May 10, 2012

"Obama campaign office staff lacks racial diversity, may violate civil rights law"

In the Daily Caller, Neil Munro talks to disparate impact discrimination law experts about that photo of Obama's Chicago campaign headquarters, which, in terms of diversity, looks like a cross between the Bill James and Tilda Swinton Fan Clubs. Here are some interesting facts:
The office currently employs roughly 140 people, according to an online count by the independent group Democracy in Action. The April photo appears to show the section of the office used by many of the roughly 80 staff who work on technology-related tasks, such as video production, software development and data analysis. 
No employer could argue that there’s a lack of qualified African-American office staff in Chicago, said Sharon Jones, a diversity consultant in Chicago. 
“We’re in a situation where we have huge unemployment … [and] for racial and ethnic minorities, unemployment rates are double” that of whites, said Jones. “There are a lot of minorities who could fill jobs … [and] there are people who could move [so] I don’t think there is a lack of human capital.” 
Also, employers with an earnest desire to hire minorities turn to professional groups, such as Black Data Processing Associates, whose 8,605 members include software writers, graphic designers and video producers. “We get calls all the time from major corporations looking for black designers. … I could send them a list of 25 or 30 people right away,” said a manager in the association. 
The campaign’s staff does include several African-Americans, and some Hispanics. For example, the campaign’s website features Loren Reedy, a receptionist, and Sheena Patton, the human resources director.

No stereotyping at Obama HQ!

60 comments:

  1. "Diversity consultant"

    That's a f***ing thing. Jesus.

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  2. phantom Atwater5/10/12, 11:58 PM

    Hmm, this ought to wind up in a Jesse Helms ad "remix" or "mash-up" or whatever the kids are calling it these days. You needed that job... But they had to give it to a Muggle fiction webmaster from Naperville

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  3. http://youtu.be/_ft1IuYoBLY

    A pic of campaign office.

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  4. This in only the "soft" part of future troubles.
    The hard part will likely be the "combo" Trayvon Martin riots + Islam + CounterJihad.
    The US Army is being "reeducated" to prevent the clash but it may turn nasty anyhow.
    http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/05/total-war-islam/all/1

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  5. I'm always bemused when people talk about potential employees being "qualified". It seems to asume that for each job there is some minimal set of criteria an employee must meet, and beyond those any extra knowledge, work ethic and enthusiasm is irrelevant. Maybe it is so in some fields and large organizations. In startups this attitude would doom your enterprise.

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  6. > The campaign’s staff does include several African-Americans, and some Hispanics. For example, the campaign’s website features Loren Reedy, a receptionist, and Sheena Patton, the human resources director.

    OK, your receiptionist is hispanic...but is that a REAL hispanic...or a Zimmerman style WHITE hispanic?

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  7. Leon Trotsky5/11/12, 5:52 AM

    This story is like the one you had a while back about the Soviet space program, which the Communists had the good sense to run as a competitive enterprise. Experience is always the best teacher.

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  8. >seems to as[s]ume that for each job there is some minimal set of criteria an employee must meet, and beyond those any extra knowledge, work ethic and enthusiasm is irrelevant<

    A roomful of take-charge Einsteins sounds ideal on paper. But in real life - ?

    The following old saw seems true for most human orgs (originally observed in the military):

    "There are only four types of officers.

    "First, there are the lazy, stupid ones. Leave them alone, they do no harm.

    "Second, there are the hard-working intelligent ones. They make excellent staff officers, ensuring that every detail is properly considered.

    "Third, there are the hard-working, stupid ones. These people are a menace, and must be fired at once. They create irrelevant work for everybody.

    "Finally, there are the intelligent lazy ones. They are suited for the highest office."
    -- German military chief General von Manstein

    Another point. How does MLK's call for judging people by their character instead of their color square with the following?

    "employers with an earnest desire to hire minorities turn to professional groups, such as Black Data Processing Associates, whose 8,605 members include software writers, graphic designers and video producers. 'We get calls all the time from major corporations looking for black designers.... I could send them a list of 25 or 30 people right away,' said a manager in the association."

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  9. Oh, those were the techies? Well, it does explain the hippies-and-nerds vibe.

    Seriously, I wonder if your posting the picture had anything to do with it?

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  10. What percentage of that campaign staff is Jewish? Doesn't that count as a minority? Or are they trying to hide that?

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  11. In political campaigns, don't people generally work for free or for cheap?

    Web design is one of those fields where another minority (i.e., gay white men) has eclipsed blacks. Everybody wants to find a trendy gay white male designer. And, no matter how rich his daddy was, that gay white male designer was officially oppressed.

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  12. "That's a f***ing thing. Jesus."

    I am a white man and a diversity consultant. Swear to God. I am also a loyal Steve Sailer reader. So Steve, if you want to hire black women to review and edit your content (an inverted Bullerdick, so to speak), I am not your woman, but I can find her.

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  13. “There are a lot of minorities who could fill jobs … [and] there are people who could move [so] I don’t think there is a lack of human capital.”

    First mistake. From this, all things follow.

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  14. I forget: which film featured the exotic receptionist? "She's Polish-Korean and speaks fluent Gujarati." The diversity quotient solution in one person.

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  15. Meanwhile in China...

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  16. "Black Data Processing Associates"

    Great. Now there is an industry that supplies black employees to fill the AA quotas.

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  17. Re: "divercity consultant"

    Here she is:
    http://www.jonesdiversity.com/index.php?page=sharon

    "Ms. Jones is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Harvard College". Of course. She is black (25%, maybe).

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  18. They consider themselves a vanguard, self-appointed of course, and are working on behalf of the oppressed and are not of that group themselves. From the picture we can't tell what their sexual orientations are and as everyone knows that's the most important issue of our time, trumping such piffling subjects as the availability of work or how the public till gets looted. Perhaps they're all transgendered and thus fully meet the diversity requirement.

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  19. So wait, I'm confused, I thought Barry was racist AGAINST WHITES?

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  20. Civil rights is a huge growth industry in America. We can even talk of a civil-rights industrial-complex. Shows how far things have come from the original act in 1964.

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  21. "I'm always bemused when people talk about potential employees being "qualified". It seems to asume that for each job there is some minimal set of criteria an employee must meet, and beyond those any extra knowledge, work ethic and enthusiasm is irrelevant. Maybe it is so in some fields and large organizations. In startups this attitude would doom your enterprise."

    This is in fact exactly how it works, even down to the terminology. "Qualified" is a legal standard. Under the McDonnell-Douglas line of cases, in order to sue for discrimination in hiring you have to show that you were "qualified" for a position but were passed over in favor of a white guy. "Qualified" means that you meet all of the written requirements in the job description. It's not as silly or difficult as it might sound, but that's why you see the diversity/HR types using that term. It's all mostly for show, one of those situations where the government makes the cost of putting on a show about compliance low, and then once the diversity/HR police get their foot in the door it takes on a life of its own.

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  22. “There are a lot of minorities who could fill jobs … [and] there are people who could move [so] I don’t think there is a lack of human capital.”

    Turning this sort of nonsense back upon the Left should be done daily. When I first saw that picture I thought "well, to be fair, they must be volunteers [that's racisss!]"
    Of course it's every bit as racist as assuming a dearth of qualified minorities--more so even because it suggests a lack of the civic virtue that comes of intelligence and character.
    Say what you will about those SWPLs, at least they get off their ass for their misguided yearnings.
    But I do look forward to the film version of Obama's second campaign, featuring all those sophisticated, smart, attractive minorities engaging in pithy banter with white counterparts as the camera drags them, yet again, down the hall West Wing-style.

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  23. Auntie Analogue5/11/12, 9:16 AM

    Okay, everybody, all set?

    CUE "We Shall Overcome"

    Earplugs optional, at additional nominal charge.

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  24. How!

    Speaking as a diverse Harvard lawyer, I can tell you that there will be no problem with this.

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  25. The Great American zero sum game is so bad that they now have to criticize the Obama reelection team. Perhaps these individuals should stop voting to make that game worse, for themselves and everyone else for that matter.

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  26. Meanwhile, when real money is on the line and there is no government thumb on the scale, internet startups (I've been on more than a few) have almost 100% White male staffs. Those are the only guys willing to roll the dice on long hours, lower pay, for a payout upon IPO time. That was Facebook, is Zynga, is Groupon, is Foursquare, and a lot of other companies.

    Once you get to current Google size, you have to hire dead-weight "diversity" people to make the government happy. Business does not kick back too much, because the costs are not too great, with hefty margins, and most operations outside the US where low-cost and higher IQ Chinese are hired. Or India's elite.

    Win-win: this destroys the service job market for blue collar and middle class Whites, always a plus for the elites.

    HOWEVER, if jobs are forced to come back to the US (high oil prices, economic nationalism) then all hell will break loose, because Diversity is a luxury good with negative profit margins.

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  27. Obama needs a competent team to reelect him...

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  28. Bureaucratologist5/11/12, 11:21 AM

    So let me get this straight. The EEOC sets the personnel policy of *political campaigns*?

    Doesn't that put the kibosh on the "Sailer Strategy" advising Republicans to maximize their advantage among whites?

    Indirect government control of the campaigns explains why Republicans sound like they listen to diversity consultants too much.

    There won't ever be a "man rights party" or a "Christian party." As soon as it passes the EEOC threshold (what is it, 50 employees?), it'll get sued by a feminist or an anti-Christian.

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  29. "So wait, I'm confused, I thought Barry was racist AGAINST WHITES?"

    Sure he is. But he's also ruthlessly expedient.

    Remember, he threw his white grandmother under the bus only after she paid for his private schooling.

    Making use of someone until he isn't useful anymore isn't inconsistent with racist feelings toward that person. Indeed, one could argue it's a feature of racism.

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  30. Whiskey said:

    "...internet startups (I've been on more than a few)"

    LOL!!!

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  31. "So wait, I'm confused, I thought Barry was racist AGAINST WHITES?"

    Oh, come on, Truth. We know that you know that Barry knows that blacks will vote for him but dewey eyed young whites will put in a great day's work for him.

    That he'll take from whites their work/devotion *on his behalf* is predictable on many levels. I'm sure they put in a fine day's work too.

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  32. Aren't blacks violating civil rights laws by not qualifying for certain positions?

    If a company needs a certain number of blacks, but blacks mostly fail in school, shouldn't blacks be prosecuted for being too lazy to live up to expectations?
    But in our crazy society, all the burden is placed on employers, just all the blame for school failings are pushed on teachers.
    It's like blacks can choose to do nothing and qualify for nothing, but OTHERS are blamed for black failings.

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  33. Meanwhile, when real money is on the line and there is no government thumb on the scale, internet startups (I've been on more than a few) have almost 100% White male staffs. Those are the only guys willing to roll the dice on long hours, lower pay, for a payout upon IPO time. That was Facebook...

    ConnectU was white [and Indian].

    ConnectU's intellectual property was then brazenly stolen from them by Scots-Irishmen.

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  34. >I thought Barry was racist AGAINST WHITES<

    No, just hypocritical.

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  35. "Meanwhile, when real money is on the line and there is no government thumb on the scale, internet startups (I've been on more than a few)"

    Really?

    You must share with us some of the really interesting stories you heard when you pushed by with that mop bucket.

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  36. "Making use of someone until he isn't useful anymore isn't inconsistent with racist feelings toward that person. Indeed, one could argue it's a feature of racism."

    One could argue it's a feature of many things.

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  37. Couldn't they have poached some talent from World Star Hip Hop?

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  38. easiest way to bring down the left: make them follow every policy they advocate.

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  39. Whiskey doesn't even know how to calculate percentages. Dividing one quantity by another and then multiplying the result by 100 - I remember him getting that very, very wrong. The idea of any techies ever partnering with him to do anything is high comedy. A comedy for which Jon Lovitz in his Tommy Flanagan the Pathological Liar voice would be particularly fitting.


    From now on I'm going to read all his comments in my mind in the voice of Jon Lovitz as Tommy Flanagan, the Pathological Liar.

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  40. Whiskey doesn't even know how to calculate percentages... The idea of any techies ever partnering with him to do anything is high comedy.

    I've been in tech companies both start-up and giant, and believe me, lots of people there can't calculate percentages. You've heard of marketing and sales, no?

    And Whiskey said Internet companies, not tech companies. Big difference. Whiskey has a very comprehensive knowledge of pop culture slag. It's very possible he's talking about working at various web properties that service the insatiable needs of women and gays to know the intimate details of celebrity lives, the latest film drivel for fanboys, etc.

    And actually, Whiskey would probably be pretty good as one of those people that writes "re-caps" of television shows, a huge sub-genre these days. But if he let his politics slip in, SWPL heads across the land would explode.

    Damn, I would LOVE to see Whiskey take over, say, New York Magazine's entertainment section for a week. Half of Brooklyn would drop dead.

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  41. according to what i read, the justice department cannot investigate you for employment discrimination until your company has 500 employees. and that might only be the case with for-profit business operations. i'm definitely no expert.

    this does not mean you cannot be sued, it just means the justice department cannot come after you. anybody else can still take you to court.

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  42. "'Making use of someone until he isn't useful anymore isn't inconsistent with racist feelings toward that person. Indeed, one could argue it's a feature of racism.'

    One could argue it's a feature of many things."


    One could certainly argue that. But you wouldn't be the one to do it because you still can't tell the difference between a legitimate argument and a snappy comeback.

    OT but I was thinking Maya should invite both of us to her family's Thanksgiving dinner. I'd be willing to sing for my supper. Would you? How about a duet? (Don't worry, I know Mandingo wasn't a musical.)

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  43. another dumb argument i've been seeing liberals make lately, is when, after they realize that mestizos and africans are voting heavily against gay marriage (just learning this fact blows their mind in the first place), they start saying completely nonsensical things like

    "Wow, you would think a group that was oppressed for so long with sympathize with another."

    LOL. i'm sorry, but that's absolutely moronic. what do they care about gay WHITE people? they're WHITE. they wouldn't lift a finger to help them. and the gay marriage movement is overwhelmingly a WHITE thing. it's exactly like the tea party movement, minus the radical jewish participants. the only people who are pushing this gay thing are white liberals.

    white liberals and white gays may have been under some delusion that mestizos and africans pull the D lever because they agree with their crazy, insane liberal ideas. THEY DON'T. they vote D for identity politics, for handouts, and to screw whitey.

    break out individual issues, let them vote on it, and quickly learn, they don't care about two WHITE gay guys not being able to get married. forget the tireless effort to portray open gays on television as being smart, sophisticated, benign, and a completely normal part of everyday life who's openly gay behavior blends seamlessly into mainstream society. that type of programming only has it's intended brainwashing effect on european americans.

    it has zero effect on the other ethnic groups. they already don't like white people. they dislike gay white people even more. no amount of cultural conditioning is going to make them like gay white guys. they're still white, they'll always be white, and they'll always be hated for being white. being gay is very secondary. it's like john mccain giving the keynote speech at the la raza convention. sorry, you're still white. we voted for the other guy.

    this is all beside the point that these groups are more religious and more conservative than european americans in the first place, and they just plain do not like gay people, no matter what color.

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  44. That Obama campaign lacks racial diversity is not surprise at all. He is the ultimate SWPL president. I mean, the man has an organic vegetable garden in his backyard. He would make the perfect token black friend...

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  45. http://youtu.be/FPSljqJ6wb8

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  46. RandomMedStudent said...

    "That Obama campaign lacks racial diversity is not surprise at all. He is the ultimate SWPL president. I mean, the man has an organic vegetable garden in his backyard. He would make the perfect token black friend..."

    Yeah. Tried to make the same point when I first started commenting here about three months ago, but some commenter named Swimming Swan really didn't seem to appreciate the sentiment.

    Obama knows the genus SWPLus like he knows the back of his hand. So he works them like there's no tomorrow. He runs this schtick where he threads the needle between being juuust culturally black enough to count as a full-fledged, "authentic" black man (SWPLs don't get credit for having a black friend if he's not "authentic" enough -- a "black on the outside, white on the inside" Oreo friend doesn't earn you SWPL points), but where he's not so black that he scares the well-meaning white folks off.

    The guy must have watched a lot of Morgan Freeman movies (and taken notes) to get the formula just right.

    Remember, mere months after losing a Congressional race on the South Side of Chicago to an old Black Panther street soldier because he wasn't black enough (yeah, that's really why he lost), Obama went on a popular local PBS foodie show and won the SWPL over by droppin' some science about his favorite soul food.

    Hopefully Whiskey won't see that video -- watching the SWPL "nice white ladies" on the show melt in the presence of a then-unknown Obama would only serve to reinforce every tenet of the Whiskey worldview.

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  47. jody said...

    "[After white liberals] realize that mestizos and africans are voting heavily against gay marriage (just learning this fact blows their mind in the first place), they start saying completely nonsensical things like

    'Wow, you would think a group that was oppressed for so long with sympathize with another.'
    "

    This is 100% true. It really does seem to blow their minds...fry their circuits...blow their motherboards, etc. (as does learning that blacks and Hispanics can harbor "racist" sentiments toward each other -- white liberals really do seem to believe wholeheartedly that tribalism/ethnocentrism/hate is the sole provenance of evil conservative white males).

    Yours truly has encountered this in real life several times. White liberals are always good for a few laughs.

    Just imagine what it would be like to have one of the planks of your entire worldview pulled out from underneath you in one fell swoop.

    It would be Earth-shattering; it could threaten to disabuse you of all that you thought you knew ... like if an Arnold-worshiping gym rat/muscle head (thinking of one or two friends of mine specifically) were to hear that his favorite Austrian Mr. Universe-turned-movie star-turned Republican Governor probably had to take it in the glutes a few times when he was on his way up in the business, Travolta style.

    Maybe you remember the incident from a few years back when a young, Upper West Side-bred feminist J.A.P. writer from one of the lefty sites (Salon, Slate, the Nation, the Atlantic, or some such address) was on her way to a pro gay marriage rally and attempted use her commitment to "Civil Rights" for gays to bond with the black cabbie who was taking her there.

    She was blindsided when the cabbie instructed her that, like lots of black people, he wasn't really feelin' it for the homos ... oh, and that gay marriage had nothing to do with 'Civil Rights' (and that he was kind of pissed that she'd even attempted to equate them).

    She wrote an article about it that was a big deal for a while and she went on lots of cable TV shows (CNN, early MSNBC) to push the story. The takeaway was that she had been completely shaken by finding out that there was a black man out there who was capable of being filled with bigotry and hate.

    It was really pretty hilarious.

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  48. the gay marriage movement is... exactly like the tea party movement, minus the radical jewish participants

    Did you mean to say "plus"?

    As in: "The gay marriage movement is exactly like the tea party movement plus the radical jewish participants"?

    Or, in other words: "The Tea Party is exactly like the gay marriage movement minus the radical jewish participants"?

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  49. Heh, heh. The realities of different means and variances bite you in the ass when you are looking for the very best and you are no longer riding the wave of fiction about the racial healer.

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  50. is this one of those things where somebody suggests that a "true" racist would never even associate with "the enemy"? like, hey, look, black guys can't be racist. you know why? they LOVE to have sex with white women! so much for them being racist against white people!

    what's funny is that i have actually seen this argument put forward by liberals.


    But prior to 1865, all WM-BF sex was "RACIST!!!" And rape.

    The Law of Leftoid Matter/Anti-Matter; for every leftoid belief, there is another leftoid belief that contradicts it.

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  51. If I were black and had been arrested for shop lifting I would get a black defense lawyer. If I were on trial for my life, I'd get a Jew.

    Alabertosaurus

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  52. Racial diversity, German style...
    http://www.limitstogrowth.org/articles/2012/05/06/germany-salafist-muslims-in-bonn-riot-against-free-speech/

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  53. "jody said...

    Is this one of those things where somebody suggests that a "true" racist would never even associate with "the enemy"? like, hey, look, black guys can't be racist. you know why? they LOVE to have sex with white women! so much for them being racist against white people!"

    Yes that one is rich. It's like saying: "Hey, Adolph Eichmann couldn't possibly have been anti-semitic - he had a jewish mistress", or "Those southern slave owners had black mistresses - they couldn't possibly have borne any racial animosity towards blacks".

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  54. "OT but I was thinking Maya should invite both of us to her family's Thanksgiving dinner. I'd be willing to sing for my supper. Would you? How about a duet? (Don't worry, I know Mandingo wasn't a musical.)"

    Maybe we should just do monologues:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz-bu84-hWA

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  55. "I am a white man and a diversity consultant. Swear to God. I am also a loyal Steve Sailer reader."

    You should blog.

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  56. "I am a white man and a diversity consultant. Swear to God. I am also a loyal Steve Sailer reader."

    How can you sleep at night? Do you have no shame?

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  57. Some good points have been made here about how delusional (or perhaps it would be better to say, self-deluded) white liberals really are, especially gay ones, or those who support "gay rights", including the so-called "civil right" of gay marriage. These people really are quite delusional in thinking they share some kind of "bond" with blacks and Hispanics. Or that either group would be friendly to the gay agenda. Liberals really are self-delusional. They have an almost supernatural ability to suspend disbelief. When they occasioanly bump up against unmoveable reality, it must be a staggering experience for them....

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  58. high-rolling wikipedian5/12/12, 8:25 PM

    I dunno, Sailer, it's a campaign office--haven't all subsequent Gene McCarthy Armies slept on the floor and dined in on pizza? If the preponderance of jobs there are low-to-no-paying (or volunteer) it would seem to dispense with any tortiously useful outcome. For the umpteenth time Obama may be black but he's not BLACK. In fact he is kinda keen on hippie protesters camping in downtown Manhattan and is, like Ray Dorset, a big T.S. Eliot fan.

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  59. "How can you sleep at night? Do you have no shame?"

    Do you have no mortgage?

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  60. This is what I have to say:

    Gays as individuals have a right to be gay and do gay stuff. But we as individuals have a right to uphold certain values. For example, does a dumb lazy person who gets an F in class have the right to demand that F be made an equal of an A in the name of 'grade equality'. So, gays as individuals have a right to be gay. They have no right to force us to grade gayness the same as real sexuality. That is like forcing us to accept an F as an A. Not all things in this world are of equal value. Gay sex is not of equal value of real sex. Marriage is rooted in sexuality and morality drawn from that sexuality. Gay sex is gross. I say let gay individual practice, but we as individuals have the right to uphold standards of sanity, rationality, and value. If you say 'gay sex' is of equal value as real sex, then Creationist science is of equal value as evolutionary science, and Voodoo medicine is the equal of Western medicine. I mean why shouldn't Voodoo individuals have the same 'rights' and 'recognition' as real doctors? And why shouldn't bogus Creationist 'scientists' have the same 'rights' as real scientists?

    I wonder... do liberals also support the right of individuals to practice polygamy and incest marriage? Following their logic, why shouldn't an individual son marry an individual mother? Why shouldn't a brother marry a brother in a gay incest marriage? I mean let's not be incestophobic. And would liberals support 3 or 4 gay guys getting married into one 'family'? Why should 2 be the magic number? I mean that is duo-centric and multi-phobic.

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