December 2, 2007 -- "Mayor Bloomberg and Fire Commissioner Nick Scoppetta announced triumphantly last week that 38 percent of those passing the latest FDNY written recruiting exam were minorities, nearly three times the rate of those who passed the 2002 test.
Thus, over the next four years, some 700 of the 2,000 newbies coming on the job could be minorities.
All things being equal, that would be fine; the department, after all, is now 91 percent white male.
The question is: Are all things equal?
Last May, the US Justice Department sued the city, charging the FDNY with discrimination because an insufficiently large percentage of minorities managed to pass past exams.
The suit alleged no racist practices in the FDNY - just an implicitly racist test.
The city rightly protested the action - partly claiming that it was irrelevant because the exam had already “changed."
No kidding.
The latest test-takers were given questions such as:
“As a rookie firefighter, you are responsible for cleaning the kitchen. At the beginning of your shift, you find the kitchen area is a mess. And there is a bowl of chili spilled on the floor from the firefighters from the previous shift. The reason the kitchen was left in such a mess is due to the previous crew having gone out on a call to a fire during their dinner, and they are still actively fighting the fire.
“Do you:
“1) Clean the mess up.
“2) Clean the mess up, but complain to anyone who will listen.
“3) Refuse to clean the mess up.
“4) Clean everything except the spilled chili.
“5) Wait for everyone from the previous shift to return, yell at them that they should have cleaned up the mess."
Candidates who took the exam were asked this question, and after each possible answer, instructed to put an “a" through “e" desirability rating - where “a" is “highly desirable" and “e" is “highly undesirable."
Eighty-eight of the exam's 195 questions accepted multiple answers as correct. Five questions accepted three answers. Another accepted every answer.
And this is the test that produced the extraordinary leaps in minority success.
How any of it relates to fighting fires is a bewilderment - but it's perfectly obvious that New Yorkers won't be any safer if the department is full of folks who excel only at navigating such nonsense.
To the contrary.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a good-faith effort designed to diversify the FDNY's ranks."
But if it means compromising standards, it's not worth it."
Can't make this stuff up now can we.
Nearly half of the test-takers didn't think that cleaning up a mess was the right thing to do.
But the city believes they'll be good firemen.
Boggles.
And boggles X 2 that the feds should think that the ability to read and write is in effect racist, so dumbing down the exam is the better way to go.
Once again they insult minorities with such racist attitudes, once again minorities agree with them, and until minorities STOP letting themselves be treated like second-class citizens they will forever BE second-class citizens.
How is this so hard to understand?
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