Lefty Rag Opposes Minority Preferences (Military Americans)
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.
