Jayson Blair and the Good Old Times: Reader reveals diversity used as pretense

When I was a very young man, I was fortunate. I grew up in a time and a place where bad things rarely happened – at least, they weren't reported. I watched "Ozzie And Harriet" and "Leave It To Beaver" and I could relate; the Nelsons and the Cleavers weren't all that different from my family. I had my heroes: the real ones like the "Lone Ranger" and "Sky King" and "Superman" – and the fantastic ones like "Mighty Mouse" and "Popeye," and my very greatest hero of all, "Bugs Bunny."

Those were the days. Hurricanes were always named after women. Upstate, 12-year-old boys could buy their own ammo and go shoot empty beer cans. No kid ever brought a gun to school to settle a score with the principal. Unimaginable! There were Arabs, but they were merchants, not terrorists. The World Trade Center buildings hadn't been built, and no one thought of flying a plane into anything but the sky.

In sixth grade, we were expected to know the capital of every one of the 50 States, including the two new ones. We knew the name of each and every president of the United States in order. We sold newspapers, and that's pretty much how we earned all the money we spent on model cars and airplanes.

On Friday, each student in Mr. Zazuscha's class had to present a news story. We had to stand in front of the class and give the details of a story and say why it was important. We were going to inherit an excellent democracy when we grew up, and so we needed to know what was going on and what it meant. How else would we ever be able to make good decisions and maintain an excellent democracy?

We'd be sitting in class, and then an alarm would sound. It was time for another duck-and-cover drill. In an orderly fashion, we went into the hallway outside the classroom. We crouched down and covered our heads and we stayed there until the alarm sounded again, meaning the drill was over. I couldn't figure out why, but the Russians had it in for us. We thought they'd fly an airplane over New York and drop an atomic bomb on us. We'd outsmart them with our duck-and-cover routine. They might destroy Mr. Zazuscha's classroom, but we'd be in the hallway.

For a while, it looked like something might happen. It looked like the U.S. and the Soviet Union just might go to war. It was the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Kennedy warned the Russians that if they bombed one of our classrooms, then we'd take out a whole bunch of theirs. The duck-and-cover drills became more frequent. There were special announcements on television every day. There was Bugs Bunny getting ready to kick Elmer Fudd's butt, and then an alert would suddenly appear: "Stand By! Special News Bulletin! Stand By!"

Had the Russians attacked one of our classrooms? No, not yet. Maybe tomorrow. Why did the Russians have it in for us? I could see Bugs Bunny's problem with Elmer Fudd. That was easy. Elmer wasn't shooting at empty beer cans. I could see the perpetual dispute between Popeye and Bluto – they were both after Olive Oil. I could understand the civil-rights movement. But I couldn¹t see why the Russians had it in for us.

I started reading the New York Times (a local paper) when I was in the sixth grade. It was the source for my presentation on Friday. That was back when middle-aged white men ran just about everything: business, government, the news, universities and grammar schools – you name it. Black men couldn't become the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and white women couldn't get into certain clubs. Businesses didn't involve themselves in social causes – they focused on the bottom line.

As I grew up, the Times kept me informed about the civil-rights movement and the women's movement, and I applauded the changes. I'd come to believe that it was right when merit mattered most. When Martin Luther King talked about a world where people would be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, I imagined that would be a right, good world.

That was years ago. Now I'm a middle-aged white man. I still like the idea of King's dream world, but I'm wondering what ever happened to King's dream. It used to be that equal opportunity mattered most. Now, diversity matters most. Companies aren't looking for middle-aged men, white or black. They're looking for recent college graduates – people with limited experience – especially those not belonging to certain ethnic groups: Irish, Polish, German and Italian ... particularly not English.

Today, the slogan isn't equal rights or equal opportunity: it's diversity. Fortune 500 companies as dissimilar as Hewlett-Packard and the New York Times advertise their diverse work force and proclaim their goal of making it more diverse.

Here's the CEO of a company that was started by middle-aged white men, and she's suggesting that those men couldn't be creative, inventive, profitable or successful.

This attitude prevails among Silicon Valley's high-tech firms. And it shows. Watch workers on their way into a just about any high-tech firm in Silicon Valley. It becomes obvious that if those workers represent the demographics of the U.S., then for every African American, there are 10 immigrants from India, five from China, three from Japan, two from Korea – and the median age is 26.

Look at the employment section of a high-tech firm's website. There's a section on "corporate culture." There's a statement of the firm's commitment to diversity. Here's how one firm puts it:

Walk into the cafeteria on any given day, and you will hear conversations in English, French, German, Russian, Vietnamese, Cantonese, just to name a few.

At some Fortune 500 companies, a commitment to diversity is nothing more than a bunch of hyperbole that sounds good. At most, it's a quest for younger workers, especially recent immigrants from certain places. They make it sound good ... they make it sound like age discrimination is a noble cause.

What strikes me about the story of Jayson Blair at the New York Times is how diversity is used as a pretense for hiring younger workers: people who are more malleable and have lower health-insurance premiums than experienced workers. Think I'm kidding? Just wait and see who replaces Jayson Blair at the Times.

It didn't take long.

Cavuto reports Blair to be offered seven figures to write book.

Jayson Blair now a celebrity, will be the toast of the town.

Somehow, his actions will be found "justified" due to his minority status, the pressure of the job or his addiction to cheese doodles.

It is no longer a crime or offensive to lie, cheat or steal to get ahead. Academia encourages it, even promotes it.

There are many more Jayson Blairs embedded throughout our nations media, lying their asses off and getting away with it. And, not only in the print media will you find them...you only have to go to your local media TV big haired newsreaders to get a dose of their distortions, half-truths and outright lies.

It's astounding to watch the ones who have made it to big league display their incompetance on a regular basis. They have sold their souls for a shot at the big time and are easily handled by their liberal masters.

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