I have come across multiple references myself. And I live in a city where people are most definitely judged on the color of their skin, their ability to speak English (I have seen white people be visibly surprised when Browngirl opens her mouth and speaks Broadcast English), whether or not they seem to be from around here. And it's not just Malden (though, being an old mill town, it's more visible), it's all of the metro Boston area. Today's Globe had a full-page article about what a little snot Jayson Blair was when he worked there. And it's clearly inferred that "if we weren't afraid of being called racists, he'd never have worked in journalism again." That's a problem. This is not a failure of a black man, or of affirmative action. This is a failure of Jayson Blair's bosses to be courageous enough to simply fire a man incapable of doing his job until it was impossible not to -- and unfortunately, that they can blame on the fact that Blair probably used his skin color as a weapon. But that's the failure of one man who happens to be black.
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Date: 2003-05-22 07:56 am (UTC)Today's Globe had a full-page article about what a little snot Jayson Blair was when he worked there. And it's clearly inferred that "if we weren't afraid of being called racists, he'd never have worked in journalism again." That's a problem.
This is not a failure of a black man, or of affirmative action. This is a failure of Jayson Blair's bosses to be courageous enough to simply fire a man incapable of doing his job until it was impossible not to -- and unfortunately, that they can blame on the fact that Blair probably used his skin color as a weapon. But that's the failure of one man who happens to be black.