Uh OH, Guess White people are going to be driven into poverty…

Images 2

It’s only fair, right? After all White folks MUST be punished for their hard work and success.

All you young white males out there.  GIVE UP! You’re fucked!

Learn to drive that forklift, and don’t forget Military Careers are gone now too.

Whatever you do, you’re not going to be allowed to work in technology firms anymore. Probably should look at leaving this country too. I hear the Russians, Germans, & Chinese, are looking for skilled technology workers.

Here’s the deal. During the past few months, Silicon Valley has been called upon to release “Diversity” reports and BIG surprise… Those reports are showing that overwhelmingly White Males, followed by folks from Asia, are at the top of the food chain in technology.

The latest report is from Twitter.

Honestly I don’t find this at all surprising. I noticed a long time ago that the Captains of industry were predominantly white. It actually makes a kind of sense. The civil rights movement was in full swing only 50 years ago.

Black Sales Manager

If you factor in the time needed to improve and integrate the schools, and make sure that black kids had all the same opportunities that white kids had then get the black kids interested in education and prepare them for college… You still come up short. You have folks especially in the early years that simply couldn’t afford college so they didn’t go. Plus you had a mind set in the black community that wasn’t educationally focused. Those issues take time to fix. 

Figure that you lose 15 to 20 years while minds, beliefs, and financial issues get taken care of. Which leaves you with a good 30 or so years during which black kids were being educated right along side white kids. Then hopefully moving on to college. Which means that two maybe four groups of black kids have been educated start to finish through college, with all the same opportunities as white kids. So now they’re waiting in the wings to move up the corporate ladder.

Except that no-one is moving up the corporate ladder except H1B1 Visa holders. That’s another issue entirely.

Then along comes Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton demanding to know why there aren’t more black faces in the pages of Forbes. 

Well, looking at President Obama’s management style perhaps we can see why there aren’t more African Americans in management. Having some experience with a supervisor who was far more interested in not rocking the boat and doing anything to keep peace, I can tell you, this isn’t the way to promotions. In any business situation, sometimes you have to take risks, and stand up for what you believe in. Not taking risks or maintaining peace at any price, makes you anything but management material.

Corporate ladder

It also tends to cause a lot of turnover in employees working for that supervisor.

Some employees have goals and want to move up the corporate ladder.  They can’t do that under a milquetoast supervisor because in addition to keeping peace at any price, this kind of supervisor also limits upper management’s view of their employees, Typically the supervisor takes all the credit for good work, and hangs an employee out to dry if a project or other work goes bad.

Lots of employee turnover tends to limit how far up the corporate ladder this type of supervisor can go. Which suggests management classes may be in order for African American supervisors and certainly for President Obama.

I don’t think this bad management style is a personal style choice, I think it’s endemic to most African American managers. I can only assume it’s a style born out of fear of losing a hard won job, there’s probably a psychology paper in there somewhere.

Which brings me back on point.

There aren’t that many African Americans in upper management for a couple of reasons.

1 Poor management style limits access to higher management responsibilities.

2 We’re still waiting for seasoned African Americans to come up through the ranks from entry level positions to upper management.

The two issues are inter-related but I think, subtly different.

These diversity reports are going slam midlevel white male workers the hardest. Regardless of these workers qualifications, they’re going to lose out to institutional racism.

Poor white people

The equation is simple, businesses fear bad publicity. Bad Publicity hurts the bottom line and so must be avoided at all costs. Even if the cost is hiring people who are not qualified for a job. It makes good business sense to isolate someone from management decisions and pay them a salary to look pretty, if their presence spares the company bad publicity.

It even makes sense to hire a lot of people who are unqualified or barely qualified for a series of jobs peppered throughout departments to make your diversity numbers look better. Some of the barely qualified folks will catch on and become good employees. The rest, a company takes as a write-off in productivity.

All of which means, White Males aren’t going to get tech jobs for the foreseeable future.

Gotta love a good Tweet War

NewImage

While I was waiting to see the dentist on Monday, I saw a venomous tweet directed at an acquaintance. 

I thought “Wow, was it really necessary for that lady to call him a douchebag?”

I sent him a message that read “I see you’re making friends again.” 

I figured he’d laugh, and he did. 

What I wasn’t expecting was the venom from this lady who describes herself as a “balanced liberal” directed at me.

I suppose my levity wasn’t appreciated by her I ignored her.

My bud sent back greetings and said not to pay attention to her she did this kind of thing all the time.

I said OK.

Next thing I knew she was firing off all kinds of comments. Culminating in her, calling me an uneducated, hillbilly, redneck.

And threatening to report me to Twitter because my bud, said she was a bigot on par with the Aryan nation.

NewImage

I said she was an insult to the Aryan nation. And she called me a racist, uneducated, hillbilly. 

I responded that she’d misunderstood.

Since the Aryans dogma (albieit hateful) was at least consistent and her dogma was inconsistent she would therefore be a insult to them.

After all if you’re going to insult someone you should be clear about it.

Then she got really nasty!

I was laughing, she was entertaining while I waited to have my teeth drilled.

She threatened to report me again and my Bud did it for her. I told her that If I ended up in the twitter gulag I’d be joining a long line of good people who’d been sent to the corn field. 

Then I came up with this,

I sent;

I find your characterization of my hillbilly kin as somehow “Less Than” in comparison, tantamount to HATE SPEECH and that I’d happily go toe to toe with you with the Twitter judges.

Suddenly she was gone!

I figured I could use her own rules couldn’t I?

NewImage

As I understand Hate Speech, it’s speech that seeks to selectively call, imply or compare a group of people to something negative.

Usually the term hate speech is applied to negative comments about specific ethnicities. More often than not these groups are non European, but sexual preferences are also included in legal protections.

It occurred to me that so called “Hillbillies” might be considered a distinct ethnic group. As such they should be afforded protections against hate speech. One might also extend the definition to occupants of so called “Flyover States”.

Hey why not? 

Thiz means that the negative attacks on Conservatives, Republicans, or people of Faith, so common on Twitter can, and should cause the Gulagging of the liberals who so quickly and easily fling epithets and hateful comments toward these groups.

NewImage

After all what’s good for one group should be equally applied to other groups!

I’m totally egalitarian about it.

I’m thinking I’ll try to get the next Liberal that attacks me gulaged using this argument. It might be an interesting test of Twitters fairness policies.

Worst case scenario I’ll end up silenced and that will give me a reason to bail on Twitter altogether.

God! I must be really bored!

LOL

It’s that time of year again

DSC0011

I live above the snow line. 

That means that unlike a lot of Southern California I really do see a change in seasons. Well usually, this year has been a very strange year.

We’ve had a couple of snowfalls and that’s great for the ski resorts and for the town itself.

The down side of having snow is that the traffic on the weekends is nightmarish.

I think it’s actually worse than Huntington Beach on July 4th. I can say that because I lived in Huntington Beach for a number of years and while I love the town and the ocean, I planned to be gone during the Summer.

There were days when it could take 45 minutes to drive 4 blocks. If I wanted a carton of ice cream, I walked because that was the only way to get home with the ice cream unmelted. 

Yep, walking to the grocery store was faster than driving.

I have the same problem where I live now.  Only it’s magnified a bit, see there’s only one major road coming into town and all it takes is one idiot who thinks they don’t need chains on an icy road to screw everyone.

The other problem that we have is people who think it’s perfectly ok to drive up into a neighborhood, park wherever they want and let their children run rampant through yards to go play in the snow.

IMG 0221

Aside from the general damage done to landscaping, there’s the liability issue. If one of these uninvited assholes gets hurt on my property, technically i’m liable. If they get hurt on the private road, my neighbors and I maintain, then all of us are liable.

So I find myself in frequent exchanges with our uninvited guests.

I want to give them a chance to leave of their own free will and hate to bother the Sheriff. But if they don’t leave I’ll make the call.

The exchanges always go one of two ways.

ME: Can I help you?

THEM: No we’re just here to play in the snow.

ME: That’s nice, there are several public play areas down just off the highway. You’re parked on private property and the rear of your vehicle is blocking the road.

THEM: We’re just going to be here a few minutes. We have children who’ve never seen snow.

ME: If the lady whose property you’re parked on, or the residents up the street who can’t get past your car decide to call the police you’re going to be towed. It really would be better if you went to the public play areas and then you could spend as much time as you want.

THEM: The traffic is really bad down there on the highway. Besides there are 50 people just down the block playing in the snow.

ME: Your choice, you’re telling your kids that it’s ok to invade a neighborhood without permission to do what they wish,  but that’s your business. Stay the hell away from the fence line my dogs don’t like strangers. Dogs on queue start barking.

The second way this conversation goes is 

ME: Can I help you?

THEM: No comprende

ME: No es amusment publico, Estans Casas private, Por favor vamanos.

THEM: FUCK YOU, We have a right to be here.

ME: Not really. This is a neighborhood and these driveways are cleared by the residents so that they have a place to park not so that strangers have parking.

THEM: Fuck You, come on lets go play up on that hill.

DSC0035

I soft peddle it a bit because on more than a few occasions the visitors have gone to their car or truck and pulled a gun on the homeowner asking them to leave. This hasn’t happened to me yet, but I’m sure that it will at some point in the future.

Sadly it’s the nature of the people we’re dealing with. Which is not to be construed as racist. It’s more a statement about people that feel they don’t have to play by the rules.

What bothers me is the subtext of these exchanges.

(I’ve even fallen for it a couple of times because I can see the little faces pressed up against the windows of the car and I really do understand how excited they are.

In the situations where I’ve fallen for it I’ve let the people park in my driveway and sent them out back to play. I’ve been repaid for my kindness with trash on my lawn, and in one case dirty diapers left on my deck.

The first exchange type, these people assume that I haven’t heard this story before.

I do understand the kids. They should have an experience and I really am torn about telling them no. It’s that old programming my parents gave me. Children are to be protected and cherished and is it really any skin off my nose to let ’em play in the snow out back?

But come on, You’re using your kids to con me… 

DSC0044

I didn’t have anything to do with making your kids. Perhaps if you, or your wife / girlfriend  offered to entertain me I’d feel differently.

Like all men I’m about a little sexual gratification. Someone on their knees in front of me, might persuade me to change my mind.

You’re telling me that traffic is bad?

Look dumbass I know traffic is bad because I can’t leave my house!

Weekends and holidays I plan to stay put because I know that it’s going to take me minimum 2 hours to get home if I go more than 20 miles away.

The second exchange type is just as bad if not worse.

They start the conversation with a lie. They try to make the dumb white guy think that conversation is useless because they “Don’t understand what he’s saying”. 

When I try to converse with them in Spanish suddenly we have a miracle… They speak English just fine.

In both cases these people try to justify their actions (which I contend they know are wrong) by using the teenage fall back

Everyone else is doing it” 

I’m so tempted to tell these folks what my Mother used to tell me.

“20, 50 or 100 people it doesn’t matter, if they all jumped off a cliff would you?”

Recently we actually had a proof of that statement at a lake near here.

As it turns out the answer is yes for some people. There was a situation where people were sledding down a short embankment then out onto a partially frozen lake. 12 of them ended up in the water and one of them almost drown / froze to death.

The amazing thing about it is that there are signs in multiple languages saying that the lake is dangerous and that you shouldn’t walk on the ice.

Even as the ice on the lake was cracking and people were falling through into the water below. More and more people were walking out onto the lake to see what was going on. Some of them obviously stepping over cracks in the ice. 

DSC0039

I digress, the message these people are giving their kids is that they’re entitled to take what they want.

They’re saying that it’s ok to violate the social contract that says you respect other peoples privacy and property, if you’re tired of sitting in traffic and you want something.

At the same time these people will bitch loud, long, and hard if they feel even the slightest affront to their perceived rights.

Implicitly, these people teach a double standard. Their rights are important but no-one else’s rights matter.

Worse they’re teaching the very racist message; “because you’re brown you don’t have to obey the rules.

It’s been suggested that everyone in our town pick another town down the mountain on a particular day. Then we saddle up with our picnic baskets and our bathing suits and simply occupy an area. 

We’d go have a nice party in some random neighborhood, use their pools and park all over the place, in driveways, on the streets, wherever.

Then when the cops showed up … and they would. We’d show the homeowners pictures of our driveways, and streets in the Winter time.

Maybe that would drive the point home.

More likely, my whole town would be in jail…