this was all about discrimination and racism. He refused to believe otherwise, and he never stopped grumbling about it…”

Great Post, and you bring up a valuable point: blacks want ‘equality’ with Whites handed to them without having to work for it, or want ‘equality’ without qualifiers as is demanded of Whites—you know, such things as years of coursework in a university, marathon studying to pass required exams (the bar, the firefighters tests), intimidating oral or committee exams, vetting through background tests, mandatory drug tests.

They believe all of these things to be discriminatory against them (because they can’t compete with us). They also strongly believe we somehow cheat to get where we are.

Is it any wonder that Marxism, with its ideology of ‘class struggle’ and the current US leftist dogma of class envy appeals to blacks everywhere?

In the schools, we have a similar situation. Blacks in the lower echelons of the educational complex—lowly clerks, custodians, low-level paper shufflers, many of whom are functionally illiterate and barely finished high school (and there is plenty of evidence that many of the diplomas the district offices accept are fake)—absolutely believe and demand to be paid the same amount of money as teachers and administrators. It matters nothing to them that a college degree (however bogus for educators) is a requirement for these types of jobs—all they see is that as that as the salaries rise, the employees become less and less black, although this has changed in the past decade as more un-qualified blacks are rammed through directly to the top.

The schools’ main purpose, after all, is that of an employment and make-work agency for non-Whites so I’m sure the equalizations of salaries is under consideration. One bone thrown to them was their benefits packet—they now receive the same benefits I do even though many of them only work three hours. Not a bad deal if you can get it—and you can’t if you’re White, college degrees are required for you.

Bon