The New York State Senate, it appears, has reached an all-time low.
One might possibly overlook the legislative wrangling, the blatant power-playing, the use of thuggery to enforce a particular party’s control over the Senate. One might also overlook the unbelievable childish behavior of the Senate, in which even New York Governor Patterson, owner of the lowest approval rating of any governor in the United States, looks positively Lincolnian. And one might even ignore the dearth of media coverage – after all, one can be thankful that the national media is not as fixated on this as they are on the burial arrangements of Michael Jackson.
But there is a new development that should not be ignored – something so heinous, the media would prove themselves worthless, if they do.
Put plainly, the New York Senate Democrats’ behavior, over the course of five months of Senate control, appears to be blatantly racist.
That fact was buried in the 19th paragraph of a 32-paragraph New York Post opinion piece by Post state editor Frederic Dicker, published in the July 9 paper.
During the long years of Republican control, the all-white GOP "conference" would regularly bemoan its lack of diversity, and make extra efforts to recruit minority Senate candidates and hire minority staff.
During the first five months of this year, with the Senate under the control of its first African-American majority leader, Smith, top Democrats bemoaned the lack of minority Senate staffers.
But instead of trying to recruit new hires, they fired nearly 200 almost exclusively white workers and replaced them with a large number of minority employees, many of whom were seen by their fellow workers to be unskilled at their new jobs.
The move produced severe racial tensions, made worse by the fact that, as a high-level Democratic staffer confided, "We've been told to only hire minorities.''
To be fair, there is no estimate of the former Senate staff’s performance ability in the article. Be that as it may, what weeping and gnashing of teeth would ensue if the color schemes were reversed? Especially, mind you, if the new workers proved to be incompetents?
If the New York Senate wishes to hire minorities, that’s fine – nobody would say that a minority should not be hired simply by reason of what they are. But shouldn’t the ability to do one’s job be of primary importance? Shouldn’t malpractice be more important than melanin?
Perhaps we will one day live in a nation where people will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. And, hopefully, in which an honest media thrives.
